Where’d all the Blogs Go?

After we launched the game on Kickstarter we ran into some issues. The first few days for any Kickstarter is super important and we just didn’t have the people show up despite having over 3k say they were interested. Why? Well, after talking to followings, some others in the community etc we it came down to 3 core reasons. 

1) No Video previews. We had a couple of reviews, every positive ones honestly. One of the reviewers told me that they played it after villainous and it held it’s own. It’s hard not to be excited about being put into some solid company. But because of timing we hadn’t gotten many preview copies out to reviewers before we launched. Especially those that do video reviews to show what we had. 

2) Not enough followers. This is a bit of a mistatement. We had over 3k but some of those were more than a year old. People forget and I don’t think we did a good job of keeping people engaged so they didn’t necessary know it was launching. Or, they knew it launched but didn’t know what it was (see reason 1 above).

3) Bad launch timing. We launched while there were 2 other games in a similar genre had launched. Ones by better known companies. Several people put it this way; “we want to back your game but if I have 2 race games out at the same time I need to pick one of them”. Totally makes sense. 

Sure, there were other reasons but those were the big 3. So what are we doing about it?

1) We’re currently focused on new prototype copies. I’m finishing up the molds so that we can send a bunch out to reviewers and previewers before we launch again. That way when we do launch you can see exactly what we’ve built. Those who have played it have given high praise, we just need people to see it.

2) New Social media campaign. So I’m new to this but with the launch we’ll be doing more to get the word out.

3) Updates to pricing. We’re talking to our publishing house and we’ve figured out a couple of minor changes that will cut pricing down a bit. It loses nothing about the gameplay but I’m trying to get the base game down to the sub $50 mark just so we can say we did it. Looking good so far. I’m also expecting the funding goal to drop significantly. 

4) Better identification of Kickstarter Exclusives. We’re planning to make the indication of why you should support the Kickstarter vs just waiting and buying in the stores more obvious. Kickstart Exclusives, Stretch goals, etc.

5) New Ally.. cohort.. affiliate? program. Not sure what we’re calling it yet. But we have a plan where you can play the game and get some goodies. 

… and.. lots of other smaller items that I won’t get into including a likely name change to make sure it’s more clear it’s a race game. All of those items will be coming.