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Reddit AMA?


e1ven

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Tim Schafer, Al Lowe, and Jane Jensen each did a Reddit "Ask Me Anything", which is a sort of community interview.

 

Will the Two Guys be doing this?

 

It's a great way to build publicity for the Kickstarter.

 

I would suggest you PM the Mods of the AMA subreddit today, and say that the two guys will be answering questions (with help from Chris Pope) Thursday or Friday afternoon.

 

I'm happy to do anything I can to help, if your not familiar with Reddit.

 

These are the examples- Study these to get examples of the questions you might be asked ;)

 

 

http://ww.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/tla3z/i_am_jane_jensen_creator_of_gabriel_knight_gray/

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Haven't we seen already that these a waste of time? Studying the Kicktraq trends for those days shows it didn't amount to much.

 

This is probably why: "According to Google DoubleClick Ad Planner's estimate, the median U.S. Reddit user is male (72%), 25–34 years of age, has some college education, and is in the lowest income bracket of US$0–$24,999." (source: Wikipedia)

 

IMHO time is best spent creating a better PR campaign for the general media. Engagement there has been very low (article got 4 comments on The Verge??!?!? It's sad). Maybe have some cool art to show?

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It's hard to prove, but I don't think so they're meaningless at all!

 

To your point about kictraq, if we pull up the Al Lowe kicktraq-

 

http://www.kicktraq....arry-come-again

The day he did the reddit AMA (the 14th) had nearly 2x the donors of the day before.

It raised thousands of dollars (win), but even better, it added people to the kickstarter page, which improves engagement and they can up their pledges over time.

 

 

Further, let's look at Tim's secondary effects--

 

https://www.google.c...w=1871&bih=1070

 

That's nearly 60K google results discussing the AMA!

 

 

Whether or not they generate immediate donations, they give news media something else to report on, which, it gives you another round of press.

It drives people to join the project, which means they've got buy in, and get update messages.

 

In exchange for a few hours work, it seems like a Huge win.

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I think a Q&A of SOME kind -- be it a Reddit AMA, or a chat room appearance, or whatever -- would be a positive step towards getting some interest brewing.

 

I figure what we really need to breathe some life into the Kickstarter is to get some more concrete thoughts out of the Two Guys. If not screenshots or artwork, at least some thoughts about what the game is going to be like. Scott mentioned a parser/icon hybrid interface on Twitter, for instance.

 

A Q&A session would be the perfect opportunity to let some of that info slip.

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It really needs to be an official Reddit AMA. Jane Jensen's AMA wasn't featured on the right side where there's the schedule of upcoming AMAs and thus the only people who asked questions were the people who already pledged. As a consequence the kickstarter didn't get any kind of boost. Al Lowe's for example was a featured AMA and got a lot of new backers. And another thing, why hasn't this kickstarter been announced in an update on LSL's project. I think that would be a nice gesture.

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I'm all for a Reddit AMA (and yes, make sure it's listed in their AMA sidebar).. Especially considering the press and public in general seem a bit fatigued by all the Kickstarters.

 

I think it's pretty difficult to calculate the effectiveness of any press piece, since they're somewhat cumulative -- Right now we've got 3200 backers, and really anything that adds to those numbers increases the base to draw on for word-of-mouth (just generally), and possible up-selling to a higher tier (I'd say the word of mouth is more important).

 

This is kind of the hardest uphill stretch of the campaign - the getting to halfway mark.

 

I do hope Chris has some tricks up his sleeve, since it seems a lot of the Two Guys press hit before the campaign started (and that early peak may not have served them well). Seems like it might be worth flying the Two Guys around to the gaming news outlets for interviews (or at least getting interviews of some kind out there), since things have been relatively quiet on the press front.

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To be fair on that one, Paul Trowe of Replay has been a very vocal supporter on his Twitter (@ptrowe).

 

Certainly didn't meant it as a negative thing against Paul, but it would be great if they could direct the backers' attention towards the two guys like Josh Mandel did in the last video with Jane Jensen. It can be a short written update to acknowledge this kickstarter's existence. It could certainly help things now. We're in a bit of a slump unfortunately.

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Yeah, the Kickstarter cross-endorsements would be helpful -- I've been pushing in the Double Fine forums for them to use their ability to [essentially] direct mail 87k backers via a KS update, to promote some of these other games (to that captive Kickstarter audience). I think it's a good faith sort of support of the KS fundraising model in general.

 

Think all that noise I was making possibly resulted in the Gabriel Knight playthru we did being mentioned in their last update, but that wasn't the sort of powerful advertising I'd hoped. There's probably a higher probability of conversion when advertising to people already on Kickstarter, but I haven't seen much actual proof that it works yet. It'd be good if Tim Schafer or Ron Gilbert tweeted about Spaceventure (but it'd be good if there was more advertising in general).

 

Looking at the newly launched Tex Murphy KS it seems interesting that they've broken $100k with only around 800 backers. The two $10k backers, and one 5k backer in the first 12 hours certainly gave their campaign a feeling of momentum. I don't know how far that momentum will carry them, but I think it's altogether a better position to have 3300 backers (Spaceventure) than 850...

 

In traditional non-profit fundraising there's always an inclination towards "betting on a winner" in donations - I don't really think that psychology will begin to set in until we hit the halfway mark, though.

 

I wouldn't say those incredibly early huge Tex donations were necessarily "fishy," but if I had $30k lying around, it'd be a good time manufacture some momentum for my favorite project.

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I don't know how far that momentum will carry them, but I think it's altogether a better position to have 3300 backers (Spaceventure) than 850...

 

It's hard to judge since were only about 14-15 hours in the Tex Murphy kickstarter, but compared to SpaceVenture which got 733 backers in 24 hours and almost 50k, it does seem that Tex Murphy will fare better. Psychologically the Tex Murphy campaign managed to invoke more nostalgia from people, me included. I pledged 270$ on the project, compared to the 165$ I pledged on SpaceVenture. It's not that I enjoy Tex Murphy more, I think they're on the same level preference-wise, but somehow the video touched a certain cord emotionally, that I now realize the two guys didn't achieve with their video. I didn't see the problem at first since I really enjoyed their pitch but when you compare the two it doesn't pack the same punch and I really don't mean production values. Tex just achieved the required emotional impact. Maybe it's something to ponder. I really can't offer any additional advice since it's not my expertise, I can only tell what I felt.

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I agree, we really need the Two Guys to talk as much as possible about their game. Why say Reddit AMA or another form of replying to questions from fans? Why not AMA AND chatroom appearance AND interviews. Basically this should be a 30 days media blitz, after which they can be as secluded as they like.

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The Two Guys need to be more out there, period. i've hardly heard anything from Scott or Mark other than private postings on Twitter by Scott. If they want to achieve the success of Josh and Al, they need to be as public as those two. I know they're both private people, but they also presumably want 500K.

 

More exposure, some interviews would be smart, preferably with a game website like Joystiq, Destructoid, etc, but even a Sierra website like SQN (or dare I say, my own? :) ) would be great.

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