Hyperion PR - Suggestions Thread

[Jaedar]

Pay people to get Hyperion written on their tombstones.
Or name their baby Hyperion.

That would be totally awesome. Adopt a kid and name it Hyperion.

[Jonas]

Hyperion is a working title, but... yeah

[Jaedar]

I can't beleive nobody mentioned this yet- demo. A demo is probably the best way to get publicity, especially if you can get a lot of sites to host it.
Also If you are going to release it DRM free, the people over at Reclaimyourgame.com could probably be persuaded to adverti- I mean write about it.

[Trestkon]

Oh yes, we're are definitely going to be doing a demo. I believe we've also talked about going DRM free and that's probably the way we'll go in the end.

[Jonas]

We'll probably just do a CD key.

And then only do digital distribution.

GOOD LUCK PIRATING THAT, PIRATES

[Jaedar]

We'll probably just do a CD key.

And then only do digital distribution.

GOOD LUCK PIRATING THAT, PIRATES

Not to derail this thread, but everything is easy to pirate, it is always just one search away.

[Jonas]

But how will you create a keygen if there are no valid keys?

[Jetsetlemming]

But how will you create a keygen if there are no valid keys?

Digital Distribution doesn't mean no keys. For games with multiplayer modes in particular, CD Keys will still come with DD copies since multiplayer servers register your CD key and check it against the legit database so only legit customers can play.
It's pretty much why I can't help of thinking of Infinity Ward as retarded despite all the praise they get, considering all the whining they did about pirate users on their multiplayer servers. It's like, dude. DUDE. We have a system to prevent that. You don't even have to pay to license it from somebody. Pretty much anything to do with connecting to an internet service you control, it's your own fault if you don't take the proper steps to lock that shit down. Gamers don't even complain about CD Keys.
Of course, I'm sure now that I've said that Securom in its endless attempts to annoy people will start getting PC Games published with the CD key printed in the manual with a KAPTCHA style blurring/crookedness/covering to the letters so it takes you a million tries to get it right and you just have to give up and buy the game again and hope the new key is better if it has an I or 1 or L in it.

[Jonas]

Okay, you guys? You completely fail at humour. You fail so hard.

[Jetsetlemming]

Just for that I'm gonna go pirate TNM. Humph!

[teknikal]

I'll have to think about this a bit more, but for now I'm thinking...blogs are always a really good idea, as long as the updates always contain something for people to get REALLY excited about. I mean, you don't want to over-blog, 'cause the really interesting posts may get lost in between all the random filler.

Oh a random-related note: *jaw breaks off completely and falls to the floor scattering teeth everywhere at the sight of Overgrowth's production values and concept art* O_O HOLY -

[Jaedar]

Okay, you guys? You completely fail at humour. You fail so hard.

Admittedly, I cannot laugh at DRM or Piracy, the spawning ground of ignorance and idiocy that is the Swedish legal system took it away from me. In retrospect though, I can see how your comments might be fun...
And yeah, blog or twitter both give you PR Bribing journalists also helps. (bribes include: free review copy before release, alpha builds and similar.)

[~Psychotic~]

Okay, you guys? You completely fail at humour. You fail so hard.

Admittedly, I cannot laugh at DRM or Piracy, the spawning ground of ignorance and idiocy that is the Swedish legal system took it away from me. In retrospect though, I can see how your comments might be fun...
And yeah, blog or twitter both give you PR Bribing journalists also helps. (bribes include: free review copy before release, alpha builds and similar.)

Piracy only exists because there are people who don't want to pay and people who cannot pay the systems absolutely ridiculous price for their overrated products. Like hell I'm going to pay $120 for something I'll only get $10-15 hours gameplay off. I see no point in working on something for 2 years and getting what? 15 hours of gameplay and that's it (since many games these days have either crap replayability or are FRIGGIN MMO'S).

Furthermore, DRM sucks but sometimes it's necessary. I used to think Steam's form of "DRM" was uncrackable but hey, I was proven wrong there. I don't think there'll be any form of DRM that won't be cracked at some point in time or another.

EDIT: Sucks for you I suppose, Jaedar. I'm just lucky a similar law wasn't passed here in New Zealand. The government were actually going to pass a law that if you were even ACCUSED of copyright infringement your ISP could shut you off. This means I could ring up the authorities on some random down the street who I don't even know, say he's been downloading a shitload of pirated movies and games and they're shut off his internet while pending an investigation. Otherwise known as the "Guilt Upon Accusation" law it was opposed a lot.

We also had the whole charade of this: "The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement may force Internet Service Providers to reveal your private information if you are accused of copyright infringement. This is comparable to forcing Telecom to reveal information on who you talk to based on nothing more than an accusation, without a warrant and without court approval or oversight. This is an unprecedented breach of privacy and due-process and it's being proposed in the name of protecting artists."

New Zealand wasn't the only country that would face this bill, other countries involved in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement would probably get similar ones as well (Jaedar can obviously vouch for this). For any country that has such a law I feel sorry for the purpose there, there's far less privacy in the world then there was a decade ago.

[Jetsetlemming]

So some crappy shovelware minigolf game was released on Steam yesterday, and due to a major fuckup was priced at 10 cents in Australia.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/10140/?cc=au
Australians have been buying up dozens of copies at a time and gifting them to anyone who wants it, because hey, ten cents who cares. The game really is crappy, it's an XBLA port but doesn't support controllers, only supports like three resolutions the highest of which is 720p, has only four characters and three course designs, and no online multiplayer. The ball physics work like they were designed by someone who's never been to earth or played with anything remotely round. You can get better for free in a java applet on the web.
But it got me thinking. If the game WASN'T shit, if it was actually a Good Game, this could be fantastic for it. This game none of us have ever heard of but a ton of us play for ten cents, if we like it, we'd recommend it to everybody, who then go and buy it once the pricing is fixed.
I mean, you might wanna give out these testimonial versions in a more controlled and traditional way, like giving free keys to PC gamer sites and having them give them away in contests to users, or whatever (or rewarding the faithful of the forums ), but it's food for thought.

[Trestkon]

Free/discounted copies are a great way to do promotions. I know that the discounted pre-sales that a lot of indies have done on Steam have been a fantastic success.