Game Physics and Animation

Marketing Meeting

We held our first marketing meeting, coming up with our defined aim, and how to go about achieving that using Direct Advertising, Indirect Advertising, and Promotion.

ISFE Research

Founded in 1998, ISFE represents the interests of the game companies that make up it’s members, protecting them from things like piracy and breach of copyright, as well as representing their position in things like the environment and the protection of children. They have a huge range of members, including high profile companies like ‘Sega’, ‘EA’, and ‘Nintendo’.

What ISFE wants to do is support the video game industry; promoting it whilst also showing that the industry to remains clean and legal, for example In 2003 ISFE founded PEGI, the European video games rating system, to protect children from any inappropriate material in video games. They also provide market research to members, allowing them to see the figures and trends and hopefully learn from them to stay on top.

I think this is the most important piece of data on the ISFE website, that can tell us some information about marketing ‘Squidiverse’. Only a tiny amount of apps are paid for, so it seems almost foolish to release an app that needs purchasing. The graph doesn’t go into this, but it seems free games with non-mandatory in-app purchases would be a smarter and more profitable move.

The split between Male and Female is pretty much even, with a slight tip towards Male. However i don’t think that slight tip is big enough to warrant marketing solely and Males, so the game should have a marketing campaign that targets both genders. The Age Breakdown points to a pike in the 25-44 areas, so this is probably where you would want to concentrate marketing. Further research would need to be done to see what kinds of websites this age range, and both males and females, visit, so as to place the marketing in the right places.

 

I also found this data on types of games played in Great Britain useful. Altough our marketing campaign would spread larger then just GB, this would be our local starting point, so it’s still important to look at. I see that under every category of game, Males between 16-34 take the lead in percentages. If we focus in on apps specifically we see that second place is then Females between 16-34. This fits into an age range noted in the last set of data, but refines and narrows it a bit. Again both genders are strong in gaming, but Male player numbers are still higher.

App designs to the grid

 

Here the circular frame sits within the outer circle of the grid guide, serving as something to focus attention onto the center of the image: Squid’s face. While not all of the Squid head falls within the dead center, it’s the main middle that stands there; eyes and tentacles. I positioned the throwing rock and connecting arm on a diagonal line, so the arm starts in the center, and leads of to the right corner, with the rock on the same line to sell it’s path of motion. meanwhile the body follows the opposite diagonal, creating diagonal lines that lead to Squids head All of the graphics are contained within the outer box, with none spilling over to the very boarders of the grid, which makes the image look neater and contained.

 

 

I also tried something even more focused on Squid, so I zoomed in on his head more and cut out other aspects of the design like the jumping action and the rock. Here the center of the image is the eye, pulling all focus onto that area. All the other aspects come out from that, like the throwing arm runs along the diagonal, while the center of the body follows the opposite diagonal, and the left arm is aligned roughly to the middle horizontal line. So all the lines of the image lead to Squids eye, and the circular frame again emphasises the focus. It’s similar to the first design, but just stripped down and with greater emphasis on Squids head rather then other elements.

Understanding Marketing

“Processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and the exchange of offers.”

“Marketing consists of the strategies and tactics used to identify and create and maintain satisfying relationships* with the customers, that results in value for both customer and marketeer.”

*Relationship is most important. You should concentrate on building a relationship with the customers rather then on getting profit, as a strong relationship will equal more money over time. A strong relationship means the customer will keep coming back as there will be a trust, so they will give you more money over time.

The 4 Ps of marketing are all interlinked, so if you change one so must the others change. So if you do paid promotions, then you need to start making more of a profit, but if you start charging the quality needs to go up, so it will cost more to produce.

Product: Expensive to make = Price: High price = Place: high class area with money = Promotion: Expensive, with a lot of paid promotion.

Two important questions to keep asking your self are: “Why would this work for my core audience?” and “How do I know I’ve been successful?”

The thinking behind this is that every step of the way your marketing needs to be connected to your core audience; who you want to get the message across to. It’s also important to know what progress you’ve made in your marketing, so that should be planned for, so getting new followers on a Twitter account would be a way to chart how well the marketing is going.

Examples of 3 types of marketing to be constructed:

1X Direct Advertising 1X Indirect Advertising 1X Promotion

T-Shirt Analysis

T-Shirt Comparison Research

App Logo Composition sketches

One of the main bits of feedback I got was that the composition wasn’t eye catching enough. The center of the image falls on a bit of the background, and so doesn’t highlight any part of Squid.

What I want to do is figure out new positioning that will pull attention to the Squid character more, and be a more pleasing design.

For making the composition I wrote a list of the elements I wanted to get across in the design:

– The Squid character

-The rock throwing mechanic

– Jumping

– A part of the Sea/Space background to get across the environment

– Interesting framing to draw the eye.

So first I drew some boxes and just started playing around with shifting the image, seeing what I could get on the center or the diagonal lines of the canvas.

The circular frame can also be used to highlight Squid, if instead of going around him from the center of the frame; it went around the center of Squids head. So it’s acting as a sort of bulls eye to the Squid head. What this does mean I lose the 3D effect of Squid bursting out the frame. If his head is the center then the legs fall well outside the frame, meaning if they were within they would be cut off completely, rather than just partially obscured. I also lose the head going slightly over the border, so the frame just becomes a backing. This might actually be alright, as it still draws the eye and after all, the game it’s self doesn’t actually have any depth (it being 2D).

I thought about a slightly different design that might suit my needs better, which is cutting of the legs and just have the upper half of the character. This way you can get his head in the middle and the throwing arm on a diagonal. This may be a nice design, but it does sacrifice one of my key elements, the jumping. I feel like the jumping is such a core aspect of the game it’s important to represent it, so this design probably won’t be used.

After playing around a bit I saw I could get it so the head is center, the throwing arm is on a diagonal line, and so are the legs. So the character, rocking throwing, and jumping legs are all highlighted through the composition.

 

Finally I tried out some positioning I was happy with digitally, just so I could see it cleaned up with a bit more polish.

Giving our game an App Store Rating

App logo concepts feedback

 

Based on both the feedback and my own thoughts, I’ve decided to go ahead with the Character/Action design as my final logo. I think it best represents the game and the character, as well as creating an interesting image.