Case study: successful promotion of indie long-term construction on the example of Chasm
On July 31, 2018, the independent studio Bit Kid released a two-dimensional action role-playing film Chasm, which she worked on for five years. Bit Kid Marketing and PR Director Dan Adelman spoke about how the company maintained the interest of players in the project throughout the development period and attracted the attention of a new audience to it.
History of the creation of Chasm
Work on Chasm began in 2013. The game was conceived as a platformer with role-playing elements, combining the features of metroidvania and a “bagel”. From the first genre, a vast world with secret locations and zones was taken, where the character cannot get without special skills or equipment. From the second — procedurally generated dungeons.
In April—May 2013, the studio conducted a successful crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter. Almost 7 thousand people participated in it, whose contributions amounted to about $ 192 thousand with an initial goal of $ 150 thousand.
Bit Kid developed a demo version of Chasm for Kickstarter in about six months. This speed inspired the studio team with false confidence that the whole project would be completed in just a year. But in reality, the development took four years longer.
“They naively believed that they would have time to create all the planned content in one year. But developing a game is like building a tower — the higher its walls grow, the stronger and more solid the foundation should be,” explained Dan Adelman.
Another slowing factor was the perfectionism of the head of Chasm development, James Petruzzi, who wanted to implement all the ideas in the game. According to Adelman, over the past time, the title could have been completed several times, but the release was constantly postponed in order to add content to Chasm.
Job Reports are the key to maintaining loyalty
Adelman noted that for many developers crowdfunding means much more than just a way to raise money. It allows you to find like-minded people who are ready to help the creators of the game to realize their creative vision and ideas.
In order not to disappoint the backers with a prolonged wait, Bit Kid began publishing monthly reports on the work done on Kickstarter. In four years, the studio has released 75 messages. They informed about the progress in development and fueled the interest of gamers with new data about the game. Dan Adelman admitted that it was not always easy to compile reports, as he had to talk about various problems that prevent the creation of Chasm.
According to Adelman, the policy of openness has justified itself. The audience followed the development progress and was sympathetic to the long delay in the release. Some backers were indignant, but the bulk remained loyal to the project.
Marketing of the game on a “slow fire”
Regular reports on the progress of development on Kickstarter provided Chasm with the support of the base audience, but the future game needed to be promoted beyond the crowdfunding platform.
Adelman said that Chasm required a balanced promotional campaign that would attract a new audience and maintain their interest in Chasm before the release, without tiring them with too aggressive and intrusive advertising.
At first, the studio promoted the future game with the help of streamers, giving them the keys to demo builds. Then Bit Kid abandoned this method, reducing the marketing coverage area so that Chasm did not have time to become familiar. The studio continued to periodically remind the community about the title, demonstrating it at gaming exhibitions and conventions.
Dan Adelman compared this strategy to cooking from frozen foods.
“To make the dish work, you first need to defrost the ingredients. If you immediately send them to a preheated oven, the food will burn on the outside and remain icy inside,” he explained.
Reaction to Chasm
Upon release, Chasm received generally positive reviews from players and critics. The rating of the PC version of the game on the aggregator Metacritic is 72 points based on 23 reviews. According to the Steam Spy service, from 20 thousand to 50 thousand people already own the game on Steam.
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