Hey all I'm new here, well, fairly new, I've been browsing for a while. But anyways, I thought it was about time I piped up and asked something.

I'm just about to finish my first game, and I'm thinking about what my second game is going to be about, then I thought about brand positioning and how it could help me choose what my next game should be.

I've noticed that the more successful indies have quite a good sense of focus. Dexterity for example mainly supplies puzzle games. Spiderweb Software only RPGs. Retro64s target market is arcaders.

So my question is how would you position your brand and narrow your focus to increase your sales and boost your business?

- For example: My first game is going to be a 3D platform esk game that uses simple geometric shapes. The whole level consits of basicly cubes and wedges. Now, I've always wanted to make an RPG so my second project is going to be an RPG, but be more like an arcade adventure, (to match my first title a little better) and the world is going to be made up of simple geometry. (Although more than the platform game previously mentioned.)

This actually saves the artist a heck of a lot of trouble, I have an excuse to be non-realistic, I've self imposed limits on my design before I've started design, so I can work within these limits and not get too carried away trying to implement near impossible features. It also means I don't have 1 arcade game and 1 rpg game on my site to confuse people as to exactly what games I make.

But that doesn't nessesarily mean you have to stay within one genre, for example Anthony Flack could create a whole lot of titles with his clay and Seth Able Robinson always adds a sense of humour to his games.

Now that I think about it, I guess I'm more talking about stamping your 'personal' mark on a game so that if one person likes your game, it would increase their chances of liking your others.

Whoops wrong forum. Supposed to go in Indie Business. Moderators feel free to move.

Done and done

This is an issue that I am definitely aware of.

Which is why I'm using different "branding" for each of my game styles.

Ive got "Zoombapups doghouse" for my casual games. (Once I get the website up)

Ive got "scaryhead" for my hardcore games. (again, website needs work, but this game is further off).

The doghouse site is meant to be friendly, cheerful, whimsical etc. The positioning for the literature, marketing etc will all be in a similar style.

Casual gamers probably dont want to see the more brutal warlike images that the hardcore will want. So I will not try and mix the two.

Better to not mix the types of games your making in the mind of the buyer.

Now, the other issue, is how to make YOUR product the best positioned in the marketplace when the market is already full of products. How do you stand out and raise your profile?

Well, I'm still researching that.

I've made both sports simulations and children games all in the same site.
All on the same site... don't see why separate them.
Maybe a couple looking for a game for his children will see a interesting soccer simulation and a puzzle game, so the woman will buy the puzzle game, the man the soccer game, and at last they'll buy the children game for their son.

I think that makes sense... or not? :D

its an interesting debate...

creating a couple spin off companies... even if they are just "names" and still run by all the same people, makes you look more successful, and people are more willing to buy something from someone with staying power, because then they know their support wont just dissapear overnight...

thats basically what the major car manufacturers are trying to do (american brands)... GM was just GM now its GMC, pontiac, chevy... and they basically are all the same cars with minor cosmetic changes and whatnot... but it makes people see them as much larger than they might be... although also looking at car manufacturers, I guess you want to make sure you have quality products all around, as word of mouth will kill you if your cars get recalled every time you release a new model ;)

Its not an issue of "looking bigger" really. Its trying to forge the perception of the company by having a strong primary style.

For instance, my zoombapup.com site will have a very bright, colourful "family friendly" style, with primary colours, lots of little characters and games that are more at the casual end of the spectrum (there's no point in trying to split things up so its unmanagable).

Now, imagine a casual game site, then put something like I dunno, Unreal Tournament or Call of Duty or Manhunt on there. It'd look out of place wouldnt it?

Even worse, is that it would confuse the buyer as to the type of game that you do.

Think of it this way, in most positioning and marketing texts, they say its better to create a totally new brand, than try and shoehorn new products into an old established brand. Because by doing that, you diminish the effect of both. (for instance, if they sold sprite as "coke Lemon" it'd bomb). This is known as line extension and it seems to be one of the cardinal sins :)

It makes common sense to me. The casual market is DEFINITELY different than the hardcore market. So you need to cater to different tastes, styles and products.

There are a few other things I'm slowly catching on to. Like using characters a lot more (hmm.. thinking about this, I'm not actually using them in my puzzle game designs.. thats bad).

I guess it boils down to the fact that its better to be know as great for ONE thing, than to be "ok" at lots. With websites and downloadable games, you can easily brand your products in different ways. Hell, you could have a brand per product if it was significant enough.

Interesting, what sort of costs would you be looking at for branding like that... I mean lets say your original company is called

"Fun Games" and you use that as your brand aswell (like coca-cola did at first and pepsi cola and whatnot)...

then you decide you want to branch out and you dont like fun games you want to make a brand, linked to your "fun games" company for corporate reasons, taxation and whatnot, but you wanna call the new branding "Difficult Games"... do you have to create a spin off company... or can you have many brands operating under one name... and if so, then would it make sense to call your company something completely different and then just all your games sold under different brands?

(Im talking canada and the US here... Im sure the laws are different all over the place...)

I dont know if I would consider line extension a cardinal sin... it simply has its places of use... Cherry Coke is a line extension that does great.

Anyway:

Despite the line extention thing he is right. If you want to have different content on your sites you need a different site.

If your target markets are roughly the same, even if your genre is different, you DONT need a different site.

Genre and targets are unrelated. If your RPG is designed for people age 10-16 and your puzzle game is designed for 10-16, the odds are many of them are going to be intersted in the same products. If you market an RPG with it that is designed for children 3-7 or one that is designed for adults 24+ (like an RPG that is designed to make you relive the 80s (ewww)). Even though you have the same genre, you should create two seperate identities to sell them.

Line extention only works when your brand name (brand equity) is strong enough to overcome the barriers presented. Atari can market action games and RPGs on the same site because their brand name gives the product strength. If nobody knows your brand, it will just look weird for you to try the same thing. If nobody knows your brand you may as WELL form a second brand nobody knows about, and target your audience better.

Joseph Lieberman

From what little knowledge I have.. basically, the company that makes a thing, has nothing to do with how you name a thing.

So coca-cola could be produced and made by "Coca-Cola Ltd", or made by "Bob and His Uncle Ltd" and it wouldnt make any difference.

For instance, a lot of companies have many brands, all made by them (most major companies have several brands, sometimes they spin-off new companies to use those brands, but often they done).

Think companies like unilever, or GMC etc..

So you could easily have "Fun Games" and decide it isnt right, so make a new brand "Extreme Fun Games" and it wouldnt mean you need to make a new company etc.

So the company name isnt tied in, however I'm not sure it doesnt have SOME relationship with the products.

For instance, if you had a casual site "Fluffy Bunny Games", and your company name was "Bitches From Hell inc", then somewhere in your products, inevitably you would have to put "Bitches from Hell" inside your fluffy games.. not good.

Usually what people do is either create a fairly non-descript company name and go for strength of brand. for instance it might be "<name> holdings inc" which produces "Fluffy" and "Extreme".

Or you can simply create two companies.. one for each.

Company creation isnt THAT harsh, but the extra costs (and admin) make a difference.

Joseph, I'm just a beginner when it comes to marketing stuff, but the Al Ries books definitely put down line extension a lot.

Especially line extensions that are tenuous.. cherry coke is right on that borderline I think (after all, coke is coke, cherry coke is.. well, a cherry drink with a coke name).

I cant see why coca-cola didnt actually just bring out cherry coke as another brand, like they did with sprite etc.. i guess thier thinking at the time was different. Or the product was close enough to the taste of coke that they thought it'd wash.

For instance, if coke were to bring out a tea-in-a-can drink, calling it "Tea-coke" probably would do more harm than good.

But I'm sure there are examples either way..

thankyou for that answer, that was EXACTLY what I was looking for...

basically by having an overall company with mini departments with brand names, you leave yourself open to not just making games either... you can then have a graphic design brand, or publish other developers games under your main company name... all the while generating respect and strength of brand.

this has been very informative.

Not to get off topic here, but Cherry Coke was not introduced as a new product because it is not just a cherry drink. The classic "Coke flavor" is very prominent in the taste of the drink...
If I were to say anything at all, it would be that the cherry was added to the original formula, not visa versa.

Just a consumer opinion...

Alex

More to the point, Cherry and Vanilla Cokes were available in old fashioned soda shops and drug stores under those exact names long before the Coca Cola Bottling Company decided to put them in little aluminum cans. The soda jerk just added a splash of cherry or vanilla syrup to the glass before spritzing in the coke syrup and soda water.

Yeah, I figured that would be the case with cherry.

But imagine the scenario where they had introduced a clear lemon tasting coke?

People would be rightly confused.

Coca cola had spent such a long time building the brand image of coke, that to actually try and play on that image to extend it to all sorts of products is just a bad idea.

This is just common sense really.

Wonder how Maccy D's are doing with salads :) probably not

I believe the salads are one of the main instruments in their return to profitability over the last few quarters, according to several articles I read after the death recently of ther CEO.

Heh, from what I've heard, McDonald's are to salads, what McDonald's are to hamburgers...

Incidentally, the Coca-Cola Company *are* in the business of selling cans and bottles of tea, in Japan at least. And yes, it isn't called Coke-anything... you have to look in the fine print to see that it's made by them.

In my original post, I wasn't intending on suggesting spliting companies, creating new brands etc, but rather on how, once you choose your position, weither its clay animation games, puzzle games, arcade shooters, educational titles or whatknot, knowing that, maybe then you are able to choose which games youd like to develop (or publish) and stick to those which fit within your designated niche, I mean, I know the whole indie thing is that you can make whatever game you like or what have you, but if you've already choosen your position, by default you are still developing games that you wish to make, and potentially reducing the desision making process and game design process.

Lots of software comanies do this. ID for example make first person shooters, a long time ago sierra and lucasArts most powerful brand was the adventure game.

I would imagine the pret-a-manger franchise has more to do with it than the salads..

Its pretty funny watching the advertising for the salads here in the UK, because they are trying to introduce new "characters" for thier salad line..

Basically, they have these 3 trendy, cute looking 30 something women, all sat in maccy d's having a salad.

Thats just a league apart from their ronald macdonald image aint it. Talk about confusing your audience.

Joshua,

Youre absolutely right. Its definitely sensible to consider the type of games you want to design in terms of the brand image you have made.

Alright, the "clay" aspect is definitely a strong identity, so almost any game is going to have that clear identifier. So maybe that isnt such a worry (a clay top down rpg would probably work).

But for people without such a clear style, it gets closer to the knuckle..

I guess you just have to put yourself in the mind of the consumer. Think "if I came to this website to buy, would seeing this product on my site leave me with a single strong impression, or a confusing mix of them?".

Originally posted by Joshua Smyth
[...]
Lots of software comanies do this. ID for example make first person shooters, a long time ago sierra and lucasArts most powerful brand was the adventure game.

John Carmack said in several intervies/speeches, that their success forced them to become a one genre company. You just can't start making completly other games if you are known for one specific genre and everyone anticipates that your next game will be the next reference title for that entire genre.

As long as you aren't in the pole position of a whole genre, there shouldn't be a problem doing different games.

I don't even know someone, who only plays one specifc genre. For example I like first person shooters, shoot 'em ups, jump'n'runs, jump'n'shoots, bemani, beat'em ups and logic mazes (but I dislike puzzle games in general).

If there is a site with several games of the same genre, disliking one of them would put me down totally. It's rather unlikely that I would try the otheres, too.

The optimal thing would be beeing known for quality games and not for a specific genre (work moral wise). Rare is (was?) a good example for that, each game from them was a sure hit and they have done lot's of different genres.