Game Matters

Distinctively ordinary

I think I've mentioned here before that I'm an investor in a new "fast-casual" restaurant, which has grand plans of becoming a small nationwide chain. Other than being an investor, my primary role is as business and marketing counselor. Well, I attended a marketing meeting a week ago with our new advertising agency, who's primary responsibility is designing a website and a marketing look for all of the company's materials. In these two artful areas they're performing well. They also pitched several slogans, including the one they liked the best, "Distinctively fresh."

I cringed.

After letting them complete their pitch, while maintaining zen-like calm control, I casually noted that every single one of our competitors claimed to have "fresh" food. In fact, one of our competitors had the word "fresh" as part of their name. I explained that we could not possibly position our company as exciting, newsworthy or unique by following this not-so-fresh path.

They all nodded and smiled and agreed. No problem, they would come up with new slogans based on our advice. We're paying them well, after all, and every hour on the clock is money in their pockets. But why did we have to give them this obvious advice to begin with?! Because ad agencies do not understand marketing. They only understand creativity and aesthetics. Anyway, they're gonna take another crack at a slogan.

But, never in my experience of working with advertising people have they ever shown me a clear understanding of marketing knowledge. Marketing people generally like to make creative advertising that strikes the funny bone, or is perceived as cool. It's up to the brand's owner to insure that the correct marketing message is not overlooked. It only takes a flip through any consumer magazine, or a night's worth of prime-time TV watching, to witness that most ads fail in properly positioning the brand or product. Who's the Einstein who thought a lying salesman was the perfect pitchman for Isuzu? Who thought talking lizards could pitch beer? Did someone think that launching furry animal out of a cannon would tell people why they should shop online out Outpost.com?! What the heck does Microsoft's slogan ("Your potential. Our passion.") mean?! Sounds like decent slogan for a college, but a software maker!

Ad agencies, left to do their own thing, will not do the thing that best benefits your brand. That's a fact. Leave it to them and you get lameness like "I'm lovin' it" (McDonald's) or slogans you cannot even remember -- anyone know what Coke's is? Didn't think so.

The funny thing about the "Distinctively fresh" tagline is that we clearly explained the uniqueness of our restaurant in a prior meeting. And while freshness was a part of the message, it isn't the key positioning angle we are shooting for (which I'll reveal at a later time, along with the name of the place).

Anyway, as this develops I'll update.

Side note: Added a reading list on the right side. Will list every non-fiction book I read regardless of how it relates to the game industry. If anyone has a question about any of these books, I'd be happy to talk more about them.

Second side note: Ran across this page on Dexterity Software's site that has great articles and advice for indie developers.

Pyrogon gone -- a postmortem

Up until now, I've avoided the lure to do like many other blogs do, and post links to other people's hard work. This is a rare and worthwhile exception, because Brian Hook has written a superb postmortem on his indie start-up, Pyrogon, perhaps best known for Candy Cruncher. Many will recognize Brian as one of the programmers at Id Software during the development of the first two Quake's, and a diligent writer of plan files. (Sadly, he and I got into a public spat over the ethics of Shadow Warrior soon after that game's release in 1997. But we've both put that well behind us and I consider Brian a respected industry friend.)

Anyway, his lengthy, detailed, insightful article is well worth a read.

Update: Tom Warfield, long-time shareware author, has blogged a different view on why Pyrogon withered. (April 23rd entry.)

Dumb name -- No Ding Dongs for you!

I'm writing this from the sun drenched, black sand shore of Costa Rica, where I've taken permanent shelter from the tax man. Nothing quite like a lazy tropical breeze with toes buried in cool, massaging sand.

Buying this?

I didn't think so! Yup, I'm still right here in hotter-than-hell Texas, even though we're no where close yet to officially entering the grueling Summer months. And my fatter-than-hell tax payment just barely made yesterday's deadline. There goes my plasma TV!

Anyway, haven't done much lately blog-wise, so need to feed the fans. (All two of you who've written me this week asking if I'm still alive. *grin*) So, was reading through a few game mags. and noticed several horrendous game titles. Hey, nice and easy blog topic, I thought, so here we are...

-Lineage II: The Chaotic Chronicle (What's a chaotic chronicle?)
-Vampire: The Masquerade -- Bloodlines (Name should just be Bloodlines, short and simple)
-Thief: Deadly Shadows (The words "deadly" and "shadows" are WAY too overused in gaming)
-Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth (Since when did the Earth become a box?)
-Creature Conflict: The Clan Wars (Where do I start! Ugh.)
-Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising (What does this mean???)
-Rome: Total War (Are there half wars I don't know about?)
-Shade: Wrath of Angels (Scary angels ... woooooo)
-Soldiers: Heroes of World War II (Just plain, well... plain)
-Spellforce: The Order of Dawn (can this be anymore generic?!)
-Horizons: Empire of Istaria (Huh? someone thought this was the winning name!)
-Anito: Defend a Land Enraged (Yes! Let's defend a land enraged! It sounds so exciting!)
-Warhammer 40,000: Firewarrior (Firewarrior, alone, would have been much better.)
-Flat-Out (Flatout, spelled that way, is far superior.)

For balance, a few good to great names I saw:
-Farcry (Short and unique. Good, but not great.)
-City of Heroes (Descriptive, simple.)
-Manhunt (Descriptive, short.)
-The Movies (Descriptive, unique, simple.)
-Coliseum (Short and descriptive.)
-Tribes: Vengeance (Not great, but better than Tribes 3: Vengeance, or whatever.)
-Beyond Divinity (Much better sequel name than Divine Divinity 2: Beyond Divinity)

(For those new to this blog, not too long back I wrote a lengthy article about naming games.)