Do you work for gamestop? The closest gamestop to me has two types of workers, and of those they are console obsessed fps and the ones who love action adventure. I didn't realize gamestop still even sold pc games.
Nope, never worked for them actually. It's hard to generalize all workers in all stores around the world, but generally a 'gamestop employee' is going to have a much wider game knowledge then a 'walmart general electronics employee'. The fact you don't even know what Gamestop sells confuses me on why you would comment so aggressively... It's like saying "I've never had vanilla pudding, but I know chocolate is the best." Learn all the variables, then come to a conclusion.
Honestly pc games are most commonly sold at walmart and bestbuy. For marketing they should go for a viral marketing plan on youtube or something of the like. Or simply hitting up all the game websites and make themselves known.
Would like to know sources on that. Are you going by number or ratio? If 100 people walk into a gamestop and 20 of them buy a PC game, that's 20%. If 1000 people walked into the electronics department at walmart and 50 bought PC games, yes it's a bigger number, but only 5%. I do agree viral marketing on youtube or other such medias is very great, but the problem I for see is every browser game out there is doing it and most of them advertise as 4x style games, if Elemental got grouped with those it would actually hurt the image of the complexity of the game.
I find it hard to believe the people who would play a little app game on their phone would ever buy a full TBS pc game, sounds like the faulty ideas most other games such as SPORE used to try and bring people back, it failed miserably. Offering new content and expansions worked better. Also "offer a free 3 battle trial .... offer it for something simple like $3" That is just absurd.
I can not think of the title right now...but it was a game that had so many sales (tens of thousands) it crashed the servers cause they only expected their 'little app' to have a handful of downloads. Think I read on Giz, dunno. Every day my friends, all tech guys who would play this type of game, show me their new apps. Heck, they got a pacman app with GPS that when you go into McDonald's it acts as a 'power pellet' (cracks me up). Ummmmmm, Spore sold over a million copies NOT counting apps, dlc, etc... I wish I failed miserably like that! Look into EA apps, they do very well and offer cross promotion content.
Your ideas sound astonishingly similar to the fads that are happening right now, and I do not think they work very well for me or any of my gamer friends. Stay away from cross platform crap it's disgusting, and turns people off unless they are all done perfectly.
The biggest problem is the market, tbs is niche market. And some of the early market was burned with the release, they need to bring them back and get the word out. I didn't hear about this game through normal methods, I actually found out about through a game modding circle.
Google and eBay were once 'fads', remember? Heck the internet was once a 'fad'. As you are already HERE, you don't need to be sold obviously. My main point in the post was why is Stardock catering to Walmart/Best Buy but not to the largest GAMING store out there? As per my previous ratios, i'd rather have a few hundreds targeted consumers then thousands of random. As for cross platform...yea, it usually is disgusting, that is why most avoid, but some people just don't do computer games, so why neglect an entire buying market out there if there is something that could cost effectively be achieved?
Walmart promotes big titles only, not simply consoles. Walmart is also one of you best bets to sell games to the widest audience, as they have great prices and are located relatively close to most people.
Best buy does not have any uber geeks, and all they do is promote products. You cant walk into a best buy store without 3 workers trying to sell you the newest game / tv / phone. I feel sorry for anyone who goes to best buy to get something repaired, they are nothing more than highschool kids and business students. I have had to fix many computers that were "repaired" by the "geek squad".
Big titles and console is mostly the same. Even with Civ 5 out, I didn't see a SINGLE cut out/sign/nothing past game on shelf, and I have 11 Walmarts within an hour of me. Sims 3 had a big boost but EA/Walmart have a good standing relationship. Best Buy does promote PC games abit cause they are trying to expand their computer sales/service, but it's mostly big companies again. Stardock, while awesome, isn't a household name...yet. I'd like to make it one 
.
Sorry if I was a bit aggressive, I just despise that arrogant attitude and your faulty marketing ideas.
You come off like a manager at ganestop instead of some kind of pr person.
Never apologize for aggression...and yes, I'm arrogant as hell, but it's all well deserved I assure you. As for 'faulty', that's your opinion and I always say "Don't ask a fat man how to diet." To summarize, if you are gonna elect a mayor and they both gave identical speeches and stood identical on the issues, which would you vote for? ... Ok, now one has 20 years in government with a track record of keeping promises, while the other served 10 years for embezzlement from an orphanage and was just released 6 months ago, before that he sold cars... Focus less on the words, more on the person.
People that know me and who I am don't listen to me...they take notes...and anyone with even minor experience in creative advertising would understand the effectiveness of current marketing trends, which obviously you do not, so...I could go on but I think you understand the sentiment. Not an attack, just simply stating facts. Let's forget you and me in the entire situation... EA, Bethesda, Rockstar and many other companies don't see these ideas as faulty, otherwise they would not use. Simply because your specific demographic does not think they work, does not mean they do not. Again, people in the industry think it works with the figures to match. Can't really argue with the math... Later duuuuuuuuuude!
