Marketing the BONE game series

That's not really true. Check out RealArcade, Yahoo! Games, and Oberon Media, for starters.

That's not really true. Check out RealArcade, Yahoo! Games, and Oberon Media, for starters.

But those are all casual games, developed by one person or a very small team for little or no money. They don't make a lot of money, but since it's all profit, they can still do okay. Bone is a full-fledged title. It's also a title that’s major audience (Bone readers and adventure gamers) probably aren't as tech savvy as Half Life 2 players.

I wouldn't say it's fair to judge the entire adventure gaming community as less tech savy than Halo 2 fans. There are just alot less adventure gamers, so we have a lot less tech savy people. Basically I mean, I've met some Halo 2 players who were morons, and some who were brilliant.

[artwking]

Anyone who can get an old adventure game to work in Dosbox is tech savvy, if you ask me.

Which nobody did, but I told you anyway.

I wouldn't say it's fair to judge the entire adventure gaming community as less tech savy than Halo 2 fans. There are just alot less adventure gamers, so we have a lot less tech savy people. Basically I mean, I've met some Halo 2 players who were morons, and some who were brilliant.

What I meant was that in order to sell the most units, Bone has to be as user friendly as possible. This means that they have to make it available to the lowest common denominator. Adventure gamers come from all walks of life (unlike FPS fans who seem to usually be 15-30 year old males) and Telltale has to make their game easy to get ahold of.

I've been playing many more console games than PC games lately. While it could be a quality thing, I think it has to do with the fact that I've become fed up with errors and installation and system requirements and all that other stuff. When I bring a PC game home it seems to take hours before I can actually play the thing. With a console game, it only takes about three minutes (would be faster but those boxes seemed to be sealed better than prescription medicine). I havent played Half Life 2, but friends of mine who had all mentioned the ungodly amount of time it took for them to actually be able to play it, this is mostly due to screw-ups in Steam. Now Valve is a pretty reliable company, if they can make a slip up of that magnitude, so can Telltale.

It could also be a lot worse of a slip-up if Telltale makes it. If a Bone reader whos never bought a computer game (or at least doesnt buy them often) tries to download the game and fails, hes going to give up (while HL2 players are more likely to keep trying and just complain about it in message boards).

All Im saying is that downloading a large full game (without the option to get it in a box) is uncharted territory and that Telltale should be very careful that they dont shoot themselves in the proverbial foot. I have a lot of faith in these guys and Id like to see them around for a while.

The good news is that their card game was incredibly easy to get going (although I didnt try to register). It only took about fifteen second to download, but Im on a very fast network. Im not sure how long it would take someone on a 56k.

I just realized that this is almost 400 words long. No ones going to read all this. Oh well. Thank you, and goodnight.

[Steve2000]

Just to take this thread back a bit - I recently re-read the first episode of Bone in the new color scholastic version, and it rocks!

It is perfect that the color editions are being released one at a time by scholastic in a way that will (could) coincide perfectly with Telltale's releases of the game. Out from Bonevile just came out in scholastic recently, and later this year the Telltale game will come out. Probably around the same time Scholastic will be releasing the second Bone book - giving players a chance to read the next installment immediately after finishing the game and get them ready for an early 2006 release of episiode 2 from Telltale and so on.

At least that is how it should happen if they are smart - have players reading the next bone book in color from scholastic while waiting for the next game.

The good news is that their card game was incredibly easy to get going (although I didnt try to register). It only took about fifteen second to download, but Im on a very fast network. Im not sure how long it would take someone on a 56k.

It took me over one hour to download the game with a 56k modem. It worked great once I got it though.

As far as marketing goes, hitting both game magazines and comic magazines is a must. A demo CD is a great idea but may not be a viable option for a start-up company.

I think online distribution is just a natural step forward. I only hope more developers embrace the technology and free us from the designs of oppressive publishers who are only worried about the bottom dollar.

What I remember from Grade School about Scholastic was the setup in the library they had on ocassion and monthly cheaply printed pamphlets. I remember seeing games ocassionally. My friend bought Descent 2 from scholastic. I think I saw a setup recently, at my college no less, with a bunch of games...mostly crappy games, but still games. I don't see why, if they were selling the books, they wouldn't want to sell the game too.

[Steve2000]

What I remember from Grade School about Scholastic was the setup in the library they had on ocassion and monthly cheaply printed pamphlets. I remember seeing games ocassionally...

Definitely. My Wife is an elementary school teacher so I see those little phamplets every month and they always have games. We actually just got Sim City 4 Deluxe through scholastic.

Also - in the Telltale Blog
they mentioned that "its another goal of ours to synch up with Scholastic and brainstorm on this so we can have a mutually beneficial relationship."

So I guess that answers that.