How difficult marketing really is

I know full well what you mean. I've just lived through Kickstarter, remember? :)

The sad reality is this however: 95% of potentials buyers don't know/don't care how much it costs to you. They make an evaluation along the lines of "does this feel like an acceptable price for what I`m getting?".

If that answer is "no", you won't sell. And it's based on the buyer's subjective evaluation of your offer, not the actual costs, or if your game is any good or not.

For example, we had to drop the pledge amount mid-campaign because we predicted this evaluation wrong. And that allowed us to fund in the end.

So what can you do to change that perception?
1) Rework the concept to allow multiple players to use the base game
2) Find a cheaper production offer and lower the price
3) Advertise your game as a solo game, so that potential buyer doesn't get the feeling that he HAS to pay 2x/3x the price to get the "full experience".

(Personally, I would recommend 1)

I really hate face book, but like people mentionned above, it's not the reason beind the lack of popularity.

I quite agree, even if no experience to hack this, that 95% of the people interested by a game will not buy it. I am part of the 95% most of the time.

I always said that board games are expansive, unless you can almost mass market it like settlers of catan.

I checked roughly how my game fallen Kingdom would cost on game crafters, it turned out to be somethinf like 65$ for the compoents. I would not pay 65$ for my own game. I am pretty cheap.

This is why I am more thinking to go the digital borad game way. For design, and also for buying. I can get a good game for like 5$, does not takes any space, does not need to get stored or shipped, so very environmental friendly. As most of the time, they play faster, they just cannot be modified like board games.

Else I might be thinking to go on easy print and play, like 1 page games, that people can print and use easily.

I am currently watching review for games I like on BGG and now asking my self that even if I find interesting games in the list I would like to play, am I really willing to pay for it?

I have around 60-80 games in my closet and there are I think at most a dozen of games in there that I remember playing more than 10 times. Which makes me ask myself, was it really worth it to buy those other games I have not played 10 times yet? Should I get rid of them?

So yes, I almost want to drop out of the hobby, because games are expansive and take a lot of space to store. Sometimes you need to rent space to play them and finally, you have no guaranty that the games you purchase are going to get played. I tried to maybe buy more solo games, to realize that I have an harder time to play solo, and most of the time, I want to share games with people.

I do enjoy digital versions, because I can play what I want, when I want, and it takes little space. I also have a guarantly that the gameplay is more solid than all those crappy apps out there, so it makes the filtering easier.

This topic is 100% unnecessary, as we've been down this road with you before:

http://www.bgdf.com/node/18069

These days, it's really hard to get's people attention especially with information overflow. I think for board games, the only way is to actually reach the shelves. Still kick starter seems like a good way to reach people.

It seems you need to know where people are looking to advertise there. As a personal example, my profession is very restricted, and jobs are displayed only on 1 or 2 specialised web site because people are only expected to look there and nowhere else.

I stumbled once on some games in game crafters that were considered to be best sellers, and when I went on board game geek, many of those games were simply unknown or had little content.

Another example, there is this excellent abstract game called "Lumis" released only in germany so far. If you check on BGG, there is not even 10 picture and there is few thread. Yet this game IS published and IS an euro game, why does it get no attention at all?

So it's like if there was 1 or 2 big doors and any game that passes through those door, will get noticed. While other games won't.

I released "Eldritch Express" more officially by making better print outs and a BGG entry. The game is free and good, still there is little activity on the game's page.

The problem with P&P is that it will never pass though those big doors, so it will never get noticed.

Have you considered what I've suggested?

Change your game, so that 2+ players could use the same set of card?

I'm of a similar mind to ElKobold. If you want people to play the game, maybe you should consider doubling up the packages.

I also get what you're saying about having everyone own their own etc.

So, here's compromise for you: Offer your normal 1 packs still, but also offer a 2 pack - something two people can play without having to get your friend to buy one too. Offer it for slightly less than 2x the cost of a 1 pack, if possible. I don't know if that sort of thing is possible for you, but it might solve your problem.

On the plus side, you restrained yourself from capitalizing a bunch of words, so it doesn't look like you are shouting at everyone. Your content has very little value though except to yourself. A survey? So you are competing with the U.S. Census Bureau? Surveys are a chore, and consumers are accustomed to being rewarded for completing them. Man, over a month of your posts are devoted to that survey on your FB page. Everything else is just updates. There's nothing personal. No insights behind the scenes. No sense of rapport, humanizing yourself so that people will empathize with you on a personal level.

Your goal in promoting your game should be to generate value added content. If your audience feels invested in you as a person then it only takes a nudge to turn that into a financial investment in your game. Your FB page is essentially a magazine about you, and you have to give people a reason to read it. That said, it should all be links to off-site content because FB is bullshit in terms of their user agreement, but game demo videos, background on factions, even discussion of other games, interviews with other designers, basically anything.

But really, you should be finding successful FB pages and looking at what makes them work. That, and you need to have realistic expectations. FB is supplementary to your overall momentum. FB is a shitty platform for promoting a sale on TGC, because outside of this site I've never heard of TGC and nobody I know has ever heard of them. You are doing double duty promoting yourself and a relatively obscure vanity press. Someone interested in your game might fund a KS, but they aren't going to jump in on some weird knock-off site just because of you. Consumers are hesitant about trying new sales platforms, and TGC doesn't have nearly the footprint to inspire consumer confidence in casual buyers outside of the community that they've been marketing to. That's the advantage of KS. My septigenarian mother, who refuses to even use a computer, has heard of it. If I ask all of these 20-some-year-olds here at the Starbucks I'm at whether they've heard of TGC and KS, I'm positive it will trend 0% for the former, 100% for the latter.

I wasn't suggesting to make a box with 2 copies in.

I recommend to change the game. So that it can be played with more players with less cards.

I know box are sometimes expensive, does publishing 2 games in one box makes you save anything.

Most people want their game playable out of the box, they don't want to find partners who also bought the game to play with them .

This is one of the many problems of collectible card games (the unpopular ones). You buy cards, but cannot play with it.

Still your game is slightly different because you can play solo.