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Post by Vermin King on Oct 3, 2013 7:50:09 GMT -9
I have been showing my game to people here locally in San Antonio, Kids from late Jr High, to guys in College all the way to some older guys in my neighborhood when we were having a block party BBQ. In all cases I found people with cash in hand that were ready to buy what I was selling. Now my game is good, but it's not that good. I'm a decent salesmen but I'm not great at it. Yet in all areas I there were people and in some cases many multiply people with cash in hand. This leads me to think that it's not my product per-say but an untapped market who is starved for this sort of thing. I don't know much about Alaska? but if you have local schools then you have an untapped resource. Especially if you have any colleges you have a HUGE resource as these guys are competitive and cheep. In AK they get socked in for a few months in the winter don't they ? what a better way to spend it then building and playing your papercraft game? I remember as a kid being stuck on Adak for a few EXTREMELY long weeks ( military ) before they transferred my dad back to Maine. I would have killed for something to do, it was to cold to go out and really boring to stay in... if you had come along selling paper minis and a game to go along with it I would have given you all I owned, like fish in a barrel, My wife is an online professor at BYU Idaho in Rexburg and I can tell you those boys have nothing to do ... they were the most responsive my game and will probably be the focus of my advertising. like the guys stuck in Rexburg you my friend have a captive audience time to get to work LOL Did you all know that some high schools allow students to 'letter' in gaming? Several schools in the Kansas City Metro do this. If this happens in your area, it is a great way to introduce paper minis and terrain. For non-US viewers. Letter-ing is for sports. Take part in a recognized sport through the school, and you get a letter jacket, with recognition for applicable sports participating in. Just something to look at
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Post by squirmydad on Oct 3, 2013 8:22:56 GMT -9
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Post by cowboyleland on Oct 3, 2013 9:10:58 GMT -9
I think that is a very important distinction between modeling and paper gaming accessories. Lots of people on this site do more modeling than I want to do for my games. I use tiles and I'll build stairs (because they affect the tactical situation in ways it is hard to picture in 2d) but walls, gates, all that kind of thing just require time I don't have. Squirmydad's steam tanks are super cool but I can't see myself spending enough time to build five or six for a skirmish game, and then I have to store them. My latest thought experiments revolve around making the 2.5's that I developed and Eddnic adopted into quick and easy pop-ups, so you get the 3d effect and the flat storage. I think flat storage is very important for really big monsters like dragons and giants, a tribe of 50 plastic goblins doesn't fill a shoebox.
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Post by WackyAnne on Oct 3, 2013 11:24:08 GMT -9
okumarts So... you still didn't divulge your secret identity
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Post by squirmydad on Oct 3, 2013 11:58:31 GMT -9
aaron -Adak, that's way out there, did you visit the forest? I grew up in Dutch harbor, not as far out the chain as you were. One of the things that I feel is key to any new endeavor is to get a group of people interested. One player does not make a truly successful game, "All my friends are into "X" so sorry, no thanks." You get a group or a club backing an idea or a project and it definitely helps to create momentum. I used to run gaming conventions in town and they were quite successful and entertaining, had ads in Dragon Magazine and game companies sending us boxes of swag. But that was 25 years ago and I don't have a large, highly-motivated, university gaming club to back me up anymore. So my approach is to start infiltrating the local existing conventions.
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Post by aaron on Oct 3, 2013 14:17:10 GMT -9
I lived in Adak when I was like 9 or 10'ish so that was like um ... ya over 30 years ago .... LOL that hurt. It wasn't a long stent, just long enough for my mother to absolutely think my dad had lost him mind. She freaked out on him until he got a transfer back to Brunswick Maine. I honestly don't remember much except It was really pretty and the sun stayed right on the horizon until one day it dipped just below the horizon so it was never night but never completely day always like just about dawn or dusk ... and it got REALLY cold. oh ya and they have polar bear warning signs, there was always some one willing to tell you about this guy's friend they knew of that got eaten by a polar bear... apparently there was a lot of guys who don't have friends anymore LOL I can totally get where your coming from and anytime you start a new project it's going to take time and money no doubt about it and getting the fan base is essential. But you can always fake it till you make it, using all your online resources. I am in a unique position that I don't have a lot of money but I have tons of time ( though it's running out) I need to convert that time into money and that's what I am doing. also San Antonio is a huge place full of people from all walks, I live right next to UTSA and then AI is just down the street. I have lots of friends that are at BYUI and some that already are going to start a gaming club and they think my game ( or something like it) would be perfect. and to put the cherry on the cake there is a GW store that just imploded near my house all the gamers there are just chomping for something better. the Iron is defiantly Hot and one of us needs to strike it for sure! I would love to start a PG con! I think once I finish my game and get a small fan base I will hold a small one here in SA to see what kind of response I get. if It does well I will expand it in the following years. I say start small see where it goes? what have we got to loose are pride , self respect ... naah lost those years ago!
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Post by WackyAnne on Oct 3, 2013 15:04:59 GMT -9
aaron - I was going to point out that San Antonio has a population of over a million, Anchorage about a tenth of that, and my little "city" half of that so that we're not in areas that would have as great a potential audience, so that we take what cons we can get My town's the capital city of a province that most in the U.S. have never heard of - when working for an international call-centre back in the day I described it as "Northeast of Maine" (to which some replied with incredulity that there could be such a place). But you, sir, sound like you might know that New Brunswick isn't just in New Jersey! Anyway, great ideas & enthusiasm! And I can wait to see your game emerge...
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Post by cowboyleland on Oct 3, 2013 16:19:34 GMT -9
I'd like to point out (so I will ) that Pathfinder is really going great guns right now AND Paizo is selling paper minis to go with it. As a matter of fact, all 10 items on the Paizo best seller list are paper mini bundles of one sort or another. Those mini's don't (imho) look as good as most of the stuff on these forums. If we can get the people who use those mini's to look here, at least some of those people are going to like what they see. Though paizo does sell over 100 mini's for $5.99 No backs, but that is a bargain price.
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Post by aaron on Oct 3, 2013 17:19:50 GMT -9
I lived in Van Buren Maine up on the Canadian boarder. I delivered mail to the towns of Hamlin and Caswell out of my Ford Focus ... I hated that car LOL I used to go grocery shopping in grand falls Canada at this little shopping mall. of coarse we couldn't buy meat there the Boarder Patroll would confiscate it ... and then have a BBQ LOL Even then I would have still tried to get something going online and we did have a local high school that had like 30 students I think, but that's 30 more people playing my game and buying my stuff than before. I mean just because your geographically isolated doesn't mean your cut off from the rest of the world. all you need to do is get some one to translate your stuff into Japanese and get like 5 kids in Tokyo to start playing and BOOM! a few month later you will be dealing with more people than you can handle... Yes I'm currently working on the Japanese translation of my game. I have friends in Germany and France that are going to help as well. My game will be a downloadable PDF so it will circle the globe and if my game is going world wide why can't I ?
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