Sites you visit

We're steadily moving towards running a lot of ads again, and I'd love to hear what your favorite websites are (since you are, collectively, our target audience), particularly as involves games, roleplaying, fantasy, or anything somewhat related to Achaea's subject matter.

Thanks!
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Comments

  • Reddit.com
    Slashdot.org
  • superporno.net

    Just kidding. I think a lot of us are decently involved in a niche group, so I think something that has a lot of indie coverage would be good. Cinemablend.com/games (Gamerblend) and Rockpapershotgun.com are both pretty good bets, and would likely have people interested in trying other games. Don't know how much they take on adverts though.

    It's hard to say, now that I am older but I do recall seeing a lot of ads on webcomic stuff. Vgcats, ctrl-alt-del. That's actually what drew me in as a kid.

    I've always really found that the people that will play muds though, are the ones that are going to play muds. It's hard to convert people that only play other games. I thought of trying to steal a slot on Mobafire for the leagues players.. but people who are really invested in MOBA stuff will really just likely play more MOBA games. I dunno, I'm no high tier marketing analysis guy.

    Slightly off topic, but I think getting an interview or two with gaming magazines or something would also help increase player interest. As many people have said, they heard about achaea through articles on gaming sites.

    I think it also could be worth while looking into stuff like fanfiction websites. People that enjoy reading/writing and lean towards a fantasy base. Sorry I didn't have many personal sites to provide, but hopefully something seems helpful!
    Replies the scorpion: "It's my nature..."
  • 4chan.org (they occasionally have RP threads in some of the boards such as /v/ [video game board], /vg/ [video game generals],  /jp/ [otaku culture], and /tg/ [traditional games] - but beware, lots of sh**posters and annoying people there)

    reddit.com (There's an Achaea subreddit, though it's been inactive for how long)

    online-literature.com

    Not sure what other sites I frequent, but I will add as I remember.
    image
  • Aepas said:
    superporno.net
    You mean tumblr?

    Also reddit, and various webcomics: Gunnerkrigg Court, Doctor McNinja, Lovecraft Is Missing, Girl Genius, Wonderella, Bad Machinery. Many webcomics run advertisements with Project Wonderful, an advertising service that tends towards tasteful ads, and seems targeted towards the young-adult-disposable-income crowd, but the details of how it works (of which I have only fleeting understanding) may not mesh with your business plan.
    image
  • www.curse.com


  • DaslinDaslin The place with the oxygen
    Agreed, plz no ads on 4chan. No want SUPERGINORMONEGRO character to be made, 'nuff trolls already.
  • AchillesAchilles Los Angeles
    twitch.tv

    Problem of course is these people are there watching live streams of gaming video, how will this translate when trying to explain to them to play a text game?  But they are also gamers, that demo overlaps with Achaea's (18-34) so if you could create a cool interstitial commercial to plug in there.

    I kind of envision something similar to the ESPN commercials, where most of Achaea's players are playing from work in a office setting and can sneak playing it because it looks more like database.  Maybe some hilarious looking LARPers and some hot sirens will get people to notice and talk about it.
    image
  • Reddit, StumbleUpon, DeviantART... I used to traverse the horrid Gaia Online, but it has a pretty big RP community.
    I'll probably be shifting over to Starmourn, seeya there!
    discord: aciidwire#5240
    Please check out my new art page!

  • KresslackKresslack Florida, United States
    Ebaumsworld
    Grooveshark
    Pandora
    Youtube
    Netflix
    IGN
    WhereCoolThingsHappen
    Imgur
    WonderHowTo
    ZergNet


  • Cahin said:
    Let's not put ads on 4chan and just say that we did instead.
    No worries there.
  • mspaintadventures as of late

  • edited April 2013
    Penwize said:
    Reddit, honestly.  Get one convincing post on reddit that gets a reasonable number of upvotes and you get huge influxes of traffic.
    We advertised on reddit a few weeks ago as a test. Spent about $600 on the test. Number of players from reddit still playing: zero. Now, part of that is because our game is just too  difficult to get into and the introduction is paced terribly, but I'm not sure how well reddit is going to work out for us.

    (Edit: I should say that it's possible there are a couple people playing from reddit, but we haven't been able to track them if so. They may have come back to the site after seeing the ad and created, or created an alt after their primary was deleted, or a couple of other edge cases.)
  • Really? Where?  I frequent reddit and I haven't seen a single mention of it.  Was it one of those paid adverts, or did you make a post in one of the less frequented subreddits?
  • Yeah, it was paid (thus the $600), in the general games section. We had maybe 1.5 million ad views. The problem with just making a post (aside from the fact that reddit users don't really like companies promoting themselves it seems to me) is that it's not really scalable/repeatable. What we're searching for is an ongoing way to profitably acquire new customers. 10 years ago, that wasn't a problem for us, but the world is a different place today.
  • Huh, that's really weird.  I view the games sections (/r/gaming, /r/games) lot and I would definitely have noticed an Achaea ad there.  But I'm just one out person out of their huge viewer volume, so it probably doesn't mean anything.  Still, maybe a few real, well-crafted posts might drum up some interest.  On a related note, do referral links still work?
  • edited April 2013
    @Sarapis : I sent a lengthy email to you about this roughly 6 minutes ago but forgot to title it.
  • edited April 2013
    Reddit ads would probably not be seen by anyone. Most reddit hype, etc is from posts.
  • SkyeSkye The Duchess Bellatere
    and then there are people like me who have rabid adblockers to preserve sanity >_>

    That said, I check in pretty regularly at Walky webcomics like Dumbing of Age and Shortpacked!. Also others like Giant in the Playground and SNAFU (yay Grimtales). Maybe you'll want to consider ads on GameFAQs as well.


  • JonathinJonathin Retired in a hole.
    I go to like 3 websites: Achaea forums, Facebook, and Amazon.

    Actually, those are the only ones I have on my toolbar.
    I am retired and log into the forums maybe once every 2 months. It was a good 20 years, live your best lives, friends.
  • edited April 2013

    I think the ads are a good idea, but ads tend to bring in a certain type of player who saw the ad.  I'm sure there are some amazing people on all these sites, even 4chan (RIP @Aardvark), but it's exactly the kind of player who responds to an ad on a whim who isn't going to stick around with a game like Achaea.  I click on ads sometimes when I feel like wasting 5 minutes, not so much when I want a hobby that will EAT MY LIFE.  You'll get some who move beyond that, but not many I reckon.

    I came to Achaea when I was already looking for something to do on-line.  I was already a fantasy nerd with some spare time looking for a free game I could play when I wasn't at home with access to more sophisticated things like porn or an xbox or Battlestar Galactica.

    My internet knowledge is like zero, and I don't go to any of those hentai sites that @Skye linked to, but the way that I came to Achaea was pretty much by googling on-line, free roleplaying games and then going from there.  I think the adverts more likely to generate genuine new players are the ones that we could get somehow to people who are already looking for something like Achaea (or maybe even a graphical version) but have never heard of it.  Is there a way to reflect that somehow in an ad?  Something that triggers on a very specific google search maybe?  (Although I have no idea how prohibitively expensive that would be).

    I'd be very wary of trying to match Achaea's immediate, marketing appeal with that of the disposable graphic time-wasting games (I worry that the new logo and some of the previous ad-work tries and plays on that level), and go with something that speaks to Achaea's strengths - depths, complexity, player interaction, "your are your own lead character in a novel of your own writing" type of stuff.  Most people who click on game ads are looking for a doughnut, a sugar rush.  Achaea isn't a sugar rush, it's, um... a 5 course banquet for a very refined palette (this metaphor needs work).  How you reflect that in an ad either, I don't realy know.  Helpful, huh?

  • GOG.com and other retro communities would definitely bring in some quality people. They also create game-specific subforums, which would create an open promotion for Achaea if such a deal was successfully launched between GOG and IRE.
    (Party): Mizik says, "This can't possibly go wrong."
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