New game demos and marketing

Another set of questions for the assembled game developers:

If you've invented a game, have you had any demo software produced for it?
If so, what software technology/platform did you use (e.g. Flash, Windows SDK, Javascript)?
How many people have seen and/or played your demo software?
Has your demo software been a worthwhile marketing expense?
Assuming you didn't build it yourself and instead hired a consultant, roughly what were your software costs?

Although gaming software does have its purpose, I look at all my expense from cost/reward point of view. If explainig the game can be done with a live play taped and shown, this makes more sense then having a demo software.

Same goes for G2E. With the renting of the booth, travel, graphics, brochure etc.... it cost about 15k for the three days. What I got out of this was less then 1 casino manager/director per thousand dollar i spent. Not worth doing twice.

I voted other. I can in no way afford any demo for my three games that need a digital platform. I am able to demonstrate
them with physical cards representing a digital display LOL
My other game is a SD BJ version. Have made a few contact thru this forum and hope to go to Vegas in near future and
pitch my ideas. Definitely a miss or hit situation. While my idea conform to gaming regulations, the concepts are so very
radical. Not posting the digital versions here, because if I have anything it will open new avenues for competition.
Have shared BJ game with a few here. I can post concept of that if you want to see how far out in left field I am.

Can't get it in front of enough people, there for is worthwhile.

Quote: AceCrAAckers

Although gaming software does have its purpose, I look at all my expense from cost/reward point of view. If explainig the game can be done with a live play taped and shown, this makes more sense then having a demo software.

Same goes for G2E. With the renting of the booth, travel, graphics, brochure etc.... it cost about 15k for the three days. What I got out of this was less then 1 casino manager/director per thousand dollar i spent. Not worth doing twice.

I remember your booth -- did you really get less than 15 casino managers to come by in 3 days? If so, that's a shocking indictment of G2E's effectiveness (that is, lack thereof)...

Is the bigger question one of getting your game in front of a decision maker ??

Quote: buzzpaff

Is the bigger question one of getting your game in front of a decision maker ??

Yes, the bigger question is getting your game in front of a decision maker.

A simple solution but by no means easily achieved !

Quote: MathExtremist

I remember your booth -- did you really get less than 15 casino managers to come by in 3 days? If so, that's a shocking indictment of G2E's effectiveness (that is, lack thereof)...

I will give the breakdown as I saw it last year. The very first person to stop by the booth was the Wizard. Next, many developers stopped by over the course of three days. I was hoping to meet some casino managers and possibly do a follow up but they were not to be found. Wound up with less than 10 business cards from casinos.

Given that we were new, the people at G2E assigned us the very last row of the convention. Since Galaxy was nearby, I didn't think much about the locations. Galaxy did not get much foot traffic either. Casino VP/managers/directors don't go to all booths nor do they seek out game developing companies. If they get a free pass to go to Vegas for a week, they will stop by G2E and see the big slot manufacturers and then enjoy themselves in Vegas on the company dime.

As I have said, cost/reward was not worth it. I heard that there were 15-20 independent game developers about 10 years ago at G2E. last year it was about 2.

Side note, if you all are going to be at G2E this year, we should all meet up at least once. Would love to hang around with everyone. Anyone wants to start a thread so we could set up a time and place.

Quote: AceCrAAckers

Side note, if you all are going to be at G2E this year, we should all meet up at least once. Would love to hang around with everyone. Anyone wants to start a thread so we could set up a time and place.

I think you need to clean your glasses. There are already at least two:

https://wizardofvegas.com/forum/off-topic/off-topic/6006-wovcon-g2e/
https://wizardofvegas.com/forum/gaming-business/game-inventors/5571-g2e-2011/

Quote: MrCasinoGames

Yes, the bigger question is getting your game in front of a decision maker.

Really two things:
1. Getting it in front of a decision-making, AND
2. Impressing the crap out of him - so that he buys.

Most decision makers see a lot of games, - and select VERY few. Waste his time and your name goes bad in the industry.

If you have a distributor who has a site - or if have your own site,
just set up a few areas:
1. A computer demo;
2. Documentation.
3. A video.

Quote: Paigowdan

Really two things:
1. Getting it in front of a decision-making, AND
2. Impressing the crap out of him - so that he buys.

Most decision makers see a lot of games, - and select VERY few. Waste his time and your name goes bad in the industry.

If you have a distributor who has a site - or if have your own site,
just set up a few areas:
1. A computer demo;
2. Documentation.
3. A video.

Of course the need to impress was implied. 1,2, &3 are easier said than done.

Quote: buzzpaff

l. Not posting the digital versions here, because if I have anything it will open new avenues for competition. Have shared BJ game with a few here. I can post concept of that if you want to see how far out in left field I am.

Buzz,
This is like saying,
I am not releasing the game or will try to get it out, - and so I am keeping it a secret - because someone will copy it.
This is very similar to saying, "I have to turn down any chance at success, because it will put me into someone's cross-hairs."

If you patent it and then have a public disclosure, you've actually proven your ownership of the product, - and as of when.

Time is money in getting a game out. Moving very fast it still takes years if it has any chance at all.
Any minor delay is lost opportunity and a minor surrender, - and any major delay might be to surrender it totally.

My approach:
1. Solid patent with a pro lawyer.
2. Far reaching disclosure, to prove "it was enabled and established" by the time some copy cat comes along.

How else can you prove that it was infringed unless someone else copied it from you after you made a patent and a public disclosure?

Quote: buzzpaff

Quote: Paigowdan

Really two things:
1. Getting it in front of a decision-making, AND
2. Impressing the crap out of him - so that he buys.

Most decision makers see a lot of games, - and select VERY few. Waste his time and your name goes bad in the industry.

If you have a distributor who has a site - or if have your own site,
just set up a few areas:
1. A computer demo;
2. Documentation.
3. A video.

Of course the need to impress was implied. 1,2, &3 are easier said than done.

True - but they still have to get done, easy or not. Writing up documentation and making a training video requires a word processor, a camcorder, and some wherewithall.
Good faith effort may succeed or it may fail, but if no real effort was really done to get it out - then it never gets out there into the world.

My approach:
1. Solid patent with a pro lawyer.
2. Far reaching disclosure, to prove "it was enabled and established" by the time some copy cat comes along.

If only that were possible ! Actually gave Roger Snow's lawyer a $1,000 two years ago. Just before world crashed. Wife's diabetes went to stage 2, she lost her job, and Schizo-effective adult daughter started hearing voices again.
Believe it or not ,when I told lawyer to stop where he was and send me a bill for work he had already done, knowing it was over $1,000 already, instead he sent me a $500 refund. Since you know Roger, you know his lawyers name, you can readily verify or PM and I will send lawyer's email.

That being said, I am back on feet, Social Security and part time job. Back in school after 55 year absence and taking writing course,
To try and develop a cohesive brochure. Doing pro se provisional patents. Fairly sure I can get an audience with a small decision maker and also 2 of the biggest. Only after that will I disclose my unusual approach to digital games. ME just told me " patience" All I can do Dan is repeat his advice.

Plenty of guys here with games out who can help advise, - knowing very well that "Life gets in the way of Life..." I have made it that it is Gaming life that gets in the way of other life, unless wifey gets noisy....actually kept me hopeful and distracted. I had health problems up the Kazoo for a while too. Diabetes, Heart condition, benign tumor/Interferon, etc. Worked through it all, it actually focused me and gave me a raison d'etre.

Some little projects to consider.
1. Look at DJTeddyBear's pitch brochure at this site, a few pages. Describes the game and sells it.
2. If you're sharp, then self-submitting the provisional patent after a thorough search of similar potential patents is very doable, especially if you have a lawyer guide you at low expense. A few hundred dollars plus a $110 filing fee. And You'll have a year to get a distributor singup (if worthy), or you can abandon it if it turns out to be not worth it; you'll know this nine months out, when you decide to "Yeah-or-Nay" the non-provisional. At least you'll feel satisfied to have tried, and with no "If ONLY I had looked into it!" to ever haunt you.
3. I have recommended projects (after examining them and saying, "Wow, that's brilliant...") to all various distributors. Two very interesting poker variants signed, one new Pai Gow variant signed (mine), One BJ, and I'm trying to get a very fine dice side bet looked at in LV here. ONE Local guy who works for a distributor "SJ"- (a very close friend of mine) I recommend contacting. IF IT IS GOOD, doors will open, at least for a fair pitch session. If it is "doggy," you may go back to the drawing board for one round.

Minimum that you need - as provided by your projects:
1. A Provisional patent that was cleared, cleaned up, and submitted by a Gaming Patent Attorney (Roger's guy, or "RN," or "JM"); You sketched it out at least.
2. A Brochure, if not a product description guide. (what? Six-Ten pages: overview, market, dealing procedure, basic math, layout image, and execptional case Q & A)
3. Basic Math Report.
4. A Powerpoint presentation, unless you can pitch it really well yourself. You do not have to be the "Shamu" guy, or Billy Mays, or Don Lepree.
Fourty Hours is two weeks part time, plus $500 or so.
When ready, meet with "SJ" when in Vegas. If you get bites, then go forward. If you don't, you've tried in good faith, it was all worth it, and there is no "If I had only asked her out" kind of thing...

Was just listing that circumstances have caused my delay, not a lack of faith in my radical ideas.
I consider myself a very rich man. Great health, beautiful wife, 3 kids , 9 grandkids. Just don't have
much money LOL
Thought about posting 3 of my radical ideas on here, but might lose what little respect I have on this
forum. Just the intended results, not the how to. Hope I am sharp enough to file my own patent.
Only 11 years of schooling, had to take GED to get into college. Aced the reading portion and had
highest overall score for Western Colorado. Evidently the Catholic Nuns and Xaverian Brothers beat
some knowledge into my thick skull But, well Grand Junction is a one horse town. That's what
I said when moving here 3 years ago. I have since apologized, TO THE HORSE !!!

Quote: Paigowdan

1. Look at DJTeddyBear's pitch brochure at this site, a few pages. Describes the game and sells it.

For what it's worth, I recently discovered an error in my calculations. The pay tables currently listed on the website provide a much lower house edge than specified, and in some cases, a negative edge.

I've been working on it, came up with solutions, and have been fixing the website to match. Those changes are being uploaded tonight. At the same time, I'm making the info a little simpler to understand. But the basic design will remain unchanged.

Also, I've designed a second PDF, and both will be linked.

However, because Dan suggests you take a look for design purposes, here they are:
Tri-Fold Brochure. This is just a basic description, designed to give a casino or game distributor an introduction.
Rules Card. This is designed as a rule card for the table, and/or a take-away for players. The pay table on this will be changing before it's made public on my site. It currently has digital Post-It notes attached, notes meant for casinos and game distributor.

Note that in one of my other lives, I do advertising design and simple website development. Everything you see, I did myself.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

For what it's worth, I recently discovered an error in my calculations. The pay tables currently listed on the website provide a much lower house edge than specified, and in some cases, a negative edge.

I've been working on it, came up with solutions, and have been fixing the website to match. Those changes are being uploaded tonight. At the same time, I'm making the info a little simpler to understand. But the basic design will remain unchanged.

Also, I've designed a second PDF, and both will be linked.

However, because Dan suggests you take a look for design purposes, here they are:
Tri-Fold Brochure. This is just a basic description, designed to give a casino or game distributor an introduction.
Rules Card. This is designed as a rule card for the table, and/or a take-away for players. The pay table on this will be changing before it's made public on my site. It currently has digital Post-It notes attached, notes meant for casinos and game distributor.

Note that in one of my other lives, I do advertising design and simple website development. Everything you see, I did myself.

Nice design.

Each combination of all Red, Black, Odd, Even, High, Low . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Each combination of all One Column, One Dozen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Took me a minute or two to figure theses out. Not really poker hands Might game be made simpler without them.
Just asking, not criticizing !

0 and 00 are wild when completing a Straight, or a Four- or Five-of-a-Kind.

What would a pay table look like if the above were eliminated and zero's were truly wild ?

With 1 to 1 for a pair or a set ?

I mean the game is poker for Roulette !

This is not exactly poker******* Each combination of all Red, Black, Odd, Even, High, Low . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Each combination of all One Column, One Dozen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Just a suggestion among the lines of KISS

Quote: buzzpaff

....Fairly sure I can get an audience with a small decision maker and also 2 of the biggest. Only after that will I disclose my unusual approach to digital games. ME just told me " patience" All I can do Dan is repeat his advice.

Here patience doesn't mean doing some things and hoping and waiting they pan out.
In getting a game out, it means doing every possible that can be done, and hoping something (a sign up) will pan up.

Chnace of ignition is remote, so one "poke" out of 1,000 done may ignite your product, and where one poke out of 500 would not.

Full product work/patent/documentation done 100%..
Networking.
Going to shows: G2E, Raving...
Meeting with Distributors...
Meeting with DTGs....

Odds are poor, huge uphill batlle with everything done, some great fanfare, and everyone knows the product.
Odds are essentially nil with not everything done, and not everyone knowing.

Getting a game out is like writing a movie script that will actually become a wide-released movie.
Quentin Tarantino, Sylvester Stallone with his 1976 film Rocky

Buzz -

I put a reply to your comments in the Poker For Roulette thread.


I hadn't noticed the poll before. My answers were, no, cost and other.

I think it would be counter-productive to create a playable demo, for ANY side bet.

On the flip side, I do have aspirations of creating a demo video, probably animated rather than live. But even if it's live, the roulette results would be "rigged" to highlight the actions and payouts of my side-bet. I.E. The video will feature the side-bet, and more-or-less gloss over the main bet and actions.

I voted "no" and "cost".

I don't have a demo, but have thought many times that I should have spent the $$ to get it done. Ended up getting a trial before I moved forward with demo creation. There were times during the trial that it would have been good to have a demo that players could have tried online before risking real $$ learning the game. That would mean more players & larger drop which can only help a trial's success.

My trial has ended and the reality is my game needs some tweaking before attempting to get another one. I have the math figured out on two revisions that are big improvments over the initial concept. May look at getting demo's done for these new versions.

It is easier to get a game in front of a DTG with an invitation to check out the demo online than it is to get a demo appointment with them. They are busy folks and if they can look at a game from the comfort/convenience of their office as opposed to scheduling a sales call, I think they are more likely to look at your game.

ME, how have your demo's worked out? I learned your Twist'em game by playing it on your site and I don't think I would have easily figured it out regardless of the quality of literature. Playing it was just easier and I picked it up quickly. Are you getting any responses from prospects when they try the games online?

The problem with dominoes is that they're so utterly foreign to everyone that I basically need a demo or nobody will understand what I'm talking about. I've had several instances of very positive feedback on the Twist'em demo, but not from decision makers in a position to put in a dominoes game.

One of my demos has recently generated an unsolicited request to license the underlying IP. That was the premise for the original question.

That is a nice development on the licensing front.

I understand the dilemna with dominoes. However, the game is a nice combination of pai gow & baccarat so the player's can draw on the concept of setting a high & low hand and the baccarat counting system.

Dominoes is a big hurdle, but those are two games that are screaming for new variants as their popularity continues to rise.

For what it is worth, I think Twist'em is a concept that will get on the floor if it hasn't already.

Anybody got an idea of how must it would cost for a BJ demo. Simply adding 2 jackpot payoffs ? BJ pays even. SD / dealer stands on soft 17, DAS DD any total or number of cards. Just a ballpark number !

No programmers awake ??

Quote: buzzpaff

Anybody got an idea of how must it would cost for a BJ demo. Simply adding 2 jackpot payoffs ? BJ pays even. SD / dealer stands on soft 17, DAS DD any total or number of cards. Just a ballpark number !

An educated guess would be around $1,000-$2,500 depending on quality wanted.

I am new to game designing. I am in the finishing stages of getting my first provisional patent on a game and now I need a bit of coaching to get my game seen.

I’ve read this thread and my biggest questions are:

1. Are game demos effective marketing tools? Has anyone here had success based on his or her demo?
2. Is face-to-face marketing an option, or are game distributors too busy to entertain such techniques?
3. Why would you want casino managers to see a new game unless you were a manufacturer? Wouldn’t it be more prudent to market a new game to a game distributor?

My provisional patent is still in the works (hopefully will be filed by week’s end). It is a new dice game. I would like to discuss the specifics of the game on this site when the patent is filed to see if any of you design pros have any ides for game improvement or marketing targets.

By the way, I want to thank this forum and all of you who recommended to me my patent attorney, Richard Newman. He has been great to work with and very patient with a total novice such as myself.

In 1961 dice tables provided more revenue for Las Vegas casinos than all other table games and slots combined.
I doubt it is more than 2% now. Quite a change in 50 years. Good luck with your dice game, Hopefully less
intimidating to new players than craps.

Thank you for your reply Buzz.

Craps was the inspiration for my design. After learning craps I was mystified why the game still existed:
1. It is intimidating to new players.
2. Difficult to teach new dealers with long training courses.
3. Big payroll; four dealers for only sixteen players.
4. Long time between payouts so low return for casinos.
5. Poor odds for the casino on the ‘odds’ bets.
6. Seems to be unpopular with Asian players.

However, craps has some qualities that could explain its continued survival:
1. Party atmosphere with everyone focused on the same action.
2. Cheap and easy to use non-electronic, random number generator (i.e. dice).
3. Players thrill to the anticipation of the resolution, much like roulette.

I have tried to keep the good qualities and lose the all the negatives. The only similarity my game has to craps is that it uses dice, has a table, and everyone’s bets are dependent upon the outcome of the same event.

Duck your head, NOW, Here come the craps players with a noose.

VonVester -

Whether you believe in dice setting / controlled shooting or not, or even if you have no idea what that means, one of the biggest appeals of craps is shooting the dice. I.E. Having some control, or at least a facade of control, over your own destiny. I hope your game has players shooting.

No Asian players? They're all at Asian Craps - Sic Bo.

Good point DJTeddyBear. The game may be played with players shooting, but it will have to be from a cup. The game shoots, in its current form, five six-sided dice, which would be too much of a game security issue if the player were to shoot from his or her palm.

Buzz: The lynch mob of craps players would all be WWII and Korean War vets. I think I can out run most of them, though they are crafty and might corner me by the penny slots.

I hope it's poker-based rather than points-based. You probably don't want people adding up the numeric totals of five dice or the game will be too slow. On the other hand, there are lots of Yahtzee-style games out there...

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Whether you believe in dice setting / controlled shooting or not, or even if you have no idea what that means, one of the biggest appeals of craps is shooting the dice. I.E. Having some control, or at least a facade of control, over your own destiny. I hope your game has players shooting.

In case anybody misunderstood, when I said "you", I meant the collective 'you' of craps players.

This just in from the urban dictionary :
rollin' bones 17 up, 1 down

or "roll them bones"
1. To cast dice.
2. To play craps.
"Girl can't buy no huggies cause' her baby-daddy been rollin' bones"

also

"It's time to shut the fuck up and roll them bones, I want to whip that cave troll's ass!"