N’Gai Croal has loaned one of the most important chairs in games journalism to Bill Harris (from Dubious Quality) for a two part interview with Vic Davis, the man behind Armageddon Empires, one of my favorite games of 2007.
Part One is here.
Part Two is here.
Harris and Davis use site views and sales to track consumer interest, and it’s nice to see this sort of thing out in the open in a games analysis.
The story of Armageddon Empires is an interesting one. Part Two concludes with Harris’ dissection of AE as a viral success, spreading through word of mouth. There was little information about the game until he had something to show gamers, and avoided self-promotion while still being his own marketer.
Oh, and if you haven’t played it yet, what the hell are you waiting for?
Intersting article, with a many good points.
I think the “no forum” point is a bit overstated – I’m not convinced having a forum would have changed the outcome that much; it would still, I suspect, have been talked about on QT3 and other places with or without an official forum presence. Compare with Dominions.
Developer presence is the important factor there, I think. Cconsider the still unfinished Imperium; when people become interested on other forums that I participate in, they don’t go to the Imperium forums to ask questions; they ask the question (and expect an answer) on the forum they are on. An active dev generates much more discussion than an inactive one…
I suspect that the “game that people can talk about” part is the most important factor, though. The ability to create narrative is important to get people talking about a game (cf. the success of the otherwise very dissimilar GTA and EU series). AE certainly captured that narrative element with varied gameplay and a well thought out (and different) game world.
My 2 cents.