SEERIC'S PROFILE

This is a really good article and it definitely covers the essential DOs and DON'Ts of marketing a new game, though I would like to add my opinion on one aspect of marketing which I think a lot of people tend to underestimate - the importance of a game's title. While first impressions of a game in terms of screenshots, feature lists, videos, reviews, and so on are very important, it is likely that the very first way in which an audience will 'interact' with a game is via its title, either in a list alongside a picture or as a part of a larger forum post title advertising it; when a person is simply browsing through games or forum posts, a catchy title can really make the difference between if that person decides to read up more on the game or to simply glance over it as one in a list of hundreds/thousands.

There are really two things which I think can really make or break the success of a title. The first of these is the use of alliteration and/or assonance - this doesn't matter too much if the title is a single word, but it can be valuable with titles consisting of two or more words. Alliteration is catchy and more blatantly appealing while assonance tends to be a bit less obvious, but can give a title a certain 'ring' which may make people stop and take notice. More than a few famous game series have certainly taken advantage of alliteration, such as Final Fantasy, Mega Man, Ghosts & Goblins/Ghouls, Might & Magic, etc. As for assonance, Nintendo makes frequent use of this tool such as with the various 'eh' sounds in The Legend of Zelda, the 'ih' of Kid Icarus, and the 'oh' of Super Mario Bros. (never the 'uh' of 'brothers').

The other aspect of a good title which I would like to bring up is the important of keywords and this is definitely the trickier of the two as it's best to use words which hint at what your game is about without sounding overly generic or redundant (ex: Legend of the Legendary Heroes) while also giving your game a sense of uniqueness or exoticism without being completely incomprehensible (ex: Xexyz). Words such as 'Legend' 'Quest' or 'Adventure' are almost always great for RPG's as they imply travel and 'legend' especially is good for fantasy settings as it implies the past. Likewise, such words are best avoided if your game has a small scope (ex: it takes place in a single town) and 'legend' rarely works with modern or futuristic settings. Since the appearance of a familiar word in some part of the title will have given potential players an idea of what to expect as to the setting and/or scope of the game, another word should be where the 'hook' of the title lies, something to draw people in out of curiosity.

To reuse a more or less perfect example, 'The Legend of Zelda' first tells people that it is likely a fantasy setting with an epic scope through 'Legend' and then hooks people in with 'Zelda' as Zelda is a fairly uncommon, exotic-sounding name and people will become curious as to who this person is, what is so legendary about them, what role they play in the game, etc. Furthermore, common words can be combined into a single hybrid word or used together in an unfamiliar way to attract an audience (ex: Donkey Kong, StarTropic, Breath of Fire). Two great examples of RPG Maker games with good titles would be Artbane and Volrath's own Master of the Wind and last year's Star Stealing Prince; the former combines common keywords in a way which will make people curious (wind is an element, it likely implies magic, a master must be a person with control over the wind, but just what does it mean for one to be a 'master' of an element?) while the latter using alliteration between 'star stealing' and blends the common with the exotic ('prince' implies a fantasy setting, 'star' usually implies planetary travel or science fiction , but 'star stealing' raiss the questions of how and why someone would steal stars).

While word of mouth and good marketing can rapidly increase a game's popularity, I think it is worth it to spend at least a half hour, preferably longer, simply on coming up with a good title to help catch that initial audience.