Target Audience
We expect the typical audiences for the game to be described as males aged between 16-25 and from an educated background, although we still strive to market to female audiences. Therefore, a lot of our target audience is centred around students, both in late high school years and the majority of university students. We intend on having outreach to young people who enjoy aspects of history, art and fictional stories (in the form of story-based games, books etc.).
Name: Mark
Gender: Male Age: 17 years old Employment: Part-time job at local café Personal Income: £80 per week Education: Beginning his final year of A-Levels in high school. Studies History, Literature and Economics. Relationship Status: In a relationship
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Name: Jane
Gender: Female Age: 21 years old Employment: Full-time Student Personal Income: N/A Education: Currently a university student studying for a bachelor’s degree in Animation and Illustration. Relationship Status: Single
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Customer Traits
Determined
Adventurous
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Dedicated
Loyal
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Ambitious
IT Literate
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Customer Channels
Taking into account the nature of our target audience, we believe the best way to reach them with our product would be through student internet forums, fantasy game forums, social media, online storefronts, and our host website (Humble Bundle). The ideal time time to be promoting our product on game-related platforms would be during the evening and night, approximately between 6 pm and 3 am, and promoting our product on student-related platforms would be during the afternoon and evening, approximately between 1 pm and 8 pm. We would put £1'500 towards advertising costs.*
Examples of possible platforms:
The Student Room
Facebook
Discord
Twitch
* Subject to change with development
Examples of possible platforms:
The Student Room
Discord
Twitch
* Subject to change with development
Competition
Oceanhorn: Monster of the Uncharted Seas / Oceanhorn 2: Knights of the lost Realm
Oceanhorn is a set of games released by the independent studio Cornfox & Brothers. This development team strives to deliver memorable, story-driven experiences. As our team also strives to “Originate Narrative Experiences”, we believe that Oceanhorn is a suitable main competitor for The Cure. The development team has also remained relatively similar in scale to our development team as it is comprised of 5 developers, 1 writer and 1 artist. The story of the original Oceanhorn game (released in November 2013) revolves around a hero’s quest; The player is required to venture out and sail through islands in an open world environment and explore them. Doing so unlocks previously inaccessible islands and content. The Cure also revolves around a hero’s quest to solve a loved one and requires sailing from island to island and exploration to find information. Oceanhorn 2 was recently released in September 2019 on Steam and Humble Bundle and therefore we can actively compete with any potential customers it may have.
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PEGI 7
£10.99 on steam (Cornfox & Bros, 2019) |
Moonlighter
PEGI 7
Approx. £15 on Humble Bundle (Digital Sun, 2018) |
Moonlighter is an RPG indie game developed by another independent studio named Digital Sun. The game was developed by only two people and therefore is a more suitable competitor in relation to our team’s size. The game is available and quite popular on our main platform, Humble Bundle and was released during May 2018. Although this game is not like our game graphical-wise, it is still a competitor due to the nature of the protagonist aspiring to be a hero throughout the game’s story. There is also an element of similarity between The Cure’s concept and Moonlighter’s concept as both games present the importance of time. In Moonlighter, the player can only explore during night-time and this exploration is needed in order to progress throughout the game’s story. Both games have a sense of realism in this sense.
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Hyper Light Drifter
Hyper Light Drifter is an indie RPG which involves a significant amount of action and adventure. The game was developed by Abylight Studios. Their key staff has 8 members, meaning this is a viable competitor for us due to a relatively small team size.
Hyper Light Drifter has an atmosphere which is unique in comparison to other games on the market. We strive to create an atmosphere which is not like the one seen in Hyper Light Drifter, but one which holds a similar amount of uniqueness. It is a suitable competitor as we will be competing for audiences which are of the artistic type and play games mainly due to the art style/graphics. The story of Hyper Light Drifter follows the story of a protagonist who is venturing out to find a cure for his own illness, similarly to the concept of The Cure. Whilst travelling through “The Lands of Time”, the character is faced with many obstacles (enemies) which he must fight with his sword; in our game the player will be required to face combat during random parts of the game with either Malum’s men or other enemies. |
PEGI 12
Approx. £9 on steam (Heart Machine, 2016) |
Marketing Environment
It is to be expected that the game will be released in November 2020. Although we cannot be 100% certain on the environment that the game will be released in at this given time, we can expect to be majorly competing with the following upcoming indie games:
The aesthetics of all these games is generally comprised of a child-like, hand-drawn art style. Although the unique art styles are not a direct parallel of the unique art style of 'The Cure', they could be potential future competitors upon release as it could attract the artsy type of audience. 'Wayward Strand' (Ghost Pattern, 2020) also seems to revolve around dialogue choices, as it is an interactive story, to learn information for progression, which is the main mechanic of 'The Cure'. Most of these games also fall into the categories of action-adventure driven games. Both 'The Pathless' (Giant Squid, 2019) and 'Sable' (Shedworks, 2019) are also open-world games, so this type of audience will also be attracted to our game concept.
Aside from this, the indie games which are predicted to be released around our release time frame are puzzle games. Although 'The Cure' is not specifically a puzzle game, there are some elements in which would appeal to this market, and therefore this can be marketed to people who play these types of games. For example, the player must work out the correct dialogue/information to provide in order to succeed in gaining collectables. However, these games are not direct competitors to 'The Cure'.
There are also several external factors which could indirectly affect the release of our game that does not necessarily have anything to do with the game development industry. One of which is the occurrence of Brexit. As we are intending to market to students, which are majorly English speakers, Brexit could lead to our customers wanting to be careful with money, due to the uncertainties which commonly come along with events/changes like these.
Due to all of the factors which create the environment in which 'The Cure' is released in, we will need to keep up to date on the marketing strategy we follow. This will include increases/decreases in price, with the assumption that it will be sold at a cheap enough price, without underpaying the development team; making marketing/advertising adjustments to fit into different specific game genres and our advertising channels; being wary of how well our competitors are doing sales-wise and how they are marketing their game. To track steam sales of our competitors, there are several online tools which can be used such as https://steamdb.info/sales/.
Aside from this, the indie games which are predicted to be released around our release time frame are puzzle games. Although 'The Cure' is not specifically a puzzle game, there are some elements in which would appeal to this market, and therefore this can be marketed to people who play these types of games. For example, the player must work out the correct dialogue/information to provide in order to succeed in gaining collectables. However, these games are not direct competitors to 'The Cure'.
There are also several external factors which could indirectly affect the release of our game that does not necessarily have anything to do with the game development industry. One of which is the occurrence of Brexit. As we are intending to market to students, which are majorly English speakers, Brexit could lead to our customers wanting to be careful with money, due to the uncertainties which commonly come along with events/changes like these.
Due to all of the factors which create the environment in which 'The Cure' is released in, we will need to keep up to date on the marketing strategy we follow. This will include increases/decreases in price, with the assumption that it will be sold at a cheap enough price, without underpaying the development team; making marketing/advertising adjustments to fit into different specific game genres and our advertising channels; being wary of how well our competitors are doing sales-wise and how they are marketing their game. To track steam sales of our competitors, there are several online tools which can be used such as https://steamdb.info/sales/.