A little disappointed with the . . . . .

[TattooedMac]

. . . . . . amount of member that are playing the game, and those that are active in the forums.

According to Steam, and the Global LeaderBoard there are at least 200 players playing the game, but we have less than 10% of that regular in the forum. These people would of been the Backers on KS, and personally thought there would would be more people telling us how it is.

We had a bigger following in the original Vanilla Hinterland home, so please people, come-on in and tell us what you think of the game. Good or bad, I'm sure Raph can take it, as he has punished us with his "Tuning" throughout the Pre-Alpha (we couldn't get past 5 days in the very first .v) and now the Alpha.

Im hoping that people with the EA Steam Access come here and Bug Report and chat, than the Steam Forums. @BillTarling spent a lot of time getting these forums up and go, so lets see some movement in here and spread the news.

Steam ~ Steam Early Access

Facebook ~ Hinterland Games Facebook

Twitter ~ Hinterland Games Twitter

[Axios]

I have over 7 games in early access state on Steam. (Kerbal Space Program, Space Enginners, Door Kickers, The Forest, Airmech, State of Decay and Don't Starve and his dlc (now State of Decay and Don't Starve are out of early access)). And I report costantly bugs, glitch and provide suggestions.

I'll make the same with The Long Dark. My only regret is, like I said in my intro post, that I discovered the game too late for kickstarter / paypay funding.

[Mycroft Canada NS]

I'll make the same with The Long Dark. My only regret is, like I said in my intro post, that I discovered the game too late for kickstarter / paypay funding.

That is where the developmental team may have taken their first misstep (My personal opinion only) . Allowing for people to buy in after would have opened the game to a much larger audience.

Developers have to understand that there are two primary purchasers, those who provide the kickstarter funding, and those who do not support kickstarter but who will buy in to a early access closed edition (those given the backer or tester status after the fact), and they are the ones you want into your fold so to speak. They are the one's who take part in almost every conceivable form of public media either it be YT, Twitter no matter the forum, they will make sure the word gets out.

I'll give you an example...

The folks who have created Grim Dawn started out the same way Hinterland is now doing, keeping the Early Alpha Steam released closed, and only open for the backers so they can fine tune the core of the game.

They (Crate Entertainment) began to realize that they were not getting the game out to those that really mattered so they allowed people to gain access to the closed EA edition by allowing them to purchase any edition which was above the Steam Early Access (beta release). Once they did that, their forums began to grow, feed back, and excitement began to build, and now they are gaining more, and more support. They just recently released the beta version, and allowed it to be purchased via steam.

I know there is only one week left, but I think it's too late for anything to be done. This forum is suffering, and the Steam forum I HOPE will get people on board, if not, then we might be see this game cruise under the radar, and be missed, and considered one of the best survival games of 2014, but no one ever hearing about it.

Of course this is my own opinion, and it really doesn't matter since I have already purchased the game.

I do plan of streaming the game live for about twelve hours hoping to pull in as many as I can. I do know however, even though I am a small broadcaster, that whatever I do touch, I do drum up business, and word of mouth is everything in this industry, and blind folding those who do the best good are normally the people who are kept out on the sidelines.

Final: I intend to do the best I can for Hinterland. It's unfortunate it has come to this, but you still have one week left which could be utilized. One week can make a difference.

Final #2: I know companies think that it's a privilege for people to be able to buy their product, but I don't think that way, no matter the company large or small have to come to realize that it's a privilege for them that we pay attention, and purchase their product, and without the people taking interest, all that is left is a room full of coders, level designers, and a game which could end up being a good door stopper.

Final #3: This is my personal opinion, and it's not meant to cause any harm whatsoever.

[ImmortalPhoenix]

It's partly the fault of the PR department.

Whoever the marketing director is needs to take a lesson and establish a few things:

1. You need to get streamers involved and people streaming the game everyday on Twitch.tv

2. You want to make and promote a sub reddit

3. You need to actively recruit lets players on youtube, to make videos on the game.

4. You need to stay active on twitter, and do contests for early entry into the game 1 week before release.

In essence you have to build and keep the hype up. Whoever is doing marketing needs to push it into overdrive!

Good luck, I'm with you guys all the way!

[Mycroft Canada NS]

It's partly the fault of the PR department.

Whoever the marketing director is needs to take a lesson and establish a few things:

1. You need to get streamers involved and people streaming the game everyday on Twitch.tv

2. You want to make and promote a sub reddit

3. You need to actively recruit lets players on youtube, to make videos on the game.

4. You need to stay active on twitter, and do contests for early entry into the game 1 week before release.

In essence you have to build and keep the hype up. Whoever is doing marketing needs to push it into overdrive!

Good luck, I'm with you guys all the way!

I'm in agreement.

If they would release it to a select few who can start mustering up support this remaining week will only do them good, It will not hinder them.

One week left, and there is no reason to not take advantage of those who are willing to help get things moving along. If they are concerned that they may get some backlash from kickstarter backers for doing this then where are they (KS backers)? The forum is moving at a snails pace, the Steam forum even though has just begun is still slow, so where are the Backers?

@Hinterland, you have one week left, use it.

[marin]

All of the top 20 gaming personalities of twitch and youtube should have been contacted with a free key by now. If that hasn't happened then I'm not sure why.

A good amount of youtubers already played the game but none of them are the "big boys" so to say. Even if they don't play the game and help promote the steam release, I'm quite sure that as soon as it hits the steam top sellers page(which I strongly believe it will), everyone will notice it and videos will start coming out like crazy.

The forums are slow thats true but you can't really force people to write stuff can you?

All of the biggest gaming news sites are paying close attention to the game and really there is no way that it won't get the attention it deserves when it launches. Besides its just the steam early access. Full release will be crazy.

[Mafti]

Not sure, but imho it's typical internet.

a huge amount just enjoys the game.

a large amount reads the forums.

a small amount gives feedback and enjoys it.

a tiny amount will shout and uproar when something is wrong.

[Mycroft Canada NS]

All of the top 20 gaming personalities of twitch and youtube should have been contacted with a free key by now. If that hasn't happened then I'm not sure why.

A good amount of youtubers already played the game but none of them are the "big boys" so to say. Even if they don't play the game and help promote the steam release, I'm quite sure that as soon as it hits the steam top sellers page(which I strongly believe it will), everyone will notice it and videos will start coming out like crazy.

The forums are slow thats true but you can't really force people to write stuff can you?

All of the biggest gaming news sites are paying close attention to the game and really there is no way that it won't get the attention it deserves when it launches. Besides its just the steam early access. Full release will be crazy.

I agree too some extent (far as "big boys"), but to think that on release day will have a big bang effect when very few know about it is going to be a magically delicious moment is very optimistic. Out of site out of mind I always say, and from the looks of things (for the moment) it appears to be out of sight.

I hope you are right about the final making a much more of a splash than the Steam EA release. Personally I hope both will exceed your wildest expectations.

As far as Steams top sellers page first needs to be seen, and known about which is why getting the game into as many hands this week of those who stream, and post regularly on their YT channels is very important no matter how large they are.

As close to the release is, having a few people start streaming, and building the YT video database will help makes sure that EA release is a splash.

I know for myself I can stream out a very large of number of hours this week, and post whopping amounts of video's too my channel.

Of course I can only speak for myself, and even though I do a have relatively small , and insignificant YT channel (1900+ members), if I can get the game they never knew about into their minds, and get them excited then I have done my job since they will know ten friends, and they may know ten friends, and it can snowball from there.

Anyway, take care, and I wish you all the success.

[TattooedMac]

My point wasn't who or hasn't got the game, my point was that the 200 that have and have played it, don't seem to want to contribute to the forums. I couldn't care less about the top 20 Twitch Streamers or anyone on YouTube, because I know the PR has been out there and the game has had its fair share, its those other 90% not giving their voice to the dev to say if this is bad, or change that or do this. The more people that communicate in the forums, the better the game is, and thats already been proved since we started this back in June/July

Oh and come Release day for the full Story mode game, there is over 7000 people on Kickstarter and PayPal that will be ready to play, so to me that in itself is a pretty big release, for a game born out of a dream, and built via KS

[Raphael van Lierop]

All your comments/criticisms have been heard by the Marketing Department (me).

We've given out about 100 key to YTers and Twitch Streamers. At least a dozen of them have 400k subs and more. Mostly, for people with bigger audiences than that, if they don't elect to play the game on their own, they want you to *pay* them to "preview it" and I refuse to do that.

We had Lirik stream the game on Sunday and we were the 7th most watched game on Twitch that day. Since then we have about a dozen others hooked up with keys who are streaming this week. The game shows well and the growth has been organic.

We've reached out to many big YTers with large communities but mainly we're looking for quality. Our metrics show that a smaller audience that is way more engaged with survival games, or is a bit more of a "mature" audience translates to way more pre-orders/wishlists/buzz/etc. than a huge community that just doesn't have quite the correct profile. Case in point -- Scott Manley (250k subs) did a video that translated to a huge spike in pre-orders for us. Paul Soares (1M subs) did a video that translated to a nice spike in pre-orders. (It's not about the pre-orders, but that is one metric we can easily track). Both Scott and Paul put out great content, so the conversion was purely about their audience profiles. It's never about just the numbers.

Besides all the YT activity (all told we are well into the millions of views now across the 50+ videos that have been done in the last several weeks), we have been covered by ALL the major gaming press for the past year, including Game Informer, PC Gamer, Joystiq, RPS, Kill Sceen, Eurogamer, Escapist, Gamespot, Giant Bomb, etc. etc. The list is endless. If you haven't noticed that, you haven't been paying attention.

So, the "marketing department" is pretty happy with the outreach and response so far. Could it be better? Sure. Feel free to step up and help by spreading the word. But most of the great insights you are sharing -- they are things we've been doing for a while now.

I've been making games for over 13 years now and most of the team at Hinterland have 10-15 years experience. This isn't our first time around the block. I've also been involved with marketing and PR on several multi-million dollar game productions with multi-million dollar marketing budgets.

In terms of our "mis-step" by not opening up the Alpha to people after we closed down our crowdfunding campaigns. You think we don't know that we could have continued selling the game to other people? You don't think we have HUNDREDS of people ask to buy the game, offering us all kinds of money to give them immediate access? Yes, we did. Why didn't we take their money? Because this has never been about the money. How would it have been fair to our KS/PP backers to let someone else jump in line just because they were ready to pay more? That's not what we're about.

So, thanks for your advice and for all the doom sayers who think they know better -- I look forward to seeing you on Day 1. And when you have shipped a game or created something and launched it, you can come here and give me advice. Until then, help spread the word or STFU.

[marin]

I'd kiss you for that last paragraph. I'm sure in the Top 10 Sellers page appearance and I hope it can compete with the big titles that are coming out soon. If it wrecks Shadow of Mordor, that will be fantastic.

[Harold Palmer]

Just a note to the Maketing "team". I watched RhinoCrunch's video today all 55 min. of it, and that is why I bought the game. So you are getting some business from the youtube crowd.

P.S. I love the way the game looks, kind of like a very good watercolor painting.

[Raphael van Lierop]

Thanks, Harold! That's exactly the description we've been hoping for.

[Axios]

----- help spread the word ------.

I do not have a Youtube channel but I'm a user of one of the most viewed / active forums in Italy (Over 2.299.755 threads, over 40.922.801 posts and 484.531 users).

I opened a thread about TLD and since 17-07-2014 it was viewed 3038 times.

http://www.hwupgrade.it/forum/showthread.php?t=2602325

and I talked about TLD to all my friends in real life / forums / Steam

[Raphael van Lierop]

That's really wonderful. Thanks for sharing that with the community!

[Axios]

That's really wonderful. Thanks for sharing that with the community!

Thanks for have created this game!

Can't wait the 22nd September. In Italy it will be released on 19:00. Just in time for playing it before dinner time. And playing again after dinner!

[Raphael van Lierop]

That's really wonderful. Thanks for sharing that with the community!

Thanks for have created this game!

Can't wait the 22nd September. In Italy it will be released on 19:00. Just in time for playing it before dinner time. And playing again after dinner!

Just as we planned it.

And in honour of our Italian fans, I'll eat spaghetti. For breakfast.

[Bill Tarling]

And in honour of our Italian fans, I'll eat spaghetti. For breakfast.

With some good Canadian maple Syrup on top as well, right?

[Raphael van Lierop]

You know it.

[Axios]

That's really wonderful. Thanks for sharing that with the community!

Thanks for have created this game!

Can't wait the 22nd September. In Italy it will be released on 19:00. Just in time for playing it before dinner time. And playing again after dinner!

Just as we planned it.

And in honour of our Italian fans, I'll eat spaghetti. For breakfast.

Have a good breakfast!

[robdoar]

It always amuses me to see people with little information, and little experience give their "expert" opinions.

I especially liked how many of their suggestions for the marketing department had already been done.

Oh, and Raph's reply... FTW.

[Raphael van Lierop]

People generally mean well, but often have a clumsy way of showing it. It's also easy to assume that a "small independent game developer" launching their first (Alpha) title may not know what they are doing.

[astrea_anerada]

May I add my "2 cents" too?

What I think is that:

- The players are preferring to get a finished game and not an EA

- Players aren't into much of survival with nature

- Players prefer to include also PvP - Co-Op if they want to get a survival game

- Players don't won't to spend 20$ (okay a 19.99$ ^_^") for an EA game

- There is not much of advertising in Steam?!? (like been in front page of Steam for a while but I suggest you to avoid this if it cost a lot to advertise it in Steam)

Well, there might be more reasons out there but this is what I can think off right now. I believe that as soon as the game goes Live with the Story mode added more players will be interested.

As of me why I got the game....hmm...lets just say that when I saw a Youtube video of TLD it brought me back to my youth times (34 now T_T) when I was in Rovers (Scouts) and we had some survival camp training (but not in a harsh environment), as also in the Army (during some field training and using MREs ). Those who where in SAS also will love TLD

This of course doesn't mean that the rest players won't enjoy it, on the contrary, they will love it as it "push you to your limits" of how long you will manage to survive in Sandbox (in Story mode would be different of course).

<3 TLD keep the great work everyone

[acheronrose]

Co Op is overrated. I wouldn't mind seeing it, but I don't think it's ever been a selling point for me.

[robdoar]

Co-op just can't happen.

Player 1 and Player 2 go to fight fluffy.

They kill fluffy

Player 1 is fine. Player 2 took a lot of damage, and needs to recover.

Player 2 goes to sleep for 8 hours.

What does player 1 do?