Guerrilla Marketing

Companies come to GDC with bulging marketing budgets and brand new products to push back the frontiers of game development.

I'm here with virtually no money and Very Silly Games to promote. So, first up is to make a nice logo. My first attempt is OK, but I had to use a graphics program to produce it. My second one is created entirely within XNA, using the same font and style but rendered programmatically with added silliness. I'm going to make a tutorial on how I did it. Since I can now render text really easily I add a silly message and come up with the artwork:

So, now I have the picture I need some hard copies to distribute. Last time that we were out I noticed that the local Walgreens Pharmacy (these places seem more ubiquitous than Starbucks) has an advert in the store, 15 cents a print for 100 off. And you can upload from the internet. So it is onto the site, upload the image and ask for 100.

This works wonderfully. I don't need to pay up front, I can select the store to pick up the prints and they are ready 10 minutes after my request. I get emails along the way to keep me informed of progress.  People say that the internet is transforming the way we do things. You bet.

On the way to the conference I pick up the prints and pay for them (16 dollars or so - around 8 pounds UK) and then I start dishing them out. I've got rid of around 30 or so on tables around the place and in appropriate sessions, I should be through the whole lot by the end of the week. I'm not sure how much extra traffic the site will get, but even if I only get a few more hits it was fun getting them.