Marketing for KSP 2

[ChubbyCat]

I really just hope the word gets out there about this game. Everyone on the forums, and fans of the original are already excited, but I really want KSP2 to have a bigger reach and influence. Obviously this cant happen without advertising, which so far we haven't really seen any of.  However, the Intercept Games Twitter account made a post stating they are looking to hire a "Community Marketing Artist" on September 28th. Do you think advertising will start before the early access launch, or instead ramp up in time for the 1.0 release? Both maybe? Kerbal needs recognition!!

Edited October 24, 2022 by ChubbyCat

[Stephensan]

the community is there marketing 

3 days 554k views on the trailer says it all

[The Aziz]

Since they have a date, it pretty sure should start soon.

[t_v]

The poster image for the release date announcement looked pretty good, and the early access title looks appropriately futuristic, so I’d say the marketing artist is already putting out great work. As people have said above, I think that the actual marketing campaign may already be ramping up, especially with the twitter posts, social medias, and new videos.

[Gargamel]

4 hours ago, Stephensan said:

the community is there marketing 

That's pretty much it.   KSP is a niche game, and it's best marketing is word of mouth.   Users find it, love it, and tell their friends who may also like it.   It's not a game that appeals to the general gaming community.    That said, they will, or at least should, have a standard marketing campaign.   We'll see when it happens. 

[mcwaffles2003]

1 hour ago, Gargamel said:

That's pretty much it.   KSP is a niche game, and it's best marketing is word of mouth.   Users find it, love it, and tell their friends who may also like it.   It's not a game that appeals to the general gaming community.    That said, they will, or at least should, have a standard marketing campaign.   We'll see when it happens. 

Dark souls was considered niche. Then they had an extremely intense marketing campaign and everyone was awestruck enough to ignore the "extreme difficulty" reputation that put so many off before.. I'd say Elden Ring vastly expanded its audience largely due to the hype it generated.

A big key to that though was staying quiet, having a low profile network test, then exploding with ads for a month before launch. KSP 2 seems to have enough pretty scenery and fun moment to fill a 60s ad, enough to break through the same apparent difficulty barrier that seems to keep many of those I recommend the game to away from it, as was the case with Fromsoft titles. Honestly, I cant wait to play the EA, but the fact that KSP 2 will be a gradual build instead of a drop the hammer type launch may harm its ability to appeal to a wider audience IMO.

[Vl3d]

10 hours ago, Gargamel said:

KSP is a niche game

KSP 1 sold 5 million copies as an indie game, I definitely would not call it niche even if it seems specialized. It has potential.

I've been constantly asking for more marketing and community engagement effort and everybody calls me impacient. The truth is that the budget for promoting the game is either very small or it's being saved for a later date.

We shall see - I was hoping for answers to some questions in the feature videos, for interviews, for gameplay videos. But if it's EA I'll just find out by playing the game...

[GoldForest]

8 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

KSP 1 sold 5 million copies as an indie game, I definitely would not call it niche even if it seems specialized. It has potential.

I've been constantly asking for more marketing and community engagement effort and everybody calls me impacient. The truth is that the budget for promoting the game is either very small or it's being saved for a later date.

We shall see - I was hoping for answers to some questions in the feature videos, for interviews, for gameplay videos. But if it's EA I'll just find out by playing the game...

Just because it sold 5 million copies, doesn't mean it's not niche. KSP is very niche. Its target audience is kind of small, and focused. Space simulators. Literally the definition of niche. 

As for promoting the game, they have been, for the last 4 to 5 years now. All the youtube videos showing off the game could be considered marketing and/or promoting. The reason they aren't going heavy on it is because it's not a finished product imo. When EA is almost finished, I'm sure we'll see a ramp up in marketing. At least a launch trailer or two to be sure. 

[Gargamel]

3 hours ago, Vl3d said:

KSP 1 sold 5 million copies as an indie game, I definitely would not call it niche even if it seems specialized. It has potential.

 

Asking somebody to learn orbital mechanics to play a game is pretty niche by any standard. 
 

Also, I can’t find any source quoting a number units sold anywhere near that amount.  Do you have a source? 

[kerbiloid]

Iirc, this (not sure aabout exact number) was posted in some of release announcements, dedicated to the final release coming.

[Vl3d]

About Kerbal Space Program Franchise

The original Kerbal Space Program, created and with on-going development by Squad, released on PC in early beta in 2011, then official 1.0 release in April 2015* and has sold more than 5 million units worldwide. The title has been widely popular with the media and consumers alike, earning a Metacritic rating of 88** and a Steam user score of 94%***. Kerbal Space Program 2 is the sequel to the original game and the second in the series for the franchise. It is being developed by Intercept Games.

https://www.take2games.com/ir/news/private-division-announces-kerbal-space-program-enhanced-edition

40 minutes ago, Gargamel said:

Asking somebody to learn orbital mechanics to play a game is pretty niche by any standard. 
 

Also, I can’t find any source quoting a number units sold anywhere near that amount.  Do you have a source? 

 

[shdwlrd]

2 hours ago, Vl3d said:

About Kerbal Space Program Franchise

The original Kerbal Space Program, created and with on-going development by Squad, released on PC in early beta in 2011, then official 1.0 release in April 2015* and has sold more than 5 million units worldwide.

Lol. Popular games will sell 5 million units in a week or two after launch. Probably 20-50 million units in its life cycle. KSP is still a niche game with only 5 million units sold in its lifetime.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

I clearly went the wrong route in my life.  Would be exceedingly happy to sell 5 million units at $20-$40USD/pop.

Ah well, there's always getting rich off my kids. 

[Minmus Taster]

And here comes the marketing in question

[Stephensan]

I must say its insane that KSP is 862k views in 3 weeks, but 554k in 3 days, just show that the amount of people waiting for the game BEEN waiting 

[Vl3d]

21 minutes ago, MStefan99 said:

The complete lack of marketing is also not a great sign a month from game's release, I am personally yet to see a single KSP 2 ad.

I've been saying this for a year. Maybe Tik-Tok is really all they need to expand the player base, who knows..

 

 

-moderator note-

This thread was split from:

 

Edited January 23, 2023 by Gargamel
Added moderator Note

[MStefan99]

3 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

Maybe Tik-Tok is really all they need to expand the player base, who knows..

I could see that... if they were actually posting there a lot but we only got a few posts since EA announcement

[Gargamel]

14 minutes ago, MStefan99 said:

The complete lack of marketing is also not a great sign a month from game's release, I am personally yet to see a single KSP 2 ad.

 

6 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

I've been saying this for a year. Maybe Tik-Tok is really all they need to expand the player base, who knows..

And yet, here you are.   I’d say that’s a very successful marketing campaign.    
 

We have the forums here.  Reddit.   The YouTube channel.    Twitter.     TikTok.   Instagram.  Facebook.    All those sites are abuzz with talk of the upcoming game.    
 

What do want them to do?   Waste money that could be otherwise be spent on production on Tv ads?   Oh yes, full page spreads in Nintendo Power might work.  
 

Just because you haven’t seen a billboard along the I430 in Nebraskastan doesn’t mean they don’t have a marketing program going.    The fact you’re here talking about it proves the point their marketing program worked on you.   

[GoldForest]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. 

Would you massively market an unfinished product? No. You wouldn't. You would wait until the product is due for release and then start marketing. 

You wouldn't market a car that JUST entered prototyping/testing phase. You would wait until the testing phase was almost over and you KNEW you were taking your product to production. 

That's what Early Access is. It's the testing phase of KSP 2. They'll start putting out ads for it when we're months away from 1.0. 

They're only marketing it to people who watch the product. People like us on the forums or to people subscribed to their youtube channel. 

Like @Gargamel said, it would be a waste of money at this point in time to go in on advertisements. They have an unfinished product. Only the diehard fans and the people wanting to help Intercept are going to buy into early access. 

[Vl3d]

18 minutes ago, Gargamel said:

I’d say that’s a very successful marketing campaign. ... The fact you’re here talking about it proves the point their marketing program worked on you.

I'm still playing KSP1 almost daily. My hype comes from the potential of the first game, not from KSP2 marketing.

8 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

it would be a waste of money at this point in time to go in on advertisements. They have an unfinished product. Only the diehard fans and the people wanting to help Intercept are going to buy into early access.

Really? Then why are the tutorials in the first EA version? Why are they promoting TikTok videos instead of just posting on the forum? Clearly attracting new players is a corporate objective. Look, I just want to see the game be successful. Marketing is very important - at least showing (not just describing) what are the features we'll pay money for.

Related posts:

 

[Gargamel]

More threads have been merged 

[MStefan99]

37 minutes ago, Gargamel said:

We have the forums here.  Reddit.   The YouTube channel.    Twitter.     TikTok.   Instagram.  Facebook.

I obviously don't have the numbers but I would argue that many of these channels are a place for existing KSP fans to gather. I haven't signed up for this forum because I saw a new game I might be interested in but because of the hundreds of hours I spent in KSP 1. As they say in "The Kerbal Effect" , KSP "has inspired a whole new generation of rocket scientists" and only marketing KSP 2 to existing fans of the series does not seem like the way to ensure it does the same. 

[LHACK4142]

8 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

Really? Then why are the tutorials in the first EA version? Why are they promoting TikTok videos instead of just posting on the forum? Clearly attracting new players is a corporate objective.

The tutorials are probably in the first EA version (btw is this confirmed?) just to test them, as are the other features- if there's an inaccuracy in the tutorials, they'll want the die-hard fans (who also know more and would be able to spot problems better) to tell them before 1.0. They're promoting TikTok videos because they do want people to buy the game, but I don't really think this is the main campaign.

[Luriss]

I think the argument that the marketing effort seems a bit lackluster has merit. Sure, they're not paying for 50 ads on YouTube or the like and to be fair, they shouldn't be either. The thing is the marketing effort aimed at us diehard fans isn't that great either.

We get about four screenshots and a ten second TikTok video a week. Its really not that much to go on, especially with launch rapidly approaching.

And a quick aside on launch, yes it might be Early Access but don't be fooled, its the launch. The later 1.0 launch is just a formality.

[GoldForest]

43 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

Really? Then why are the tutorials in the first EA version? Why are they promoting TikTok videos instead of just posting on the forum? Clearly attracting new players is a corporate objective. Look, I just want to see the game be successful. Marketing is very important - at least showing (not just describing) what are the features we'll pay money for.

Because they need someone to test those tutorials.

Because everyone and their dog uses Tik Tok because it's the current hot social media platform. A lot of the KSP community is probably on Tik Tok. _{Not me personally because I despise Tik Tok with a passion, but that's not for here...}

They want to attract new players, yes, but not during Early Access. The Show and Tells are mostly for KSP fans, imo. 

Very few people buy into early access. Very few. Only diehard fans and people who want to help hunt down bugs will buy into Early Access. 

We all want KSP 2 to be successful.

Yes, Marketing is very important, but you know what's more important? The TIMING of said marketing. They go all in on advertising right now, and KSP 2 might not see the increase in player base that they want, why? Because they advertised an UNFINISHED product which most gamers don't want. 

They have been showing what we'll be paying for. What do you think all the Show and Tells and Dev Diaries have been for?

Edited January 23, 2023 by GoldForest