

Advice or thoughts on my startup: Vying Games - Locke
http://vying.org

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tstegart
My first reaction was, for a game company, the home page wasn't very much
about games. You have a lot of space to use, so you should. The home page is
your marketing tool, use it to promote your games. What about them is
exciting? Why would people want to play? Saying you had an update is not as
important as putting the games front and center. Get some bright graphics, add
some promotional copy, and use your space appropriately. You have very little
time to grab attention, and the current home page doesn't do it very well.

~~~
Locke
Thanks, that's valuable advice. I think I do have to focus more on telling a
story. Regular blog posts about the games, strategy, why they're worth
learning, etc.

Sometimes I find myself overly preoccupied with programming. Marketing seems
easy until you try it! (at least in my case)

~~~
tstegart
Thats very true. And seamlessly integrating it into your design is even
harder. Blog posts can be good, but I'm really talking about visuals and copy
of the homepage here. You gotta make me want to click on something.

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truebosko
One of the quirks I see is that when I click a game I learn more about how to
play it but finding the actual links to play it are a lot harder. Yes, I
eventually find them but I have no idea what to do when I click to the game
page. Some (ok, most) people just wanna PLAY. They don't want to read
anything, and will figure it out as they go.

So basically, make it easier to actually play games .. and spruce up your
front page, but I'm sure someone else will give a more detailed feedback on
that :)

~~~
Locke
Thanks, for the feedback. I've found links to the bot-play pages always do
much better than links to the rules. I'm trying to get more people to play
each other, though, so it's hard to know what to emphasize. There are probably
a lot of navigational improvements that need to be made still.

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radley
I strongly recommend finding a good layout designer. The site really comes
across as something a programmer did for fun, rather than a site for people to
have fun. It's all about "I made these" instead of being about your players or
the games.

I'm also a little skeptical about the name Vying and the TLD (.org)... neither
strike me as fun. They both seem very hackish.

Is this a solo project?

~~~
Locke
> It's all about "I made these" instead of being about your players or the
> games.

Thanks, this is a little hard to take, but it's good advice. The focus should
be more on the players and the games.

Yes, this is a solo project.

~~~
radley
You've obviously done a lot of work here. At first glance I didn't see a lot
of the features you've implemented. It took me many clicks to finally see a
game, but the cool part was I could see the game's history and plays.

Naturally, this could be a barrier to entry and something that a good UI
designer could help fix. At the very least, I recommend checking out "Don't
Make me Think" by Steve Krug (a 37Signals publication). It will give you a lot
of insight on how people interact with web apps and sites.

The only other thing you may want to consider is how you're going to get
noticed. You've been up and running for a year and already have a dozen games.
Do you want more players? How many? What about social networks?

You may want to consider a biz guy for marketing and promotion. A lot of what
he/she will have to offer may sound really strange, if not even offensive
(hint: Flash people hate ads too). But they could make the difference between
200 active users, 2K active users, or even 2M active users.

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mattchew
I like it a lot. Nice game-geeky features, oddball games, don't have to load
up a blob of Java to play. The bots could be better.

I agree the initial presentation doesn't have a lot of punch. To me this is
pleasing. Nice to not be pestered. But perhaps a bit more salesmanship is in
order. Are you running analytics tools?

I think you're going to have a real tough time making money in this niche. A
few days ago Game Table Online gave up on paid subscriptions, I assume because
no one would buy one. Good luck to you anyway.

~~~
Locke
Yeah, I'm really not sure what to expect from subscriptions.

I got the impression that GTO gave up on paid memberships to increase user
uptake to pursue advertising dollars. I don't know a lot about their
operations, but didn't they have very restricted free accounts? I can see
where that'd seriously hamper user adoption.

~~~
mattchew
Yes, that is essentially what GTO's email said. I was reading between the
lines that subscriptions were also a lost cause.

GTO did have crippled free memberships, and the limitations were annoying.
However, you got a free trial that was unrestricted, and at one point they
offered me what was basically a free membership if I would just play games for
a minimum # of hours per month. It sounds like they are desperate for a
critical mass of players that they aren't getting.

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Locke
I just pushed out a major update (see: <http://vying.org/blog/2008/07/the-big-
release>), and I'd greatly appreciate any advice or thoughts.

------
swombat
How are you planning to monetize it?

~~~
Locke
A mixture of membership fees, advertising, and anything else I can think of.
Maybe some kind of storefront that sells merchandise related to the games
(books, game boards, etc). Maybe an amazon affiliate setup or some such.

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utnick
what makes this better than yahoo games?

~~~
Locke
A good question. It's been a while since I played on yahoo games, so I'm not
sure I can do a full comparison justice.

At yahoo games the focus is (or was, anyway) on real-time play. You play games
serially. You spend a lot of time waiting for your opponent to move. Or, if
you spend too much time thinking you take verbal punishment from someone who's
impatient.

At Vying Games you _can_ play real-time. But, most people play turn-based
(more like correspondence chess). You tend to have multiple games going at
once. When you have a few minutes throughout the day you go through your games
and make your moves. You don't really spend time waiting for your opponent.
You don't feel rushed. This is great for busy people who want to enjoy games a
few minutes at a time.

Philosophically, I don't want to get as obnoxious about advertising. I'd
rather the site have a more adult (mature?) community. And, I'd rather focus
on more obscure (but great!) games where possible.

~~~
radley
"Philosophically, I don't want to get as obnoxious about advertising. I'd
rather the site have a more adult (mature?) community. And, I'd rather focus
on more obscure (but great!) games where possible."

There's a difference between crass promotion and essential information. I can
assure you that providing good info & design is a mature concept for any
project ;-)

~~~
Locke
Yes, of course. I think I unintentionally tied advertising with community. I
meant them as separate objectives.

Some sites run annoying advertising along side the games while you're trying
to play. I won't.

Some sites seem to cater towards children (as far as site design, graphics,
etc), I'd rather appeal to adults.

And, some sites focus very heavily on established games like Chess and Go
(which I think are great), but I'd rather bring attention to lesser known
games. Although I also plan on having more established games, I just want them
to be a smaller part of the mix.

