Dead Gentlemen Collaboration

[gorboth]

Hi all,

Though the Summer months have taken me out of the Genesis action for various other pursuits, my thoughts continue to dwell on various ways to further the visibility of the game using the remaining funds from our promotional campaign (roughly $3,000 USD.)

One thought that has recently occurred to me would be to somehow partner with Dead Gentlemen Productions, either by hiring them to film a short advertisement for Genesis via Youtube or by sponsoring one of their upcoming productions with enough money to get our website address in the credits for their films.

If you are not familiar with Dead Gentlemen Productions, they became semi-famous internationally about 6 years ago with the creation of "The Gamers" which is a movie about a bunch of college-age geeks who play D&D in the basement of their dorm. Though very crudely made (some would say it was so amateurish it is difficult to watch) I personally laughed out loud MANY MANY times watching it. My experience seems to have been the case for many, as the film went on to become an internet sensation, eventually reaching millions of viewers worldwide.

Dead Gentlemen went on to create a sequel to Gamers, the proceeds from which enabled them to create their latest (and, in my opinion, greatest) stuff, which is titled "Journey Quest." This is more of their spoofing of Dungeons and Dragons (and other) fantasy themes, but this time without the gamers themselves being part of the story. Rather than making Journey Quest into a feature film, they did it in a series of 7 episodes which were released on-line. It was so well-received that they decided to see if they could fund a second season via Kickstarter. This proved successful, and they raised huge amounts of money with all their fan support. The second season is currently being released week to week. In preparation for more future work, they have now started another Kickstarter project to see if they can fund a third "Gamers" film, much in the model they used for Journey Quest.

You can check out their works to see what sort of thing they do:

Journey Quest - Season one:
Episode 1:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVORGr2fDk8
Episode 2:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7jFcV1F ... ure=relmfu
Episode 3:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSFDR8km ... ure=relmfu
Episode 4:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke8utd-V ... ure=relmfu
Episode 5:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i99jMtnE ... ure=relmfu
Episode 6:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv8S2x-Z ... ure=relmfu
Episode 7:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLM5BWTYonI

If you want to see their original stuff, here's the very old very rough (but very funny) "The Gamers"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiTEHqAeanw (I'll let you find the rest if you want.)

Also, here is the Kickstarter page for the new Gamers film:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zom ... e?ref=live

The reason I might be able to get us involved with these folks is that I know many of them - we were at college together, and the stuff in Gamers is an all-too-familiar dorm for me personally. The bard in Journey Quest is a friend who I make music with at church all the time, and her husband (also a friend - same reason) plays the fighter in "The Gamers." I'm also good friends with the guy who writes all the music for the films (He happened to star in the VERY first Dead Gentlemen film, called "Demon Hunters.") These guys know me mostly as a fellow musician and the guy who does all the music at their church, but I suspect I could get them to make a crappy Genesis video almost for free if I promised them enough beer. Much better, however, would be to pay them (hey, they deserve it!) so that the quality of whatever they might produce is high (this becomes especially important with regard to film and sound quality equipment and expertise.)

This may not be the direction we want to go with promotion, but these guys have a huge following, and to have our game mentioned either on their productions or by the actors in a special-made promo for Genesis ... dunno ... it struck me as a potential winner!

Thoughts?
G.

[Arcon]

I love the idea of a special promo made by them. I've seen their work and I like it and I think Genesis would get a great boost if some of their fans would check us out. If you can get them to help us I say go for it.

[Strider]

One thought that has recently occurred to me would be to somehow partner with Dead Gentlemen Productions, either by hiring them to film a short advertisement for Genesis via Youtube or by sponsoring one of their upcoming productions with enough money to get our website address in the credits for their films.

Even as a compulsive end credit watcher, I doubt that would really have much value as a promotional tool.

I have no issue with giving them money to try to hitch a ride on their popularity with a well targeted audience, and think that their being friends of yours is an asset rather than a cause for concern.

It does seem to me that what we'd most want from this relationship is 1) getting the Genesis name and URL in front of their audience and 2) making some claim that the game is worthy of attention. If I was crafting a request, I think I'd ask for some tiny pieces or comments, perhaps claiming Genesis as the topic of an upcoming project or able to grant some esoteric and unspecified insight into their work in general.

[Kitriana]

At first I had the same impression as Strider.. that it was just our web address in the credits. But I'm gathering you mean they would actually discuss Genesis in the episode? Please help to clarify - Gorboth. If the latter is the case -- I think it would be incredible promotion.

Questions
How much are we talking about in terms of cost for "sponsoring" the episode?
Whats the range of how many people have watched each episode?
What is their unique hit rate per episode? (as opposed to same ppl watching over and over again?)
What will be included in terms of the Genesis "shout out"?

[gorboth]

At first I had the same impression as Strider.. that it was just our web address in the credits. But I'm gathering you mean they would actually discuss Genesis in the episode? Please help to clarify - Gorboth. If the latter is the case -- I think it would be incredible promotion.

Questions
How much are we talking about in terms of cost for "sponsoring" the episode?
Whats the range of how many people have watched each episode?
What is their unique hit rate per episode? (as opposed to same ppl watching over and over again?)
What will be included in terms of the Genesis "shout out"?

What I'm talking about, probably, is simply hiring some of the more recognizable actors from these various films to act in a commercial for Genesis. Genesis would not simply be featured, but be the actual subject matter and entire purpose of the very short (maybe 2-3 minutes?) film. The people I know who I would hope to be able to involve would be:

Steve Wolbrecht: plays Chris Weiner in "Demon Hunters" and "Demon Hunters 2: Dead Campers Lake"
Matt Shimkus: plays London in "Demon Hunters 2: Dead Campers Lake" and Rogar the Barbarian in "The Gamers"
Emilie Shimkus: plays Wren the Bard in "Journey Quest"
Nathan Rice: plays Roderick in "Journey Quest", Lodge in "The Gamers" and "The Gamers 2", and Gabriel in both "Demon Hunters" movies.

These are the people I know in real life, and who are very recognizable faces to fans of Dead Gentlemen productions. I think we'd need to pay them $200 - $300 (at least) to act in such a production, but this is just a total guess. It may be that they would need more (or less) money to be willing to do it. The big cost, though, would probably be in hiring high quality cinematographer, camera, and sound work. I have no idea how much this might cost.

My hope is that if such a "webmercial" were made, that people who are fans of Dead Gentlemen would end up seeing it. These people are already fantasy fans and nerdy gamers ... so very much up our alley.

G.

[gorboth]

If gorbothstatistics shows, that it is a major success*, I will promise to donate another 500 USD for the project!

Cas´s Player

N.B. Major success equal to 10% increased playeractivity for one year compared to 2011

That's the spirit!

G.

[Arcon]

Isn't 10% just three more players?

[Laurel]

Isn't 10% just three more players?

"characters" would be more precise

[Cherek]

Isn't 10% just three more players?

I'd be happy if the decline stopped, to begin with.

[Targun]

IMHO Genesis doesn't need promotion. It needs a few kids/teens who have plenty of time on their hands, to be given some extra $ and code all the unfinished stuff. In two months they'd code more than all the wizards combined for the past 10 years. They don't have work, they enjoy it, would feel excited/proud to be paid at such a young age, and for them it would probably be a considerable sum of money. A good game will defend itself and players will come this way or another. Simply through encouragement from friends, and you've got free of charge campaign 'by the word of mouth'.

With all the sentiment for Genesis, I don't really think there's much point in spending money on promotional campaigns. None of the requirements that were set as 'to be completed' before launching promotion had been matched

Genesis offers a prehistorical formula even for a MUD. It used to be a great game mainly due to the players and cool descriptions, but as I pointed out number of times- if the game is not reinvented to suit playing the game instead of botting/scripting, it's pointless to invite anyone.

These would be just wasted money. People would try it out, perhaps go through the tutorial and then drop off. The world needs to be challenging. Magical artifacts ought to be difficult to obtain. V. difficult even. Nowdays pretty much anything can be soloed or at worst be obtained by 2 players.

Get realistic people. Admins are protecting this very few who have complained on the boards for like 10 years, protecting their privilages and effectively not allowing any change, that would be good for the game, but not for them in person. Several years back there was perhaps the same amount of characters in game, but there never was so much botting and mindless scripting as it is today. Currently, not even 1/2 of characters logged in actually 'play' the game. Get the code right first. If the game is not utterly boring and botted thru, it will attract new players.