In another sordid tale of working in the gaming industry, allow me to start with some background (and I'll keep it brief). I have worked in a sales and marketing role for several major tabletop/hobby game companies. That means, I had to go to a lot of shows like Origins, Gen Con, Pax, and Comic Con. Not only did I work the show booth, but often times I either gave hundreds of game demos, or trained the staff to give demos. The simple goal of a demo is to get someone to invest in the game.
Therefore, the company took demos very seriously. I would carefully write a script, and train the show staff to follow it. That way, everyone was giving the same demo. It's a kind of marketing and quality control. Every part of that demo was by design.
So here's the story of how it can go wrong. At Origins (a game show in Ohio that is about 3 years past its death) I found myself on a 15 minute break. I like to use my breaks as a way to scout out other companies and products and I usually pick a new game that I end up purchasing or trading for by the end of the show. I like board games, and have always liked the beautiful quality and creepy themes of Fantasy Flight Games. On my break, I wandered over to their booth and asked for a demo of "Fury of Dracula." The young 'volunteer' eagerly sat me down in front of the board and started rattling off rules...in no particular order. After about 10 minutes of my 15 minute break, I asked him "how long will this demo take?" He said "Oh, about 2 and a half hours." O_o
What the fuck, dude? It's going to take 2.5 hours of my day for you to try to sell me on this game?!
I should just read the back of the box. I explained that my break was almost over and that I had to get back. Which sucked. I got to see the components, and it looked cool. But I had no idea if I would actually like the game or not. And I never even got to play a turn!
So I went back to my booth, and passed my story on to one of my co-workers (Justin), who then lit up and said "Oh that's a great game!" and he proceeded to give me a 2 minute rundown of what the game was about and how it plays. I was hooked! I got all excited and really wanted to buy it.
Keep something in mind: In just 2 fucking minutes, without even having the actual game in front of him to work with, Justin gave a much better demo and actually sold me on the game!
FFG's demo monkey was planning on taking half my day and even had the game to present to me, and couldn't get it done.
So how is this possible? Well, I trained Justin and not the other guy, so Justin gave a great demo and did his job!
To break it down and not sound like an ass: Justin injected all the story and flavor and excitement of the game in his explanation, instead of randomly quoting pages of the rules. And he kept it short. He demoed the game like he was trying to get a friend involved, not as if he was trying to teach a thermodynamics course at a community college.
It's a simple formula: Tell a story, and get the player some hands-on action right away. It should take no more than 5 minutes. The next time you walk around at Gen Con (Origins will be dead by the time this post gets published) take a lot of demos. You'll see the difference. I've had great demos sell me on an okay game, and I've had shitty demos turn me off from a great game.
And if you're giving a demo, try not to make your customers drool themselves to dehydration. Don't fuck it up like some people.
No comments:
Post a Comment