Help me to sell your games.

[Clyde L. Rhoer]

This past Weekend, myself and my two other regular group members, went to a local convention in Oshkosh Wisconsin, called oddly enough Osh Con. *grins* Tim and myself came to run games, and Len came to play games. We ran a Games on Demand table there for the whole con. We brought between the two of us House of Horiku, Cat, Mechaton, Primitive, TSOY, Otherkind, Verge, Mortal Coil, Dogs in the Vineyard, The Shab al-Hiri Roach, and The Mountain Witch to run. We had these books on the table and would talk to folks when they approached. We played Mechaton, Mortal Coil and one game of Cat.

Now to get to why I put this here instead of somewhere else. I'm not satisfied with our technique, as I want to draw in all the fish, which we didn't quite accomplish. Our sales technique was bad. When someone would come over we would point to each game, and talk about how cool it is... at length. I didn't really notice until Sunday due to my religious fervor that we weren't really engaging folks. I think we could have used their eyes for marbles.

So we're planning on doing this again next month at Rock Con with more games, since we'll have learned more games. I'd like to know how you salesmen out there would approach the whole thing? Assume we have some sort of primitive signage and maybe even T-shirts. You're a level one Games on Demand agent and someone approaches your table... what do you do?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

I think I got your answer, Clyde! It is: ask people what they play and what they like. Have any conversation proceed from there, which allows you to direct attention to a game which is suited to that person, or may be.

As a related point, let the books sell themselves, too. Something like The Mountain Witch doesn't benefit much from an extended verbal description - the book is so attractive and interesting that once you're past the "then this might interest you" signal the customer gave you, it will do the rest. I think the rest of the games on your list are similar, and it especially goes double for Primitive.

So to review:

Customer: (some nonverbal indicator that they are willing to stop and look or talk; this evidently did happen at your table so we'll take it as given)

You: Hi, what do you like to play? (I'm summarizing, but it's good to be straight to the point)

(bit of chat, person reveals that he hates back-stabbing games and likes Japanese stuff)

You: (hold out House of Horiku and The Mountain Witch for them to thumb through) These have serious Japanese stuff. I don't know about TMW for you, because it has lots of character betrayal in it, like a gang-heist movie.

Customer: (thumbs through books) Whoa.

You: Do you have any questions about what they're like?

Customer: What's the resolution mechanic in this one? (holds up TMW)

You: It's a simple 1d6 roll, but the main thing is this Trust modifier - you rate each other character by how much you trust them, and that makes them way more effective. So there's back-stabbing ... but not in the usual way. Also, if you die, you can still keep playing and your Trust still matters.

Customer's girlfriend: Cool!

Customer: Wow, check out this picture ...

Then the key point is to close the sale. It's way easy to get excited and teach the guy the game right there, but that's not a good idea - it'll lead to him being "interested" and "grateful," but not to buy it. Closing is a whole 'nother issue. My point here is to say, Ask the guy stuff, and that will give you the right information to provide something he's genuinely interested in. It's especially good because there's nothing about tricking him or conning him into buying; it's totally honest and fair.

Best, Ron

P.S. I only used TMW as the purchase rather than Horiko because I don't know the latter game well.

[Paul Czege]

Hey Clyde,

At GenCon 2005 the fancied sales technique was, "Hey, can I tell you about some games?," followed by working the shelf, explaining the various games, and putting things in the prospective customer's hands.

And it came across as a hard sell. Because it wasn't actually a conversation in the interests of the customer.

At GenCon 2006 the worthier sales technique was, "What games do you play?" and something along the lines of "How is that? Pretty solid?" or "What are your game frustrations?," because gamers have frustrations and once you're talking about them it's a conversation about how your own frustrations relate to the customer's, and how other games might solve those frustrations.

Paul

[Justin D. Jacobson]

As an adjunct to the above, you can use visual cues to aid you in focusing the sell. E.g., what t-shirt is the customer wearing, what other game books is he holding, does he have an ipod around his neck, is he holding a 6-year-old girl in his free hand, etc.

If you bring your 6-year-old to the car dealer, you can bet your ass he's going to lead with the car's safety features and crash test ratings rather than the 3 months of XM radio and the mp3 port.

[Justin D. Jacobson]

To expand on my own post. Visual cues can be effective because they give you information about the customer (a) without the invasiveness of direct questioning, (b) that are "honest", and (c) that, in some cases, he is affirmatively proclaiming about himself. For example, the guy with the t-shirt that reads "The Rules say you're not just wrong but you're also a dick" wants you to know that he likes crunchy games. I'd head him over to Burning Empires for that guy before handing him My Life With Master.

[Josh Roby]

Especially with indie games, and double-especially for short-form indie games, play sells.  When we do this out on the left coast, we schedule games and get people to sit down for four hours to play.  Now, this may be a west coast / east coast thing (or midwest, whatever, you're on the other side of the Rockies); as I understand it, Open Play and Games on Demand are huge over there, and on the Pacific those rooms are deserted.  So maybe you'd best mix it up with some GoD and some scheduled games.  But, if nothing else, you get to run a game that you want to play. ;)

[Jake Richmond]

I haven't had a lot of experience selling Panty Explosion yet, but I used to sell games for a living and I can tell you that most everything said here sounds pretty good. Always open with a question. The standard customer response is "just looking" or "no thanks", but if you ask them a question they have to stop and say something else. Once you gauge their interest with a question put the product you want to sell them in their hands. It gives them a since of ownership. Don't flood them with information, but be ready to answer questions and respond to non-verbal cues.If it looks like they like it then ask for the sale. Go ahead and say "we accept cash or credit, how would you like to pay for that today" or (if your gaol is to pget them to play) "we can run a game of this right now. Why donm't you come over to this table with us and have a seat".

[Clyde L. Rhoer]

Hi guys,

Thanks. The replies are helpful, if you have more tips keep them coming. I just wanted to clear up my use of the word sell real quick. I mean sell as in, get them to play a game, not as in a transaction involving money. Of course my hope is that if they have fun they may very well send people some money, but I won't see any of it, this is more of a religious expedition. *grins*

[timfire]

If you're interested, I have a script for a 20-minute tMW demo on my website. I know a couple people have written scripts also... but I can't remember who... If you search the forums here, I believe you can find some links.

[Clyde L. Rhoer]

Hey Tim,

That's great. The script gives me a definitive thing I can run for people that may be leary of committing to several hours. Thanks. I'll see what else I can dig up.

[Blankshield]

You may also want to check out the Spiel Essen threads... nearly every game going to Essen will be getting demoed by folks who didn't write the game, so they are getting some significant prep front-loaded to make sure the demos are understandable and runable by anyone.

I believe there is talk of consolidating those demos as a web resource, but I'm not sure who's handling that; I've been out of the loop for a bit.

James

[Adam SBG]

I met Clyde and Tim and Len at OshCon (I run the convention with some great help) and they were really committed to running and talking about these games. I wanted to let Clyde know that I did order a copy of Burning Empires because of our conversation.

I hope you guys had a good time and I hope to see you again next year.

Adam Loper
Snarling Badger Games and OshCon - Tabletop Gaming Convention in Oshkosh, WI

[Clyde L. Rhoer]

Awesome! I hope you enjoy it Adam. Our plans now are to return and we may drag a few more Madison indy folks along with us, due to our positive experience.