This is a bit of a different kind of conversation for Kaza. With the Steam release of Little Busters on the horizon, I’m currently thinking of what could be done to make it as successful as possible.
Let’s say you were employed head of marketing for the Steam release of Little Busters by VisualArt’s. What would you do to market it to ensure it’s success internationally?
I think trying to associate it as much with Key’s other works on Steam, as well as the anime is probably the best way to attract customers. That’s all I can think of, since VNs themselves are very niche, and the best way to advertise them is through brand recognition, and Key is a brand known pretty well by anime fans, and those are the people you want to advertise to. Trying to market to a general audience that’s filled with normies would be a horrible idea, since they’d be very resistant to play it due to the character designs, dating elements, and lack of gameplay. They’ll then get on their high horse and act as if they’re better than you because they don’t play Japanese porn games, eventhoughthere’snothingwrongwiththat.Fucknormies.
Mention KEY is related to the same people as Clannad with some of the same staff. Since some people may know of Clannad but maybe not KEY. Also play up the story elements of what it’s about without revealing too much, but enough to entice.
I’d say market it as Key/Maeda’s big work after CLANNAD and before Angel Beats. Those two are probably Key’s most well-known releases so might as well ride on that.
Social media is also very important: Facebook, twitter, etc etc. Maybe if they did for the steam release the kind of marketing they usually do on twitter for their Japanese releases, it’d make it much more successful.
And last would probably be events; instead of just selling/advertising the game, have people try it out. Maybe somewhere until the mini baseball game, just so people can see what Little Busters is really like.
All of what you said is primordial, but something I consider very important is informing everyone about the date it’s going to be released. Tomoyo After had a very strange out-of-the-blue release. Even though we knew it was going to come out soon, we didn’t exactly know when it was going to do so.
I’d advertise planetarian. Anyone who avoids weeb stuff, or is annoyed by the dilution of the steam market by visual novels, or just someone who thinks they are all terribly written, won’t be swayed by Little Busters! Litbus has hours upon hours of stuff that will reinforce those opinions, and by the time it starts to go above and beyond, people will have stopped reading. That much has happened to a bunch of other VNs before.
So instead of advertising Litbus, get 'em to accept the genre at all. Then just advertise by association.
The alternative is to advertise to people who already purchase VNs on steam, but that’s a very limited market, and those people are likely to get Litbus anyway. I don’t think advertising within the anime bubble is a great move either, as a lot of those people either won’t want to pay or won’t want to read.
Most of the points brought up already cover a lot of ground, but Mogaoscar’s point is very important. Not only does it help with the good advertising points already brought up, but a lot of people who could buy this think this has been and will be a great year (or at least next few months) for games. You want to announce it with at least a month between the announcement and release.
Next, you want to market on gaming sites like Siliconera (which does lots of VN coverage) and Gematsu if they will let that happen. Considering that Siliconera has done coverage on Key polls and posted most of the updates from the Clannad KS when it was running, that shouldn’t be a problem. MAL and ANN and an advertisement on the Clannad KS page are still good ideas too, especially since the second season of the Little Busters anime is ranked so highly. We all know how much rank factors into some decisions.
I think you should also want to keep promoting and marketing it as the release date gets closer. Persona 5, for one example, has constantly had video and DLC coverage on Siliconera. That not only keeps their title in the news so that people know and don’t forget when it is coming out, but it entices them to buy it or to change their priorities around to play it sooner. You can possibly entice them doing things like by showing some small videos of your translation, announcing that the OST will be available for purchase, or doing an interview session (that might mention lots of their previous work).
Marketing is about getting people who don’t know that your product exists or that don’t know that they want to buy it to buy it. Little Busters is a lot less known than most other games and anime are, so let them know.
Putting ads on big anime sites like Crunchyroll (at least the background ad on the homepage, maybe this on Little Buster’s show page), ANN, maybe MAL, etc. I think sticking to those sites would be better than Youtube or something as those ads don’t seem very tailored. Mention Key and “From the creator(s) of Clannad and Angel Beats!” in the ad. I think Steam will automatically promote it to people it’ll be relevant to and I doubt many people who aren’t already Key fans (or at least buy VNs on Steam) would care no matter what marketing happens.
I think non key fans don’t really realize how long the game is. They saw the clannad price at 50 and they were confused. We don’t know the price of LB but it will be more than most vns because of it’s length, and that needs to be known very well you are getting a very long game. That is a really big selling point imo.
They should also release a EX patch we know day 1 in steam forum somebody will ask for it… 
Just show them a picture of Komari. They’ll understand.
No, but seriously, I think targeting people who have already bought Key VNs will be the most effective method. Because beyond that, I don’t see anyone who knows nothing about Key picking it up for full price on release (whatever the price may be). Even if there was some huge advertising campaign beforehand, its hard to tell people what makes it great in a news post, flyer, trailer, or whatever else they may use as advertising.
And its hard to compare Clannad’s release to this one, because despite them being more similar in length and (imo) quality than, say, Clannad and Tomoyo After, Little Busters has never had QUITE the following that Clannad did. I think of all the times that I mentioned Little Busters to people who had no idea what I was talking about, only for them to understand when I mentioned that it was by the same people that made Clannad. So until the game has been out for a bit and word of mouth has made its way around the internet- not just from people who have played in Japanese/with the fan patch, but from people who happened to pick it up on Steam and enjoyed it- I’m not sure how effective any of the normal methods will be.
There are cute girls, so I’d go for anime casuals who watch ecchi sol garbage
I’m joking but I’m also not joking
As much as I would hate to admit it, shoving Kud in weeaboos’ faces does seem like a pretty effective marketing strategy…
Can confirm: I bought at least 2 Kud figures before I had seen any of Little Busters.
