Author: by Staff

The IGS organizers are continuing to put online key video lectures this year's Independent Games Summit, which took place at Game Developers Conference 2007 last March as part of the yearly Independent Games Festival. The sixth 2007 Independent Games Summit lecture to go up features Russell Carroll, who indie games fans probably know as the founder of GameTunnel.com, a seminal indie game site. Carroll is also part of the casual/indie game biz himself, as head of marketing for Reflexive Entertainment (Wik & The Fable Of Souls, Ricochet series), which both distributes casual games and makes its own. Carroll explains why marketing is absolutely not a dirty word - and has some great thoughts on the nature of indie games in his intro, too. For viewing options, there's a direct Google Video link for the lecture, plus a higher-res downloadable .MP4 version and an embedded version: Here's the original session description: "Want your game to be the one everyone is talking about? Interested in increasing how many copies you've sold? Russell Carroll, who heads up marketing for Wik & The Fable Of Souls creator Reflexive, and also founded key indie game press site GameTunnel, discusses how to maximize your buzz and sales opportunities. Using and abusing the press and game portals, alternative marketing, viral marketing, press release tactics and an overview of brand design and development all will be discussed in a whirlwind thirty minute presentation that will forever change the way you market your games." (Other IGS 2007 videos posted so far are Matt Wegner on physics, alongside the Gastronaut founders on 'Small Arms' for XBLA, the Telltale folks on Sam & Max/episodic gaming, Gamelab's Eric Zimmerman on 'The Casual Cash Cow', and Braid's Jon Blow on indie prototyping.)