Community ad campaign

Back in… 2004 I think, Gamestar.de did a special edition about game mods. They put Evo, along with FLMM and a few other mods, on their cover disc for their “mods” edition of their magazine (there were 4 disks, and 5 mods from Freelancer on one of the disks).

That’s the sort of place you want to “advertise”. Not via paying money (excellent point by Timmy) but by finding out which magazines have previously featured Freelancer mods and are therefore “FL friendly”. Then get into contact with them…

Gamestar were awesome, they contacted me - but the guy was an FL fan and even sent me a copy of the magazine along with a personal note. I think his name was Christian Schmidt, but can’t be sure as the note is at my parents (along with the magazine!).

So, bit of research, drop a few lines - it may pay off. I’ve heard many mods got magazine coverage back in the day (dunno about now), so there used to be interest. Given the scope of changes forthcoming, they may be interested in featuring it simply as a “blimey, look at the effort”.

Sites like RPS have happily covered mods in the past. It’s no stretch to see them cover a FL mod, especially if you give them incentive in the form of a pre-release copy of some sort.

Also, we have new avenues we did not before thanks to YouTube. There are people making a living off playing and commenting on games through videos. They’ll play indie games and mods and say what their feelings are, it’s a great avenue for advertising; free and far, far more powerful than Google Ads.

You can still buy the game, less than a fiver on play.com, still on amazon but more expensive from some of the stores.

I’m wondering if you could just wrap the whole contents of freelancer into a mod and use a custom installer therefore negating the need to buy the game in the first place. Obviously not legal, but who’s looking these days. Nothing generates interest like free stuff!

I’m afraid we couldn’t condone any of this stuff, Timmy. We simply can’t jeopardize the entire site on the basis that nobody’s looking.

I’m not a supporter of Sledge’s idea, but i think it’s a good try for our Freelancer.

But…. Freelancer is not free… so it’s just like:

What? Free Space Sim game? Click
“Welcome to the Free Space Sim Game Page,
But… If you want to play this Free game, you have to buy one CD”
Move mouse to the top-right red X bottom Click

Cough, Now i’m feel well to be a Chinese in China, because we can: “Come Guys, Have a try the old but GLOWING game, A amazing game by DA&Microsoft – the FREELANCER!!! Download this game HERE, and remember to use our MOD, Download HERE, and Install tutorial HERE, Our server is XXXXXX, see you there and enjoy it.”

But however, we can’t to do here.

I have a idea, we create a page on TSP, a Mod list, and Adwords it using keywords: Freelancer, Freelancer mod, space game, space sim, starwar, discovery, juni etc. This may good that Free Space Sim.

FriendlyFire wrote:
I’m afraid we couldn’t condone any of this stuff, Timmy. We simply can’t jeopardize the entire site on the basis that nobody’s looking.

That’s why you’re in charge and I’m not! Good job too!

How many times is that you’ve told me I’m in the wrong now? I’m sure I should have had a hissy fit, abused you, and after failing to get banned stormed out on my own accord by now lol. Obviously I’m not right in the head.

No, your idea has been considered many times by many people. It’s really tempting for a host of reasons. We have even pondered on the subject, but… As I said, there’s too much to lose for too little benefit, and I don’t think such an idea would gain traction without a site of at least modest size backing it. It’d just be another torrent floating on the net.

Especially considering just how easy it is to get FL if you really want to… going through all that trouble just for that is more that it is worth, and believe you me, the moment someone tries something like that is the moment M$ starts caring about FL again.

It might be easy to get FL in the US, but in any other country it is rather difficult.

Sushi wrote:

As for attention, well, I think we’ll get a few people back playing FL, at any rate. We almost have 1000 watchers at MODDB, 1100 fans on FB, 220 on Youtube and around 100 on twitter. Granted these fanbases are not mutually exclusive, I wouldn’t say that’s too shabby for an 8 yr old game. Even if we get 10% of these people playing FL again, that’s 100 more people than we have now.

I suspect once we release all the code to the TSP community, we’ll be able to draw back some people to this game we love.

I don’t think I’ve ever had the heart to say this on Starport yet, but for some time now I’ve been saying one thing about FW:TOW:

Freeworlds: Tides of War will be Freelancer’s last stand.

I know I sound a bit overly dramatic, but the future of Freelancer really is riding on the FW:TOW crew. Overhauls on the scale of what they’re doing are the types of things that get noticed on gaming websites and magazines. What also really helps is that you can tell everyone that the graphics have been far improved from the original. It’s really mindblowing the scale of the project, and the mod being based in a universe with a huge built in fanbase will be an enormous factor in its success.

However, if Freeworld’s doesn’t generate the kind of interest that we’re hoping for, then Freelancer’s current downward spiral is a certainty. Freelancer is on its way out, maintained only by a handful of insane people who should probably be doing something more constructive with their time. All of my hats are off to you guys, without people like w0dk4 and Sushi Freelancer would’ve died years ago.

I’ve spent a mildly disturbing amount of my life playing with Freelancer and its community. Even though I’m “retired” from playing/modding Freelancer, I will definitely be coming back for a few rounds once Freeworlds comes out. I’m going to try my best to get anyone I know who is even mildly interested to try out the game. Freelancer isn’t going to go down without a fight.

w0dk4 wrote:
It might be easy to get FL in the US, but in any other country it is rather difficult.

On this subject, while I wouldn’t ever mention it on a public channel, I have no qualms in providing hints on how to “acquire” the game. Freelancer is too small for me, or anyone interested to care for chasing down a physical copy. This is the only way you’re going to be able to really tap into that pool of casual Star Wars fans who really want to try it out.

I know this one is pushing it, but if an “unauthorized” torrent of Freeworlds including a Freelancer iso or some kind of working install were to show up on popular sites, that would be an enormous asset in getting people to try.

FriendlyFire wrote:
No, your idea has been considered many times by many people. It’s really tempting for a host of reasons. We have even pondered on the subject, but… As I said, there’s too much to lose for too little benefit, and I don’t think such an idea would gain traction without a site of at least modest size backing it. It’d just be another torrent floating on the net.

Hum…. I’m working for a advertising company so i basicly known how ads works…

To be serious, you saying the truth. The Conversion Rate of any online ads is low (as i know, 1/1000 or less?), so it will be the bad idea if you want to get a lot of player in a short time by using Adwords or other ads system.

w0dk4 wrote:
It might be easy to get FL in the US, but in any other country it is rather difficult.

Yes, you get the point. And many seller in US don’t want to shipping their CD to some country.

I know this one is pushing it, but if an “unauthorized” torrent of Freeworlds including a Freelancer iso or some kind of working install were to show up on popular sites, that would be an enormous asset in getting people to try.

Definately, it’d still be a little awkward telling people to download a torrent

It’s a shame there is no opportunity to purchase FL in form of a digital download.