Xenocell: Viral Video and Launch Litany for the win!
by Konrad Kiss · 10/22/2012 (2:26 am) · 27 comments
After over four years of development, it looks like Xenocell is getting close to its launch. Read on to learn about what Xenocell is and why we need some help getting it off the ground.The last few days have been nothing short of crazy. We've started an IndieGoGo campaign and TotalBiscuit re-tweeted news about it to over 120,000 Twitter users. While I definitely would like to ask for everyone's support in making the Xenocell launch happen, I also wanted to share a little insight about our fundraiser and what I learned while choosing to go the IndieGoGo way.
The highlight of our IndieGoGo campaign has been TotalBiscuit's re-tweet about Xenocell. There are some interesting stats to go with this. In 2 days, the re-tweet earned me over 50 other re-tweets and about 146,239 impressions. It earned us about 1,000 views of our campaign video on YouTube so far, though most likely slightly less than that as I still had other promotions running in parallel. Every day from 5 am PDT for about 6 hours re-tweets increase with the 5 am PDT time being the most significant. I'll let the numbers sink in... :)
TotalBiscuit is a well-known gaming commentator online - his videos have earned him views in the hundred millions. I've known him for about 12 years now as he was a core player in my previous game, Droidarena. He's even composed a music piece for it for an in-game contest (which he probably would prefer not to be shared).
Xenocell plays in the same universe and they both share many of their features, but Xenocell employs an entirely different set of today's technologies - it uses Torque 3D and relies heavily on Amazon Web Services for handling the backend stress of tens of thousands of online players. However, to be able to get started until we actually earn the money for the server upkeep, we need financial help - so this is why we created this campaign on IndieGoGo.
Clearly, the best part during the aftermath of TB's re-tweet has been the increasing number of dedicated, helpful people who started to spread the word on forums and gaming sites, and gave me straight, honest criticism about the currently available information about the game and how it plays.
We had our 15 minutes of fame for now, and whether that gets us anywhere remains to be seen. I am now acting on my future players' advice and getting more information out to more people. Here's the campaign video - check it out!
So there's the video. If you were wondering why I didn't actually just embed it here - it's because this video has a dash in the identifier, and the GG video embedder does not show up such a video (ie. it's a website bug).
If you're interested in any stats, details or have any questions, be sure to ask them here - I'll happily answer and share anything that can help you work magic with your campaign in the future. As for ours - we are still crossing fingers and are in desperate need of your help! :)
If you can, please help us launch the game - either by contributing or sharing the link to the campaign using any of the social tools there.
Thank you very much!
--Konrad
About the author
http://about.me/konrad.kiss
#2
Edit: As for the servers, if the campaign succeeds, we'll have a final test later this year with all the features turned on, hopefully.
10/22/2012 (3:50 am)
Thanks Andy, and also thank you for the invaluable help you've given me with Xenocell. There's still lots to do on the game, but I agree - it's begun taking shape, finally! :)Edit: As for the servers, if the campaign succeeds, we'll have a final test later this year with all the features turned on, hopefully.
#3
Best of luck with Xenocell, mate. Also, given the timing of those retweets, I'd say you have something of an Aussie following. Which is cool.
10/22/2012 (4:38 am)
Looks awesome Konrad. And I want to be the first to say that that is one sexy piece of "boxart" you have there. Nice bit of polish that. Polish is good.Best of luck with Xenocell, mate. Also, given the timing of those retweets, I'd say you have something of an Aussie following. Which is cool.
#4
Will also take a look at my budget to see how much I can throw at you!
This game looks genuinly, really awesome! Very very nice job!
10/22/2012 (7:03 am)
Shared like I've never shared before!Will also take a look at my budget to see how much I can throw at you!
This game looks genuinly, really awesome! Very very nice job!
#5
Looking f@*&in fantastic! Very impressive campaign and media you have put together there. I wish you all the luck in the world on this.
Four years....has it really been four years already? I hang out on this site way too much
Ron
10/22/2012 (7:36 am)
Konrad, Looking f@*&in fantastic! Very impressive campaign and media you have put together there. I wish you all the luck in the world on this.
Four years....has it really been four years already? I hang out on this site way too much
Ron
#6
10/22/2012 (7:53 am)
Congrats Konrad 
#8
Wish you success for you, Xenocell, and any future enterprises!
10/22/2012 (8:09 am)
Congratulations Konrad! Many of us here can testify how hard (and for so much time) you have worked to reach this point.Wish you success for you, Xenocell, and any future enterprises!
#9
10/22/2012 (9:20 am)
Best of luck; looks amazing so far!
#10
@Dan: Thank you! To be fair about the box art, only the actual art is my work, I used the box shape (picked it up from GraphicRiver) so at least the 3D aspect didn't cause too much hassle. But other than that - like the rest of the game and www site ui - it's home-grown programmer art! :)
@Lukas: Thanks man, I really appreciate it! This is when we either succeed or I need to get a job. :) I'm terrified of the latter, so any help is more than welcome. But seriously - thank you. This game has been my life for the past few years, and anyone who helps me even with sharing a link is like someone who says your kid is beautiful. Instant best friend. :)
@Ron: Thank you very much! Did you notice your art in the video? :) Some of the textures were reworked to fit in better with the rest of the environment. Really awesome work, Ron. Love those packs! And alas, it has been over four years! :) It's definitely been a fun and adventurous four years here at GG, too! :)
@Surge: Thank you!
@Steve: Thanks! We need a new word for spam with good intentions. :)
@Novack: Thank you. I always feel there's more to do for the game or the community here, and I know I've been bad at updating my existing resources to the latest versions of Torque 3D, but I'm hoping that I'll eventually be able to get to it and even share some parts of the Xenocell code. But who knows when that will happen?! :) Thank you again.
@Patrick: Thank you! I'm crossing fingers! :)
10/22/2012 (11:51 am)
Wow! Thanks guys for the great responses! :)@Dan: Thank you! To be fair about the box art, only the actual art is my work, I used the box shape (picked it up from GraphicRiver) so at least the 3D aspect didn't cause too much hassle. But other than that - like the rest of the game and www site ui - it's home-grown programmer art! :)
@Lukas: Thanks man, I really appreciate it! This is when we either succeed or I need to get a job. :) I'm terrified of the latter, so any help is more than welcome. But seriously - thank you. This game has been my life for the past few years, and anyone who helps me even with sharing a link is like someone who says your kid is beautiful. Instant best friend. :)
@Ron: Thank you very much! Did you notice your art in the video? :) Some of the textures were reworked to fit in better with the rest of the environment. Really awesome work, Ron. Love those packs! And alas, it has been over four years! :) It's definitely been a fun and adventurous four years here at GG, too! :)
@Surge: Thank you!
@Steve: Thanks! We need a new word for spam with good intentions. :)
@Novack: Thank you. I always feel there's more to do for the game or the community here, and I know I've been bad at updating my existing resources to the latest versions of Torque 3D, but I'm hoping that I'll eventually be able to get to it and even share some parts of the Xenocell code. But who knows when that will happen?! :) Thank you again.
@Patrick: Thank you! I'm crossing fingers! :)
#11
10/22/2012 (2:59 pm)
I've been waiting for this blog. Congrats on the IndieGoGo campaign I also wish you well! 
#12
I literally have not Tweeted in years. Well today I broke out my Twitter password and Tweeted on the link above. The video you put together is very well done and professional. The game features are amazing as well. This is a rock solid looking game and it WILL be a big hit. My only regret is I don't have $15K to plop down on this.
I especially love the fact that you can have it Tweet or email the players. This begs for an Android app. Otherwise people at work will be watching their bases get destroyed while they suffer through the destruction of their base Tweet by Tweet (Play by Play). I suspect people will be going home for lunch. ;)
Good work!
10/22/2012 (10:33 pm)
@Konrad,I literally have not Tweeted in years. Well today I broke out my Twitter password and Tweeted on the link above. The video you put together is very well done and professional. The game features are amazing as well. This is a rock solid looking game and it WILL be a big hit. My only regret is I don't have $15K to plop down on this.
I especially love the fact that you can have it Tweet or email the players. This begs for an Android app. Otherwise people at work will be watching their bases get destroyed while they suffer through the destruction of their base Tweet by Tweet (Play by Play). I suspect people will be going home for lunch. ;)
Good work!
#13
@Frank: I'm humbled and honored! I mean it. I really hope you're right, because 4 years is a pretty long time for creating a bad game.
Funny, that simple feature of being able to alert players in real life to events in the game seems to be what the press likes the most as well! :)
10/23/2012 (6:18 pm)
@Kory: Thanks! :) We'll try to do our best!@Frank: I'm humbled and honored! I mean it. I really hope you're right, because 4 years is a pretty long time for creating a bad game.
Funny, that simple feature of being able to alert players in real life to events in the game seems to be what the press likes the most as well! :)
#14
10/23/2012 (6:44 pm)
@Konrad - just letting you know that (for me at least) linking your campaign to facebook via the icon on the campaign page actually only adds the IndieGoGo link. Not the ~/xenocell page. I've had to go and manually correct it. Hopefully it's just me, but I wonder how many potential backers have turned away from a poorly linked campaign?
#15
10/23/2012 (10:39 pm)
@Dan Thanks! At first I couldn't reproduce this, but it turned out to be a browser incompatibility issue. I've taken that box down altogether and fixed the text to represent this. Thanks again tor letting me know!
#16
10/23/2012 (10:42 pm)
No worries Konrad. I'd hoped it was just me. I should also have mentioned I'm using Chrome, which seems to be growing ever more quirky. Glad you got onto it though.
#17
10/23/2012 (10:57 pm)
Ha! I'm using Chrome too! Odd. :) No worries, I'm pretty sure the loss is minimal. The initial few hours of payment outage might have hurt us more. I'm yet to get started with the meat of the campaign, fortunately. 
#19
10/24/2012 (12:52 am)
Haha. :) I meant that I'm yet to officially contact about 100 online game magazines and send the news to about 14,000 players of mine - both parties are hopefully more interested in learning more about such a new game than an average player would be. We'll soon see.
#20
10/24/2012 (2:29 am)
Talk to Dan at AusGamers as well if you can. Those guys love these kinds of mold-breaking game. Oh, and Hooray for meat! 
Torque 3D Owner Andy Wright
BrokeAss Games
Really hope this indiegogo campaign works out for you.