Black Shell Media
Hi!
So it seems as though a couple of MGSA members have been targeted by Black Shell Media company with messages like:
I've also checked out the LinkedIn profiles of the two main team members and their experience or expertise in marketing practices is nothing to write home about as far as I can tell.
Anyway, this is basically just a heads up that these guys are apparently trying to target the SA devs. They do seem like a legitimate company, but I personally don't see them as being able to provide any benefit worth paying their prices for.
So it seems as though a couple of MGSA members have been targeted by Black Shell Media company with messages like:
If it's a good game, all you need to do is email these press places and (provided you don't write the worst email ever) they'll probably pick it up. This isn't magical and doesn't need a media company to do.Let me introduce myself briefly. I’m Daniel, CEO of Black Shell Media LLC. We’re a small startup based in New Jersey that specializes in viral audience growth for indie studios. We’ve developed and published games like SanctuaryRPG: Black Edition, noticed by some of the biggest gaming sites out there (Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Destructoid, PCGamer, and more).
Lots of appeals to the idea of being the "next big thing" and the next hit. Unless he's got PewDiePie on speed dial, I don't see a media company having this kind of ability on an indie type budget.One of our games, Overture, got through Steam Greenlight within less than 10 days, and netted more than 6,700 downloads in its first few weeks on Steam alone. Many of our clients and revenue share partners have gotten Greenlit in less than two weeks! Over the years, we have meticulously crafted efficient and effective techniques for getting indie games the recognition they deserve, and I'd love to get a chance to help make A Day In The Woods reach top ten lists all across the internet.
What I do at Black Shell Media is work with developers like you who have a fantastic game but could benefit from an extra surge of audience growth to get it out to the public effectively. I’ve worked on all kinds of games across a variety of genres. A Day In The Woods was brought to my attention recently, and I think that if we were to work together, it could become the next big thing.
8 years? I guess if I'm liberal, I could say I have 9 years of marketing experience. It's kind of meaningless. And that's just me alone. If I made a company with Danny, for eg, we could arguably have more than 20 years experience.Some developers say that getting a game noticed is all about getting lucky. I say let’s make our own luck through hard work and passion. Black Shell Media has the resources and experience needed to make your game’s fan base grow exponentially. We’ve provided massive audience growth and full-service marketing for titles similar to your game, and we know the indie gaming industry inside and out with over 8 years of marketing experience. Here’s a link to a slightly more detailed (but still a short read!) overview of our services.
You can literally just submit games to Humble, GoG and Steam. No middle man required. So, here's someone who wants to take your money for no apparent reason. Because being on Steam will get your game in front of hundreds of thousands of gamers. That also does not guarantee sales.I would love to partner with you. I want to offer you the opportunity to sit down for a free consultation and hear what we can offer you. I want you to give me a chance to get A Day In The Woods the success it deserves. We have business development contacts on the world's largest digital distribution platforms including Steam, GOG, and Humble Bundle, and we can get your game in front of hundreds of thousands of gamers in a heartbeat.
So, I've been eye balling their stuff for quite a few months before they got in touch with us. They've posted a lot on Gamasutra but the content isn't original - basically all the stuff you should already know about marketing your game - and it's just there to make themselves look expert-y.If you decide to take the chance and watch players fall in love with A Day In The Woods, please shoot us an email back and we’ll set up a time to talk. I hope you take us up on the free consultation, because we're very excited to work with you.
I've also checked out the LinkedIn profiles of the two main team members and their experience or expertise in marketing practices is nothing to write home about as far as I can tell.
Anyway, this is basically just a heads up that these guys are apparently trying to target the SA devs. They do seem like a legitimate company, but I personally don't see them as being able to provide any benefit worth paying their prices for.
Comments
If you needed what they're offering, their existing clients would be recommending them.
If someone isn't making a concrete offer with a detailed explanation of how it makes both of you money that you wouldn't be able to make otherwise, bin it. You're not missing anything by cutting down on spam, you'll only ever get more of it.
Also, @dammit, what you posted is verbatim to what we got, just with "Rooks Keep" instead of "A Day in the Woods" :)
That being said, spending money on something that adds value can easily be worth it because your time is a very limited resource, but it should always be an objectively better option and easy to make that decision. Once you start analysing these things, it's surprising how easy it is to objectively compare various options. Like @dislekcia said, "If someone isn't making a concrete offer with a detailed explanation of how it makes both of you money that you wouldn't be able to make otherwise, bin it." Once money starts coming into the picture (and your time is also money), parties need to be able to "prove" their value, usually through a history of good past performance.
One last little thing from me: if anyone contacts you with a deal that is "secret" and they don't want to tell you all the details or you can't tell others or something similar, run away from them as fast as you can! Good business is about making objective decisions with a high degree of transparency. The only time it makes sense to not share pretty much all the details or try stop someone from asking for independent advice is when you are actively trying to deceive.
EDIT: Er, wups, that's a bit big.
Almost felt guilty for a moment there for ignoring them. Thanks for posting that, seeing the stock email squishes any guilt. And to @dammit for starting the thread in the first place, I would likely have wasted my time otherwise.
I came across a little thread on reddit that claims paid ads are crap for indies:
https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/3jwad0/the_200_experiment_or_why_paid_ads_suck_for_indies/
Which seemed pretty reasonable. Then I read the comments, and those basically slated the OP for doing a crap job of their advertising, that's why the paid advertising had little to no effect. Seemed fair too.
So I clicked through to the blog post that originated this reddit discussion:
http://blackshellmedia.com/the-200-experiment-or-why-paid-ads-suck-for-indies/
And hey, it's Black Shell!
So I got curious and browsed around their site, found a clients page:
http://blackshellmedia.com/clients/
And it's a FUCKING LONG LIST. Don't know if it's legit. Then there's a long list of testimonials too. First impression was that I haven't heard of any of these games. Second impression is each game has a "greenlit in x days" thing, seemed pretty impressive, but that could easily be on the games' own strength (in fact it really should be, especially considering greenlighting is not a huge deal now).
So... What to make of Black Shell, really?
Also, it's not useful to compare: "Our Twitter network of 140,000+ combined followers nets 8 million monthly impressions (over 260,000 per day.) And I don’t pay a cent for it!" Getting impressions doesn't necessarily mean anything. I'm sure, in fact, that the Freelives team would say they get about the same (or possibly more?) impressions per month - the difference is that those impressions are from fans. People who like the game/brand already. Those are likely to lead to retweets, sharing, comments, interactions and therefore sales. Impressions just garnered through spamming hashtags and following a bazillion accounts that follow back is not good value.
I would also say those ads weren't the best - so not likely to convert. Our own experience with Adwords is that there isn't a great conversion rate either, but I have heard other devs finding different paid advertising avenues useful. I think it depends a lot on many different factors. Is your audience likely to be using adblock? Then it's not going to work :/
For me the biggest red flag is on the description of the founders - nothing about their descriptions tell me they're qualified to do what they're claiming they're the best at. "Social media consultant" ? I guess I could put that on my profile too. I've got "gamification expert" somewhere on my linkedin. "Internet marketing professional" ? I guess I could add that too. It just seems to be meaningless to me - I can't really find evidence of their expertise.
"We’ve shipped over half a million copies of our games" How many of those games were free to play?
And on the topic of greenlight - there's been at least a few devs I recall writing about how surprised they were at how quickly their game got greenlit AS WELL AS people writing about how press make no difference to the progress of greenlighting (because of the linking issue - it creates a barrier to entry so few people make it from an article link to actually voting).
My thoughts on the topic. I wouldn't mind actually finding out what the experience is of someone who has used their services (beyond the testimonials they've got on the site).
Also, never pay for anything like this.
I found that on reddit just now. The guy talks about being "published" by black shell.
Firstly, the attitude of the developer there is absolutely shocking: If you're not sure that $100 is a good "investment" to get your game on Greenlight, well, just stop trying to sell it already because you clearly don't have enough information about if anyone wants to buy it. There are so many better ways to get $100 that DON'T mean you're selling your game off as a free app that I'm honestly angry with this dev. Yes, I understand that mustering that $100 was difficult for the dev, no that doesn't mean that the compromise is a good idea.
Secondly, Black Shell Media didn't seem to actually DO anything worthwhile - we all know Greenlight is just a waiting game these days. If you post about your game or it's in any way interesting, you just wait a little less... But BSM then takes your game and goes into full-on "release" spamming mode, giving it away for free for "competitions" on sites that literally only care about codes as ephemeral stores of value and not as actual games. BSM is growing their own brand at the expense of every developer that signs up with them, hoping that one of these games earns enough money at some point that BSM comes out ahead - except they're not even spending any money to market anything anyway, they've already paid their Greenlight fee (so it's not like they "gave" that dev $100 at all) and promising codes is free too, their only cost is time.
BSM is a bad deal that relies on taking advantage of developers that don't believe in themselves, their games or their reach. Stay away.
http://gamasutra.com/blogs/JoshSutphin/20150922/254236/How_our_PR_partners_reputation_became_a_liability_and_what_we_did_about_it.php
https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/43b3nb/dont_trust_indie_publisher_black_shell_media_my/
It is weird that the game dev radio hosts didn't ask those more poignant questions, especially considering I listen to the "Game Design Daily" podcast they do and I'm pretty sure they mentioned the issues there. I don't know, maybe they have some long term memory issues or only bring the issues up much later...
Edit: Okay ... removed the post .. do I get like a special badge for breaking the forums? 8-}