Absurdity

When your success depends mostly on your imagination and of course the ability to recognize and execute on good ideas sometimes the most fantastic imaginings flutter by. To stay on focus I don’t let my mind wander too far, but inevitably a series of conversations around me spawn such horrific beasts I hasten to slay them for fear of dwelling on them too long.

Ordinarily I would never share any of my fantastic journeys, but I’ve already shared so much so why not reveal just a glimpse of the thoughts I need to wade through to get to the good marketing idea’s that I now nurture.

Today we on the way to lunch we had a conversation about donating to good causes, and how much money it takes to save a life of a child in Africa. One of my coworkers having lived most of his life in Africa was able to confirm first hand that even the small amount of donations from America ware actually doing a lot of good there. We then talked about a movie that just came out, “Charlie Wilson's War". How Charlie Wilson was able to raise 1 billion dollars to fight a war in Afghanistan but was unable to raise another penny for humanitarian efforts afterwards. Before we were done with lunch the conversation drifted to the US war in Iraq and what a royal fuck up that turned out to be.

On the way home my mind started to drift and here is just one thought that fluttered by. Please don’t hold it against me for I have no control over these things and would never even consider starting an organization for the cause.

Combining all 3 previous conversations I thought. If it is so easy to fund military efforts, instead of sending food to Africa, let’s send guns, lots and lots of guns. Then we can tell the people that all the food is in Iraq, the Taliban have it.

Yes I know, it was a cruel thought and was around for but an instant. I have hundreds of these every day, most of which I am unaware of. However when time allows they keep me entertained better then any movie could. Scared yet?

Dad, I know as soon as you read this your going to call and lecture me on the absurdity of this idea. Please don’t. Also I am fully aware that I am trying to make a living selling virtual property. It’s not the same.

The product

This is our artists rendition of the Saga retail display. Since this was made I've decided to go with a full size CD rather then the mini DVD pictured to allow compatibility with a greater number of computers and to leave room on the back of a CD sleeve for installation directions.

In addition to the game display pictured bellow, we will sell booster packs similar to the 3 included with the game purchase.

This is the front and back of the postcard that I hope will show up on the counter of every hobby store in America next month. We have always had a very positive response from the majority of our players. Since Hobby store owners are traditionally wary of picking up new products, having been burned many times in the past, the Beta trial offered on this postcard will return many positive reviews to the store owner from their customers.
This combined with our phone calls to explain to store owners why they should distribute the Beta invitations, and an article in next weeks Scrye magazine which is pretty much the bible for collectible card games, I hope will gain us a customer or two.

I have minions

Each time the executive producer would tap me for a marketing promotion, another crack would open and idea would leak out. These last few days I’ve felt as if a great dam of ideas has burst out of my chest. My day is filled with phone calls and emails trying to coordinate online and print media, negotiating contracts with distributors, working with printers, and tapping the leaders in nitch markets for coverage.

I feel I could do everything if I just had more time, or more people, or more money, always more. I am however happy to have what little I can get from our little startup. I would much rather work with finite resources then deal with infinite red tape at a larger well funded studio. Decisions literally take minutes from conception to reality. As I already wrote, last week I decided we should sell Saga to hobby stores because those players would grok the concept. I walked into the producers’ office and told him about my plan, he said wow that’s cool, and right there the decision to create a retail product was made.

The only remaining detail was to create concept drawings, hire artists for the box and packaging art, secure printing for the packaging, paper and CD, sign distribution deals with national and international distributors, and promote the product. Simple!

Jason, our executive producer is helping out with the art on top of his already overflowing stack of responsibilities, so the rest falls on me.

Most of the Beta postcards for players have already been sent to distributors and will go out to hobby stores next week. In addition I thought it would be beneficial to hire a staff to call every store and speak to the store owners in person to teach them about Saga so that they could better explain it to their customers and become excited about the opportunity to sell a virtual online game.

I put an ad into 2 local online classifieds and received many responses. My requirements were simple. Know more about games then my mom, know how to use a web browser, have an email address, and have a basic understanding of typing information into excel. Half the people I spoke with failed on the first 2 points. One lady failed after she said she was qualified to promote games because her kids played them. She also failed points 3 and 4 in case you think I’m being overly harsh.

I ended up hiring 3 people. One guy who was previously a telemarketer and young enough to play games and use a computer regularly. A girl who seemed intelligent but got sick the next day and has not yet shown up for work. And a guy with a great resume’ who will be starting tomorrow. The last guy is actually overqualified and will be tasked with securing distribution in Japan and Korea in addition to contacting stores, since he not only speaks Japanese but has contacts with a distributor in Asia. I’m not really sure why the last guy applied except he claims he wants to get his foot in the door in hopes of a promotion after we launch. If he is genuine I will take care of him when that happens.

I spent today teaching the telemarketer to not be a telemarketer. He first tried using a script that I had to take away, and then kept rushing through his presentation afraid the store owners would hang up. It took about 2 hours for me to get through to him that game store owners are actually ecstatic that a game company would take the time to personally call them. He got much better before the day was through and now you would not be able to tell that he was once a telemarketer.

I can’t really blame the guy. No one has ever tried anything like this before. Who ever heard of hiring a staff to call people and not try to sell them anything or ask them for anything? You don’t say Hi my name is, instead you say, Hey I’m Slava. These people don’t know you but they want to be your friend. Who the fuck knows? Maybe I’m just crazy, or maybe I’m just crazy enough to sell a virtual collectable product. All I know is, the sooner I get these 3 people set up, the sooner I can work on my next idea that’s so top secret I can’t even blog about it, but it’s already in motion and so far working as predicted.

Tomorrow I will post pictures of the retail product and beta post cards.

Junk mail

I’ve decided I love to write. Sometimes the words are stressed like constipation, straining to come out, but when they flow like music it’s beautiful and often entertaining. I’m certainly no prodigy, I need to practice my instrument, and for this reason I’m vowing to continue this blog for the duration of my stay in this homogeneous state.

I enjoy many activities besides writing, which isn’t to say I enjoy them on a regular basis or even annually, I do however have a long list of things that would delight me should they fall into my lap with no exertion on my part. There are however, a few items which really irk me, one of which is junk mail. Into this category I group advertisements, bills, coupons, and religious flyers that seem to find their way to my door more often these days then ever before. I tried to take a picture of what happens when I leave piles of these papers at my doorstep; however I found cats not to be the most poseable creatures.

I have gotten fairly good at keeping papers out of my apartment for the above reason. What really irritates me is when I am tricked into bringing trash into my home.

The other day I got a letter from my insurance company. On the outside it said in very large letters meant to seem important that a bill requiring my immediate attention was enclosed. I decided to bring the letter home since that morning I had seen a police officer pull over 2 kids in front of my office. Place them in handcuffs. Then proceed to conduct a 20 minute chemical test on a bottle he had found in one of their pockets only to eventually and I should add with a very disappointed expression remove the handcuffs and return the bottle which turned out to actually contain the prescription listed on the front of the bottle. I had no desire to be subject to a more painful examination should I be found without proper insurance.

Imagine my anger when upon opening the letter I found it read. Payment required $0.00. Well of course the payment required was $0.00. That is actually my main reason for paying the bills on time; to bring the payment required to $0.00. At this point I could have sat back, taken a breath and let tranquility wash over me. Instead I chose to open a letter from my bank which read. Your online statement is now available. I’m not sure what happened after that, it’s all a blank.

Computer genius

I used to think I was so smart. I guess that outlook changed when I went to High school in NY. Having previously attended a religious school where people were convinced in the existence of a god and spent a great deal of time on rituals devoted to this belief, followed by a public school in the Bronx where I only had to show up for class to blow the curve for everyone, the Bronx High school of science was a lesson in humility.

Conscious of this realization, I went through the next part of my life convinced that everyone had the same potentials, only requiring the desire to learn. Then as I entered the “real” world my perception changed yet again.

I have met some incredible people over the years, and am more then proud today to call many of them friends. However there are other individuals who vex and perplex me. Here are a few amusing examples.

One of the QA testers working on Saga is a great guy with the best of intentions. I’ve given him some advice which I believe to be solid and try to give him opportunities to prove him self. Sometimes however my plan backfires, such as the other day when I gave him the keys to my car with the task of taking a stack of promotional material to Kinko’s for a print test. It was previously my belief that anyone with a driver’s license can get into any car without a clutch and drive 2 miles. I was proven wrong when the poor guy returned flustered and apologetic claiming he had driven my car to the shop in first gear without realizing it.

I’m not really sure how anyone can drive in first gear without realizing that something is wrong. What really puzzles me is that my car has a Tiptronic transmission and the gear shift only goes down to Drive. In order to go above 10 miles an hour in first gear a person would have to purposefully shift the car into Tiptronic then constantly hit the down gear every 5 feet to keep the car from up shifting. I highly doubt this was done. Yet the poor guy is convinced a magical first gear appeared on my gear shifter and is now missing.

This is actually only mildly amusing when I consider the sales guy who helped me buy a new cell phone for one of my staff this evening. After picking my phone, I expected to check out quickly and get back to the office. Cricket a new phone company that has unlimited calling, does not require a contract so there was nothing for me to fill out, nor any plans for the sales person to sign me up for.

I stood in the middle of a mall teaming with Christmas shoppers, afraid for my life watching this young man press what seemed like the same set of keys over and over for about 5 minutes with a blank unchanging look on his face. He didn’t seem to be on any sort of drugs so I expected his expression to change as he got closer to completing my order, yet after 10 minutes, he wore the same blank stare and continued to hit what I realized was the same 2 keys over and over.

Finally my curiosity got the best of me and I stepped over to his side of the counter to explore the situation further. At this point I should have taken a video with my cell phone because there is no way without knowing my distaste for lying that anyone would believe this story. The guy was standing there with a cursor in the price paid cell, trying to enter the correct amount, unfortunately, every time he would hit a key, the cursor would move one cell to the left. At which point he would press the right arrow key to get back into the correct position and repeat the process.

I observed this behavior in amazement for awhile longer, before reaching over and hitting the Num Lock key. His only comment after completing the transaction was, “Wow, you must be really good with computers”. "Ya something like that", I replied as I shuffled away.

My dilemma

Today I find myself contemplating blogging etiquette. Originally it was my intention to entertain my friends while having a place to vent my thoughts; however blogs being on the internet and the internet being a public forum, there are rules that must be followed as in any other public situation.

Already my blog has been located by my coworkers making me feel uneasy about writing anything touching on religion. Obviously since it is read by my parents, a certain prudence must be exercised regarding not only language but subject matter. It gets even worse from there. Since I am the marketing director for a company hoping to entertain many tens if not hundreds of thousands of people I must assume a portion of the player base will locate the blog. If that’s not bad enough, people I deal with on a professional level are sure to google my name. My blog isn’t exactly obfuscated being the 2nd hit.

I could certainly deal with my friends. Never having been one to hide my feelings my thoughts about each of them certainly won’t change their opinion of me, which is why the few friends I keep are true friends. Unfortunately, even though I only refer to them by first names some of them also have a public image which I have to be careful not to mar. So from now on writing about any of my friends is out of the question.

Writing about my coworkers is definitely out. We’ve only worked together for a brief period of time and while jests of all manner are typical through out the day, the inflections present in speech make them obviously light hearted. Putting something down in print no matter the meaning, could easily become misconstrued.

I shouldn’t even need to mention the consequences of writing anything about a business contact to myself or those I work with.

Which leaves what?

Writing about myself? To think anyone out there cares about my opinion or daily activities is a bit conceited, but really there is nothing else.

Actually it’s not that bad. I have always written about my views and usually most unfortunate events I am involved in and have received some praises, that the words have lightened some ones day.

Marketing Guru or maybe not

Work has been absolutely crazy over the last couple of months. I’ve been promoted to Marketing director, a position in this company that for some reason doesn’t come with a staff, not even a busty assistant. I’ve run some grass roots marketing campaigns in the past, when our company was one of two producing online collectable games and I knew which website to contact for coverage. Today everyone and their mother has a collectable online game and even grandma has a review site and expects to be treated as if someone cares what the old gal thinks.

I’ve been dragging myself into work between 8 and 10 in the morning and getting home no earlier then midnight with the exception of one day on the weekend when I try to spend at least a few hours not thinking about new marketing promotions. Last weekend I got out to Park City where I watched in the freezing snow, the US Bobsled team, take the gold medal with 16 other people who came out to support our Olympic athletes. The highlight of the event was when a member of the Italian team jumped out of his sled after a run down the mountain and threw my Uncle, who is the manager of the US team, a wedge of cheese that he obviously smuggled down in his pants. I was told it was a running joke between them and was given the cheese to take home.

I like to deceive myself that our company promotions are going well, however I am plagued by a feeling that I am missing opportunities that a professional with experience would find evident. I do have the support of my coworkers however. Just last week our executive producer invited me to dinner where he asked me to pull a brand new marketing promotion out of my ass that would take us in a yet unexplored direction. I’m no Italian bobsledder but I decided rather then trying to be the sparkling goldfish in a deep sea tank, I would be the Beta fish in my own bowl. My idea was to market to collectable gamers who visit hobby shops since no other online game has even attempted to capture an audience in the physical space. Saga is actually the first collectable online miniatures game.

My friend Phil has said in the past that if someone isn’t doing something I should look for the reason why. But I’m selling phoneless cords here. I don’t think anyone really knows what they are doing.

I wrote an article that will be coming out in this month’s Scrye magazine which is the bible for collectable gamers, and negotiated a deal with every major hobby distributor in the US to mail to their clients post cards that would give gamers who visit their shops access to the Saga Beta test. I’ve also designed 2 retail items that will be sold in every hobby store in America and a few in Europe and am currently working on getting the product into K-B toys, Toys R Us and most comic book stores that also sell collectable card games. Players will be able to purchase this product, enter the code they receive and get the products, delivered online. In addition to this I’ve placed Saga at every website that hosts downloads and have other online promotions, interviews and reviews scheduled.

I don’t know what else I could possibly do, and the not knowing is keeping me up at night. Yesterday the executive producer told me he really likes what we have so far and was wondering if I could pull something else out of my ass. Sure no problem I said let me sit on it.

And since it’s been awhile, here is my cat. I think he’s dead.