I know I was alive before the internet existed, but I can’t remember how we got by. I have vague memories of card catalogues at the public library, but everything else is a blank.

However we did it, though, the fact of the matter is that no one would dream of trying to market something today without a website, and (obviously) Rocket Slime is no different. Of all our marketing initiatives, the website has the greatest potential for return on investment—or ROI as those wacky marketing guys call it—since compared to the packaging, magazine ads or word of mouth, it’s possible for many times more people to come across a website.

Even though the Rocket Slime website launched only weeks ago, months have gone into producing it.

As soon as we know a title will be coming out in the US, one of our marketing communications associates (like Parker from two weeks ago) will begin drafting a site map. Most of our games’ sites will have pretty similar information: Story, World, Characters, Multimedia, etc. Rocket Slime has a few more sections since we’re also running a contest and this here Slimeblog, but the idea is to use all of these sections to create a positive and accurate representation of what is in the game.

After the associate has nailed down what we want to put in the site, he’ll look through all of our materials and assets to determine how we can represent the game on the site visually. Every single slime, tank, monster—everything—comes from something Rocket Slime’s development team made. After reviewing each piece of material, we’ll look through different examples of what we might want to use to make sure the site catches the audience we want to attract.

Sometimes the suggestions will differ wildly. With Rocket Slime, though, we had a clear idea at the beginning. You could almost say the site was finished right then and there.

But then came the months upon months of fine-tuning.

“Let’s use that tank there.”

“I like the grass background better than the swords.”

“Don’t forget to put the release date on the top page.”

* * *

“Are you sure that joke’s funny? I don’t get it.”

“Did anyone remember the wallpapers?”

“Wait, shouldn’t we use actual items for the collecting mini game?”

Stuff like that. For almost three months.

Three. Months.

It took a while to finalize, and adding E3 plus a few other games to the schedule certainly compounded the Rocket Stress, but all in all it turned out well.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 28th, 2006 at 11:31 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.