gamewisp Demoing at PAX East

gamewisp

Hi forum friends,

My company reserved a booth at PAX East, which we are super excited about. We have never been to PAX before, and honestly, this is our first conference to demo our product. We are currently in Beta stage, so we are planning on giving out invites, free space on the service, t shirts, info cards, and stuff like that.

Is there anything we can do to make our conference presence better for everyone involved? As regular conference goers, what kind of thing attracts you guys to booths, what endears you to a company, and what makes you just never want to have anything to do with them?

I would love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks!
Michael

mod edit: link removed.

GrimRupert

At PAX, no lines.

Multiple game stations available, spread out so that people don't clutter, plenty of room to walk without interfering with other con goers or other booths. I want someone close by to explain the game to me if need be, but I don't want someone breathing down my neck either.

Personally, I'm not much for mouse and keyboard, so if you don't have a console controller of sorts (even a 360 controller hooked up to a PC) I'll probably skip it. I doubt many are of that same feeling, though, so I wouldn't worry too much about that.

gamewisp

Thanks for the feedback Grim. I think we ought to have console controllers out for the PC games. By "At PAX, no lines", what do you mean?

Additionally, zerzhul, sorry about the link. Was hesitating about that in the first place.

zerzhul

They're not a game company, they are a cloud save service. They had a link but I removed it, so the OP may want to actually describe their service a bit in the post

zerzhul

I assume by "no lines" he means that a booth without lines will attract him to check it out. I also share this sentiment. I'm much more likely to check out a booth that doesn't have a long wait for something than I am to check out something I need to wait for a half hour or longer to see.

gamewisp

Edit: Double Post. Sorry.

gamewisp

Ok, that makes total sense. We are still working out how best to demo what we do, though I think we have some fun ideas so far.

As far as what we are, as Zerzhul suggested, here is a little blurb: GameWisp automatically syncs your pc saved games and other content to the cloud. Then you can sync it to your other computers, just like Dropbox. We support over 600 games right now, and are adding more as often as we can. We also provide some social networking style services, centering around the content (sharing saves with other people, sharing content, etc.) Our main goal is to support games regardless of where you bought them and from whom, so we backup games bought on steam, origin, GOG, and at your local GameStop (if you are into that still).

Still figuring out somewhat who we are and what we will end up supporting at launch, but we are excited about talking to lots of gamers at PAX and just trying to figure out what will make everyone's life easier, surrounding your PC game content.

So, we are looking into working with some of the other indie developers demoing at the show, supporting their games and letting people play them at our booth, while also letting them create a GameWisp account and backing up their saves for those games they play at the show, so they can pick up their progress on it when they get home.

jdixon1972

The tech sounds really interesting, but wouldn't apply to me seeing as how I don't usually play pc games. I would still check it out, though. I'm a new tech junkie One bit of advice, though. For god's sake, please don't do any kind of scavenger hunt promo or any give away that is going to make a major mob form in front of your space!!! I can't speak for others, but if I can't somewhat easily get to your booth, i'm not even going to put forth the effort.

zerzhul

It's a tough problem to solve. On one hand, the companies that do those awful promos get *tons* of people traffic... on the other hand, it's super off-putting to folks that aren't awed by awful promos.

Usually though the "best" showings at PAX are not the ones that are completely swarmed. Fez, for example a couple years ago, was always busy but not swarmed with people. It was very easy to get in and out, play the game, talk to the developers, all without feeling rushed, annoyed, or what have you.

lunkhead

First off, full disclosure, I work in the architectural/theatrical lighting industry, so take my opinion as biased. I would say that a good way to attract people to your booth is a little flash. I personally am more attracted to booths that have interesting lighting, and/or “set” elements like truss work, large graphic banners, statues, etc. If you think about what booths really stand out in your mind at PAX, it's usually not those with the simple table and paper banner; it's the guys with the flash and trash. With that said, you don't have to try to have a huge display like Nintendo or Microsoft. Even just having a large flat screen looping a nice looking video of what you have to offer will gather more attention than a paper banner. Also, if your booth is slow, having outgoing and friendly people talking to people who are walking by your booth will help. I have definitely stopped at booths that I would have just kept walking past that had someone say something like "Hey, want to check out a new way to sync your PC game saves to the cloud?" As long as it’s done in a non-aggressive manner, it should at least get people to stop by and see what you have to offer by giving a verbal introduction.

cookiekrush

Having your employees being outgoing and friendly would be very important of getting people to your booth. Even while handing out swag, giving a short quick blurb is great to perk an interest of someone who is a PC gaming. Having the booth be bright, and have signs is a great way to get noticed. The boothes without signs can easily be passed by as there are many people at PAX that block people's view (Now this is coming from a short person), or there is nothing interesting at the booth that will perk a person's interest. Even having someone outside of the booth or walking around with swag, passing swag out and giving a short blurb can lead people to checking your your booth too. I remember getting shirts/buttons/postcards about different indie booths and going to check them out.

Having your employees clearly marked with bright coordinating shirts is good too so people can quickly find you and talk to you if they're not behind the booth.

I'm just not sure how you'd demo this kind of tech as it involves gaming and then saving on the cloud drives.

cookiekrush

In my personal opinion and experience of getting people to your booth is how you present yourself and how you interact with the crowd. Having your employees actually be in front of the desk and be outgoing, saying hey how it's going, would you like to try blah blah blah, is a great way to pull people in (just don't be pushy about it) or having them hand out shirts, or buttons or pins while giving a very short blurb about the company (like ever wanted to save your PC games on the cloud or something like that).

Also having your booth employee clearly marked/seenable is good too. Like having bright shirts (that's a give or take with some people), because it lets people see who is working the booth and more easily approachable to talk about the booth.

No lines is a great thing to people to jump in and test, however I'm not sure how this will be demoed clearly via PC or console gaming as this is for saving your game on the cloud.

cookiekrush

double posted - already mod alerted/reported. Sorry!!

Schmulki

I go to 3 types of booths at an event like this:

1) I know the game/company well, and already know I want to check out what they're demo'ing/get what they're giving away/selling.
2) There's no line, friendly but no really hard sell, and a demo available to try out.
3) Cool swag.

Ones I try to avoid:

1) Loud and/or overly flashy, ESPECIALLY if they have someone talking over any kind of loud-speaker or mic
2) Something that makes me jump through a lot of hoops for prizes/swag. Sure, I'll wear a button/sticker. No, I won't really wear a shirt for any longer than it takes to get it and walk away from your booth. No, I won't give you all my personal information (and guess what, if I do, it's probably fake) unless you've already let me demo your product and I REALLY like it and want to know when it comes out (and then, you'll get an e-mail and first name, that's it). No, I won't go around the rest of the weekend trying to scavenger hunt. I just know others will do more than me, so why bother? Fun, SHORT events? Something that takes 30 seconds->1 hr? Sure, if I'm not busy. Something that takes the day or the whole weekend? I'll pass, thanks.
3) Not sure if it's allowed at this con, but anything with fake smoke. Honestly, anything in like a 20-yard radius of that is shot.


Hope that helps.

gamewisp

Ok. Thank you guys for such awesome thoughts for us as we prep for this thing!!!

We are hoping to have PC's playing games that we support at the show, so people can sign up for GameWisp Beta there at the show, and then play some indie games, get to a save spot, and then upload their saves to the cloud to take home with them from the show. Just so everyone can get a taste of the functionality and all that, if they want to.

We will probably have a big flat screen TV with a demo video running in the background, showing the different parts of the application and so forth.

We might have like a high-score competition for free shirts and games and stuff. Do you guys think people like info cards and such about services? How likely are you to read something like that?

lunkhead

I may be in the minority, but I do like picking up the info cards. I tend to go through the cards I collected and visit the websites when I get home. It's hard to remember the names of all of the companies that I saw over the weekend, so your website and a brief description of what you offer on the card is really helpful.

Kythos

I'm in the same boat with lunkhead. I'm a packrat and pretty much take anything that's given to me and look at everything when I get back home

Schmulki

If I demo something and like it, I want a demo card at that point, so I remember to check it out more later. If not, then the card goes in the garbage.

Thunderous_T

I'm not sure at what point your product is at, but it would be cool if I could upload a save from home, then pick it up from where I left off on the expo floor.

61Ranchero

Info cards are a must in my opinion. I review them when I get home as I often forget details. Sounds like a neat service.

gamewisp

Hey 61Ranchero and also everyone who lent their throughts a couple weeks ago!

Thanks for your thoughts. We are printing up a crap-ton of cards at this point. Hopefully it will be enough.

Yeah, we should be a solid 2 weeks into beta at that point, so everyone who comes by the booth is going to get to sign up for an account and be able to try it out on the show floor. Hopefully, we ought to have some contests going on like highest Super Mario score, and stuff like that, as well as PCs to demo the app. Our goal is to try to partner with some of the indie game companies at the show to give them some more exposure at our booth and let you guys play their games, and then pick up where you left off in those games once you get home.

In fact, if you want to sign up to test, you can get on the wait list now at our website.

Either way, I look forward to meeting you guys at the show!! Please do come by and say hi.

gamewisp

Hey guys. Just a quick update!

We printed off 20,000 info cards to hand out to folks. I am really excited with how they look. We also got some cool banners printed up too! It all feels so real now!

So here is what we decided to do:
- Raffle: we are going to just have strips of paper for people to put their name / email / twitter, and we are going to give a way a t-shirt every hour and then a $50 giftcard to Steam at the end of each day.
- We will have a couple big monitors showing off GameWisp working. We talked with the creator of Gnomoria (http://gnomoria.com/) and they offered to let us demo GameWisp with their game on the show floor. So you
can come by, play Gnomoria and see how GameWisp works.
- We will have a TV with a rotating run down of what we do for people to hopefully walk by and see.

Should be a pretty simple booth, but hopefully everyone will be excited to check out what we are doing. Come by and check us out in booth 1115! We are over in the corner by Blizzard, Bethesda, and CCP.

gamewisp

Hey guys and gals,

One last post in this thread. We really appreciated the response at our booth! It was great to hear from a lot of folks who saw us on the forums and decided to come by because of that. We ended up handing out a ton of info cards and then also talked with a couple thousand folks. All the suggestions you guys made were super helpful and we really appreciate your input.

Hope to see you guys around at PAX Prime! And checkout our website if you didn't get a chance to come out to our booth at PAX East.

Michael