Jay Barnson: Small Business Blog Interview

The Rampant Coyote is an independent video game blog written by Jay Barnson. We highlighted their blog on May 25th and today, Jay answers my questions about the blog...

Pajama Market: How has the blog impacted your company?

Jay Barnson: When I first started planning my web strategy for Rampant Games, I really had no clue what I was doing. Set up a website, integrate with the online sales provider, and host my games. No problem, I thought. We did a lot of marketing up front with the release of our first game, Void War. This resulted in a solid spike of initial sales, and that was it.

The thing is, people come to sites (and come BACK to sites) for new content that is of value to them. There's just no way we could produce quality games - even selling third-party games of sufficient quality - at a rate that could keep people coming back regularly to see what was new.

So what else could I provide the community that was of any value at all? Well, the thing about gamers is that we love to TALK about games almost as much as we like to play them. Sometimes even more. I thought by providing a blog, I could initiate conversations with other gamers in the community, give them something worth coming back to either read or post their own thoughts.

PJ: What has the response been from your customers/clients?

JB: At the end of January, I started making a concentrated effort to both increase my rate of posts and to focus my posts a bit more on talking about games themselves instead of just game development. The results were twofold. First of all, about 60 days after this my sales started increasing.

But the even more dramatic effect has been a personal one. I've really enjoyed the increased level of involvement with the indie gaming community. I'm enjoying public debates with other business owners who could very loosely be termed my competition - but our combined goal has been to help understand how to serve the community better, increase customer satisfaction, and make cooler games. And really - we're doing this because we love what we do.

And I think the customers enjoy actually seeing a face and name behind the products. I've had more than one person tell me that they have been able to note my personal style and sense of humor in the game I designed and developed.

PJ: What types of things about your work day inspire you to write a post on your blog?

JB: For me, it's about the design and theory that goes into developing games, and bouncing these ideas off the community. There are also a lot of amusing stories of what goes on "behind the scenes" in game development, and I enjoy sharing some of these.

PJ: What have been the biggest surprises with your blog so far?

JB: I made a post a little over a year ago about my frustration with a major AAA game. While I enjoyed the game, I felt that some technical elements were really dragging the game down from what it could be. So I wrote a blog entitled, Why Battlefield 2 Sucks. I was just intending to vent a little bit, but apparently it found some resonance. It remains one of my most popular blog entries, a year later.

My take-away is to not be afraid to rant a little bit.

PJ: What blogging program do you use for the blog? Did you create this blog yourself? How do you like the program?

JB: I'm using Blogger, and its ability to publish to an external website. So I get to host the website myself and retain full control, but I can take advantage of Blogger's security features and regular upgrades to their service. It's easy and it works well for me.

The only real downside is that the chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and I have problems if either Blogger is down (preventing comments or new posts), or if my own website is suffering technical difficulties.

Tags: tales of the rampant coyote, rampant coyote, rampantgames.com, rampantgames, jay barnson