November Recap and Thought Dump about Marketing. Or something.

We're on the last stretch, folks. One more month until 2020 is over, and I can't help but look back at this year as one of the more weird ones, to say the least (emphasis on "to say the least"). But before we do a major dive and recap the whole year, I thought I'd do a quick reflection on November and dump some random thoughts I've had about marketing. 

I am not a big fan of social media. I am also one of the most cynical people you will probably ever meet in your entire life. These two qualities, generally speaking, do not mix well. My preferred music of choice during my days of academia use to be (and still is to some extent) rock and metal, and as I progressed through the societal cesspool we collectively call high school, I noticed a proliferation of individuals that were, shall we say, enthusiastically opinionated about things they probably shouldn't have been so sure about. These folks pointed their fingers with a conviction fueled by ignorance that can only be acceptable in a younger individual. These were people that were quick to accuse musicians of "selling out". Selling out. When was the last time you heard that phrase? "How dare these artists sully the music that we rely on to get through our miserable days?" said my friend Dan (not his real name), or so a lot of his actions were implying. I nodded in metaphorical agreement, of course, because we were two peas in a pod. You see, Dan and I were in a band together, and our flavor of misery defined our personality. We were angry, and we needed a way to define what that anger meant (we never really did figure it out.) So when a band became played on the radio or when their new album sounded different than the last (aka happier), the knee jerk reaction was to move on. They have sold out. And boy, were we ashamed of them.

See, back in the day, there was a notion that rock musicians were a breed of humans who fought against the status quo. Rock and those who wielded it were the perpetual underdogs. They condemned the placating nature of popularism. They were sick of music that was primped and prepped with mechanical precision only to claim "sugar is sweet, and heartbreaks are sad" to garner sympathetic approval from the lowest common denominator. "No shit, Sherlock" was their default mode of function. They firmly believed that the cream will naturally rise to the top and that their music can speak for itself, and purposefully chasing success wasn't the point. These were the folks that spoke our language of what we considered "genuine,". They were collectively our Tyler Durden.

After high school, Dan and I slowly drifted away only because we chose different paths. We didn't really have a falling out. It just so happened that he decided to pursue music as his career and I decided to not know what I wanted to do. Then more years passed, and along with it, swept in the age of irony. Apathy became the cornerstone of sympathy and cool was no longer cool. We, as a society, no longer had an appetite for simple acts of defiance. Rock was dead and mainstream music was very much solidified by Hiphop artists and the like. "I wonder, did our beloved musicians win their fight in the end?" I thought as I listened to whatever Anime music that was popular at the time on my second hand, malfunctioning iPhone 3G that I bought from a friend. I was more in awe with technology at the time, pondering about the implications of what this handheld computer meant for the future. "Who even was the "they" Rock was fighting against, and what spiritual war were they even fighting?." I honestly didn't know. Or particularly even cared anymore because I stopped thinking about it. I was too worried about trying to make rent and making sure my friends didn't die of a drug overdose.

Then more time passed. The self-deprecating flavor of money-making did a 180, and we've now entered the age of Social Media and "Likes." We are now in an age where a number can show us exactly how relevant we are. We live in a time where a lack of humility is a virtue. We claim to be humble while brandishing wealth with no sense of irony, and that's supposed to be the irony, get it? We eat powdered cinnamon and tide pods in hopes of garnering attention from strangers on the internet with the blanket excuse of just having fun. Wars are no longer fought with guns but with a keyboard and grown ass adults argue and attack others each other pop culture and preferred OS preferences. And while we bicker online about shit that doesn't matter, the President of the United States has a Twitter account that the whole collective world is watching. Many yell at him directly online. He and many others "in the lead" will never see our messages, but it doesn't matter. It's not about us as individuals taking small actions to better ourselves and society; it's about how we react to others while signaling our virtue. It's about latching onto other people's success to expedite our online persona's growth. It doesn't matter if we're aware of it or not: we, individually, are our own brand manager, constantly in fear of being canceled at any time because of a slightest lapse in judgment. Exposing weakness is the game, and exploitation is the currency. "And we're fucking surprised when we've never been more lonely as a society?" yaps my in-brain brand manager. You know that phrase, right? That we've never been more connected, but we've never been more lonely as a society? According to him, even this very notion is starting to become passé. The dancing monkey that is our societal depression, frankly, is getting boring. 

"Next!" yells my brand manager with a shit-eating grin. "Get off the fucking stage monkey! Next!"

November was an interesting month. Phoenixx, our new publisher, has been so gracious to us. They have been continuously out-doing themselves to promote fault and have been vital to galvanizing the series again. Our project manager, Ms. K., truly believes in the potential of fault, ever since years ago when she contacted us while we were still working with Sekai Project. We cannot be more thankful; we really can't. They've shown us a level of commitment that can only be manifested by genuine enthusiasm, much like how I feel about our patrons (hey, that's you!) and at some point, we shared a collective agreement that we needed to work on marketing in Japan. Because of this, most of the social media push surrounding MS2a's Switch release has been in Japanese. Press releases and promotions are mainly focused on Japan this time as well. Here are some things that have happened this month:

1) Two Rather Big Twitter campaigns:

The first was a give away of 10 codes for MS2a, 5 between Phoenixx and us, and it went something like this:

https://twitter.com/projectwritten/status/1328249105122902023?s=20

The video was the TV commercial that's aired here in Japan on Television Tokyo. The second was a Nintendo Switch Lite give away, again one per account, and it went something like this:

https://twitter.com/projectwritten/status/1331877634565816321?s=20

The video here is the promo video for MS2a that's on the store as well.

2) We also did the whole Presale thing (あらかじめダウンロード） 

...becuase we weren't able to do this last time with MS1.

3) We also launched a TV commercial that aired on actual god damn TV. (I filmed this at Phoenixx's office one of the times it aired):

https://twitter.com/projectwritten/status/1331483616874958848?s=20

or here on Youtube (but it's just the ad 

Three more days till MS2a's release to the world:

https://twitter.com/projectwritten/status/1333369441371914240?s=20

And a whole bunch of MS2b stuff that we really can't and shouldn't share just yet.

I apologize if this might be frustrating to some of our western patrons here since we weren't able to do much for the English-speaking side of things, but as it turns out, there's only so much we can do at a given moment. Our hope is that growth in Japan will be good synergy on all fronts -- that this will lead to bigger and better things in the future for everyone. I at least hope this is an interesting enough update though.

So, where is this meandering post marching towards? I honestly don't know. It's just that I thought about "Dan" and my younger self the other day and the good old hypothetical, "What if I can show them what I'm doing now with my life now?" popped up in the old noggin. "What would they think?" I think this is because I'm generally uncomfortable about everything when it comes to marketing. You know, self promotion, because I still feel like I haven't found a counter argument to the whole "sell out" notion. I genuinely do wonder though. What the fuck does that even mean in todays society? I can explain to Dan and I about the future and how society has shaped itself. How we're struggling to be a proper game dev studio and all the hardships that we've gone through. After all that, what would they think? What would their judgement be?

The proper and truthful answer is, I honestly don't give a shit what they think because those two were fucking idiots. But I can't help but notice that the scar tissues they've left on my mind is very real and still exists to this day. Even after all these years, the DNA of misery and anger those two left still hasn't Ship of Theseus-ed away. Indeed, it's no longer the same fuel, but the furnace burning the fuel hasn't changed since Dan and I broke up the brand.

"You said it yourself; they were kids, they knew fucking nothing!" my brand manager keeps telling me. He too, can be an asshole sometimes. "I know, I know." reply. "Just anxious about the march forward, that's all. I just want to make sure I'm being true to whatever I consider my values are."

"Well, you won't know till you try more now, will you?" he snaps back. "You'll be saying the same shit in 10 years; life is a death march whether it works out or not, and you'll always be your own worst enemy. Now go make more fucking moves!"

He's certainly not wrong, you know.

But it's his shit-eating grin that gets me every time, I swear.

-Munisix

PS This wasn't meant to be this long. Apologies if it was confusing because it wants really planned. TLDR: we did some Japanese marketing this month.

See you all next month!

Stay safe.

Vilserio.