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The Humble Voxatron Debut

humblebundle.com

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Re: The Humble Voxatron Debut

#11

Post by nirvana »

I wish you the best, whatever it is you are, so constructive feedback follows:

Voxatron is too humble. I just went to the page. I had my browser window pretty big... taking up most of a 21" monitor.

Here's what I could tell about Voxatron:

1. It's called voxatron

2. It's "pay what you want".

3. It supports charity

4. It is DRM free

5. The people behind voxatron thought a sorta mincraftish image would communicate something significant to me.

6. It seems like it can run on a Mac.

I think these are all, clearly, features you wanted to communicate, and you succeeded in doing so very well.

However, I then hit my back button because, in the time it took me to grasp on that, I realized I had no clue what Voxatron was.... and I have spent too much time trying to figure things like that out in the past on other sites such that I've gotten the impression that if I don't get it right away, I likely never will. (Seriously, I can't tell you how many times I've followed links from google, gotten to a corporate site, spent 5-10 minutes there, unable to make heads or tails-- when I got there because, according to the query I crafted for google, google thinks this company is selling what I wanted to buy RIGHT THEN. The barrier is much lower for links on HN.)

Is it a game? Is it a voice transcoder? Is it an auto tuner? Is it for musicians? Is it for kids playing around with digital signal processing?

Give me a one line description of what voxatron is or does, without too much hyperbole, and put it front and center, maybe right under or replacing the word "voxatron" where it is now on the page. And if there IS Such a line, and I completely missed it, then I think your page layout is too busy and it caused me to overlook it.

You got my 11 seconds, but didn't get me very far down the funnel to conversion.

Again, with all respect, and hopes that this is helpful-

Re: The Humble Voxatron Debut

#12

Post by wmf »

jolan wrote: post #4
mdanger wrote: post #3

I remember there being some discussion around the Humble Bundle brand getting "diluted" by the Frozenbyte bundle last time, and I have to wonder if that's becoming the case.

Yeah it seems like they're crowdsourcing game development now: > Get Voxatron's future content and gameplay updates.

I'm not following you; in what sense is that crowdsourcing? I assume that the "future content" will be developed by the original developers, possibly using the revenue from this deal.

Re: The Humble Voxatron Debut

#13

Post by buro9 »

nirvana wrote: post #11

I wish you the best, whatever it is you are, so constructive feedback follows: Voxatron is too humble. I just went to the page. I had my browser window pretty big... taking up most of a 21" monitor. Here's what I could tell about Voxatron: 1. It's called voxatron 2. It's "pay what you want". 3. It supports charity 4. It is DRM free 5. The people behind voxatron thought a sorta mincraftish image would communicate some…

Same here, I looked around the page, identified the same things as you. Then gave up trying to figure it out what it actually is and instead thought that maybe the HN conversation might tell me.

Someone below says it's an indie game. Maybe I'll take a look later.

Re: The Humble Voxatron Debut

#14

Post by Wilduck »

nirvana wrote: post #11

I wish you the best, whatever it is you are, so constructive feedback follows: Voxatron is too humble. I just went to the page. I had my browser window pretty big... taking up most of a 21" monitor. Here's what I could tell about Voxatron: 1. It's called voxatron 2. It's "pay what you want". 3. It supports charity 4. It is DRM free 5. The people behind voxatron thought a sorta mincraftish image would communicate some…

Are you familiar with the Humble Indie Bundle? This is like that. It's an indie game released for pay what you want to support charity.

Re: The Humble Voxatron Debut

#15

Post by robinhouston »

In a selfish sort of way, I hope this discussion doesn’t end up being completely dominated by the question of whether the “Humble Bundle” offers are going downhill or whether their web page is well enough designed.

I’d like to see Voxatron succeed, not only because it’s the most interesting indie game I’ve played for a long time, but also because I’ve admired Lexaloffle for years, since I became dangerously obsessed with his beautiful game Zen Puzzle Garden, and I like to think that quiet inventiveness and careful dedication deserve the occasional reward.

I heard on Saturday that a paper I wrote with Lexaloffle’s Joseph White (and Martyn Amos) has been accepted for publication. We prove that Zen Puzzle Garden is NP-complete. It’s based on a post I made years ago to the old ZPG BBS. Joseph immediately understood the proof, and suggested a significant improvement.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ipl.2011.10.016 http://arxiv.org/abs/1106.2104v1

Re: The Humble Voxatron Debut

#16

Post by ido »

nirvana wrote: post #11

I wish you the best, whatever it is you are, so constructive feedback follows: Voxatron is too humble. I just went to the page. I had my browser window pretty big... taking up most of a 21" monitor. Here's what I could tell about Voxatron: 1. It's called voxatron 2. It's "pay what you want". 3. It supports charity 4. It is DRM free 5. The people behind voxatron thought a sorta mincraftish image would communicate some…

Honest question: do you really don't know what the humble bundle is, or are you just playing devil's advocate?

Re: The Humble Voxatron Debut

#17

Post by ido »

wmf wrote: post #12
jolan wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it seems like they're crowdsourcing game development now: > Get Voxatron's future content and gameplay updates.

I'm not following you; in what sense is that crowdsourcing? I assume that the "future content" will be developed by the original developers, possibly using the revenue from this deal.

I think he meant crowd funding.

Re: The Humble Voxatron Debut

#18

Post by nirvana »

ido wrote: post #16
nirvana wrote: post #11

I wish you the best, whatever it is you are, so constructive feedback follows: Voxatron is too humble. I just went to the page. I had my browser window pretty big... taking up most of a 21" monitor. Here's what I could tell about Voxatron: 1. It's called voxatron 2. It's "pay what you want". 3. It supports charity 4. It is DRM free 5. The people behind voxatron thought a sorta mincraftish image would communicate some…

Honest question: do you really don't know what the humble bundle is, or are you just playing devil's advocate?

Remember, even if you've been exposed to something in the past, it doesn't mean you know what it is. I clicked on the article on the HN page, by reading the title, and didn't see the domain until I went to click on the back button. I can't say that I didn't have any inkling that it was a game, and whether it was from the mine craft like picture or the url I can't say (though I don't know for sure that humble bundle is only games.)

IF people are tweeting this page, how many people who see that tweet are likely to follow it and have never heard of Humble Bundle before? So, they'd know even less than I would...

Re: The Humble Voxatron Debut

#20

Post by MrFoof »

ido wrote: post #16
nirvana wrote: post #11

I wish you the best, whatever it is you are, so constructive feedback follows: Voxatron is too humble. I just went to the page. I had my browser window pretty big... taking up most of a 21" monitor. Here's what I could tell about Voxatron: 1. It's called voxatron 2. It's "pay what you want". 3. It supports charity 4. It is DRM free 5. The people behind voxatron thought a sorta mincraftish image would communicate some…

Honest question: do you really don't know what the humble bundle is, or are you just playing devil's advocate?

A valid question in return would be, "Do you know how many people don't know what the Humble Bundle is?"

Moreover, what percentage of the population is even aware that A) you can buy games to play on the computer, and B) that didn't come from a big box retailer? I'll tell you this -- it's very much in the minority, especially when you look at the 30-and-up crowd. Much older than that and the percentage of the population starts to approach zero.

I grew up with an Atari VCS 2600 (that my parents had bought for themselves), as did most others I know. However if I asked my parents -- or those of anyone I know -- what Steam was, they wouldn't think of anything other than water vapor. Humble Bundle? Not a chance.

I've heard of kids on the bus and subway recently, talking about "this new Steam thing". If kids aren't aware of it, how aware is the general population of something far more obscure? Not very.

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