ICv2 caught up with Robert Reynolds, the CEO of SuperHeat Games, to talk about the marketing of SuperHeat’s innovative SuperHeat Skateboard TCG, which launched in June and is being distributed by Konami (see “Konami to Distribute SuperHeat Games”). In a wide-ranging discussion with ICv2, Reynolds talked about marketing the game at some of this summer’s biggest events, the major TV campaign behind the product (see “The Push Behind Superheat”), the best ways to sell the game on the hobby side, and the company’s plans to release a new SuperHeat TCG expansion this year and launch a new X-Games-based card game in the fairly near future.
How has the response been to the launch of the SuperHeat TCG?
The response has been good. We’ve been moving some units. There’s been some early adoption, which we are pretty excited about, though a lot of this is on the “skatecentric” side of it because we have been going out and doing a lot of demos. We have the RV tour rolling seven days a week, so we are starting to see some benefits from that. We have got some preliminary numbers from the mass, and we are pretty happy about it—we are selling some units. We are just trying to continue to build on our momentum and expand on what we have done.
Have you got a couple of different event programs going on?
We have a couple of different things. We have an RV that goes out to skate park, skate shops, and large events. It’s going to be at the X-Games. It’s going to be at the Mountain Dew tour. It’s going to be at the Maloof Cup events. We have that running seven days a week, and that’s decked out with two pro skateboarders that ride in the vehicle. They put on a skateboarding demonstration, and then they bring the kids back to the RV and demo the game at each event.
Right now we have been concentrating heavily in Southern California, but we have a schedule that I would be more than happy to share with you. We essentially drop in on people unless it’s a scheduled event. But if you go to the SuperHeat games Website and you go to “Events,” you can see that the Dew Tour is coming up in a couple of weeks, the Ocean City, Maryland Dew Tour. We will have a big presence there though it won’t be the RV, that will be at the California events like the X-Games, it’s going to be at the San Diego Comic-Con, and then at various different retailers. We have an internal schedule, but basically we just go out and find whatever big park is going on that day. We just did a big event at Willy’s Workshop, which was at a skatepark at Mira Mesa for a Fourth of July event that he was hosting. So we really just kind of go out and hit the streets. We have a big event this week up in Simi Valley and the RV will be there. It’s an overnight lock-in, so we are doing prizes and stuff all night long. So with the RV, it’s nothing super formal, unless it’s a big event like the Dew Tour, the X-Games, or Comic-Con.
The RV Tour is like a street team that’s going out there, isn’t it?
Exactly.
Tell us about the major events that you are going to be hitting this summer?
Well we already hit the Maloof Cup in New York City and that went really well. We did demos and got quite a few skate shops in the area on board, and really had an overall great show--it was sold out every day we were there. The next event we have is the Dew Tour. We are the official card game of the Dew Tour. We have a booth at the Dew Tour in Ocean City, Maryland. We are putting twenty-foot halfpipes in the sand. They are having a surf contest in the middle of the night with lights. We are going to be there engaging the audience, and it’s not a deep vendor show. We are in really good company. The people participating in the Dew Tour outside of ourselves are like Toyota, Mountain Dew, and a bunch of more endemic-like companies. So we are pretty excited to be part of the Dew Tour. We are participating at every stop with them.
We also signed a license with the X-Games. We are the official card game of the X-Games. We also are a part of their event coming up in LA. They have married the X-Games with LA Live, so the expected attendance is about 150,000 people who are going to be there over four-day event, which is the last weekend of this month. We will have a booth at that event. And we are also going to be launching an X-Game series of cards, most likely by the end of the year or early next year.
And it looks like you are going to be at Gen Con and Comic-Con?
Yes, we are going to be there as well. We are just focused on demos and continuing to get the brand out there and driving people in to retail.
My advice would be to demo as much as possible with the kids, because it’s a very infectious game. It’s easy to play, it’s very intuitive. Once you play it a couple of times, it’s infectious. That’s the way we’ve had success. We have had some success on the hobby side, but it’s been the stores we have targeted and where we have helped out. We are going to be working with some hobby game shops up in L.A. that our sales manager has set us up with, and we are going to be giving away shirts, and demoing with the staff and kind of teaching them how best to demo the game. What we are doing is we are continuing to add to the arsenal of stuff that will help in the demoing. We have a game mat coming out that makes the game even more intuitive. We will have some giveaway game mats to that kids can go home and teach their friends. But we have found in no uncertain terms that demoing the game is far and away the most successful way to sell it. Once the kids demo it, they understand the value in the chase cards and everything else, and they really get going on it. The reason why is that the game engine is so much fun, and it’s so much quicker to learn than others, so you can demo it and be quick about it, and it’s just a 5-10 minute hand before it’s over.
How do retailers access the support materials to demo the game?
They just need to reach out to us. We are reaching out as best as we can given the amount of time we have, but if anybody has any interest in demoing the game and getting the materials, we just encourage them to reach out to us and email us at SuperHeatgames.com. We respond very quickly and we get out everything that they need to support any kind of demo.
Where are you on the overall “air cover” marketing for this product? Has the TV started?
Yeah the TV has started. We’ve run about 3000 spots running between now and the end of July. We are currently airing on Cartoon Network, MTV2, Nickelodeon, Fuel TV, and during the X-Games we are airing on ESPN and ESPN2.
When did you start this campaign?
We started about three weeks ago in conjunction with our launch.
Any other plans for SuperHeat that our audience should know about?
Yeah we have a very exciting expansion coming out that we will be launching later in the year. We have signed some new athletes. We have some great game mechanics as well that we are introducing in the expansion. Justin Gary and his team just provided us with that. So we are really excited about that coming out and the new athletes that we will be introducing along with it. One of the things we are doing at the events is handing out special cards that will go along with the gameplay for attendees at each respective event. So if you are an attendee at Gen Con or Comic-Con, or the Dew Tour, or the X-Games, we are going to have a specific card that will engage the individual in a different way with the game. So that’s an exciting piece as well.
We haven’t seen a bunch of them surface yet, since we went very, very limited on those, so we haven’t gotten a sense of what the aftermarket will be as of yet.
