PC Unique Selling Point

hotpoon

hotpoon

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I've seen a couple of threads lately derail into arguments about what kind of game 7DtD is, what constitutes 'sandbox', what aspect of the game is supposed to be the most prevalent in terms of kickstarter goals, etc. I've also seen plenty people accuse 7DtD devs of not knowing even what they want.

I never saw this type of argument pop up during previous alphas. It seemed we were all more or less happy about the game straddling multiple genres, but now lots of people want to argue whether it's primarily tower defense, primarily shooter, primarily crafting, etc. With the current alpha feeling a bit out of balance for some us, I guess those are good questions to ask, but from a marketing perspective there is a more important question to ask. And that is: what is the game's unique selling point?.

Unique Selling Point (or U.S.P) is a marketing term. I'm not a marketing person. I'm a designer, but 'U.S.P.s' were important enough to be part of my curriculum back in college 20 years ago. A U.S.P is what defines a product as being unique from other similar products. When we look at the zombie game market, the popular ones have a U.S.P. For example

  • Dying Light. It's also an open world zombie survival game with RPG elements, but its U.S.P. is the parkour element and lockpicking.
  • State of Decay. U.S.P: Colony Building & Permadeath.
  • Left4Dead franchise. U.S.P: Focuses on team work.
  • Dead Island. The juxtaposition of a horror in an idyllic setting.


So what is 7DtD's U.S.P? Some might say it is the fact that it is so many types of games rolled into one. It has combat, loot, base building, crafting, survival elements, RPG elements, tower defense, PvP. I think that is only part of it. Lots of games straddle genres now days.

I would say its U.S.P is that it's a voxel game but with good graphics. No other zombie game has that, and in fact, even outside of the zombie genre, other games also don't do voxels with good graphics very well. The closest I can think of is Empyrion, and honestly those graphics don't compare, and digging is unpleasant at best.

TL,DR

Prior to A17, when I used to regularly endorse this game, this is the terminology I would use:

Open world zombie survival game that has voxels to let you build and terraform like minecraft, but with proper graphics (not the blocky look).
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I have sometimes expanded on that by saying:

Every 7 days, there's a horde the comes through and makes you ♥♥♥♥ your pants. There are also some RPG elements.
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How do you try and sell this game to your friends?

 
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One of 7D2D's unique points is, High graphic Voxel. This is probably the top one and will probably be for some time.

Everything else, so far, is mostly a copy of other peoples ideas of up to 10 years old.

Edit: The other unique point of 7D2D is TFP staff and management. Very dedicated, it will end well.

 
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Interesting question.

To me it's voxels / creative building, the tower defense part which few "survival" games include, and RWG (in the works =).

 
Empyrion can look very pretty at times, and has the very interesting mechanic of building your own vehicles. Also the world it much larger in size (due to the player using fast vehicles).

But 7dtd has certainly the better and enemy AI, and also better balancing in terms of crafting and progression. In Empyrion the player gets overpowered (resource inflation) soon after the first hours of the game.

 
7D2D CAN be a very real looking and breathtakingly beautiful end-time Open World with a little rest of leftover people. The element of terraforming is ingenious. However, this immersion is often disturbed by very illogical elements. Zombies shouldn't be able to hit their way through walls and they shouldn't be able to dig. At least you should be able to switch off such elements.

Everything else makes TFP really good and I have full confidence that they will make a great game in the end.

Ah and sorry for my poor English.

 
USP for me would also be "Voxel Open World" Basically I love doing what I want in a very flexible world environment.

I hope that Fun Pimps carry over what they've learnt on this engine into a new voxel engine in their next game (once 7days finally is finished)

Love to see what they could do with graphics in 5 years time. My current lust is a cowboy/indian rpg survival game in a voxel world.

 
The USP for me personally were the human turds you could find in toilets.

Now that they are removed the game is dead to me.

 
Now that they are removed the game is dead to me.
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That was admittedly a huge hit for the game and it has lost at least 99.7% of its uniqueness with that change. The remaining things that make it unique are:

-It is a voxel game that doesn't look like a voxel game.

-It combines many genres.

-It is the very detailed/realistic zombie apocalypse simulation everyone always wanted, read, or watched in TV/movies and couldn't experience in a video game (with the DAYZ mod or standalone, GMod modes, H1N1, etc etc).

I think it is stupid arguing about what it "primarily" is. This just happens because some people want it to be what they like most. As said in its current description, it is a combination of genres and that's that.

 
me to , 7days 2 die is unnique in the facts it got the things that it has, no other game has this, it is USP = 7days until you die or nott? you play to figure it out. whats so difficulty understanding this simplicity? its a sandbox game where u need to survive and u can also if you have time, decorate your home.

 
I tell my friends it's simply the best survival game on the market. It's that simple.

Now for me the best selling point for the game is the base defense. There's nothing out there like it. I have looked and looked and cant find another game that even comes close to doing base defense as well as 7 days.

 
USP for me would also be "Voxel Open World" Basically I love doing what I want in a very flexible world environment.
I hope that Fun Pimps carry over what they've learnt on this engine into a new voxel engine in their next game (once 7days finally is finished)

Love to see what they could do with graphics in 5 years time. My current lust is a cowboy/indian rpg survival game in a voxel world.
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I agree. I've already put my order in for a SciFi themed 7 days though. :)

The USP for me personally were the human turds you could find in toilets.
Now that they are removed the game is dead to me.
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True that. Those floaters were what made me keep coming back for more. xD

 
Hard to define just one but for me it is definitely the open voxel world with gravity and structural integrity. Going back to other voxel games where blocks just float just feels ridiculous. It is also the very rewarding cooperative team play with family or friends that can be challenging without the necessity for PvP to make it work. Finally it is the tower defense where the enemies are always coming for the player and the player must defend themselves.

 
The USP for me personally were the human turds you could find in toilets.
Now that they are removed the game is dead to me.
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Long gone are the days of me leaving turds in my friends forges and workbenches. FeelsBadMan lol

Also, to me it is the voxels that look good without a doubt. I love the building and creativity that can be used in this game. Now, to get some of the paint back in the game TFP ...looking at you TFP... lol

 
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The usp is its uniqueness. No other game has so many ways to play,build,destroy,fight,explore,co-op, pvp,solo,survive,random worlds etc etc etc. Unique and well implemented in almost all areas, easy to learn almost impossible to leave alone and well worth the entrance fee. How many games can say that?

 
I can safely say that the uniqueness brought me to this game. Seen a fair share of YT videos and decided "it's my turn to play". The fact that the first few weeks i played over 6h a day (still having work each day, with various other activities) i simply stayed up long to grind and enjoy the gritty gameplay.

The fighting (so simple, yet so complex), the base building (and crafting), exploration and variety of POIs (i think no other game has so many well crafted POIs), but most importantly it has the atmosphere of post-apocalypse. As much as it changes, there's no denying the depth, complexity and interesting mechanics. Surely many of us have some thoughts on making the game even better, but that only sparks more interest and diversity, which is also a trademark for this game.

 
For me the selling point is that it's still in Alpha. I love games that are developed over years with iterations distributed as long as the game is enjoyable and especially playable. With 7D2D, it goes beyond that. There are a few (very few) AAA titles that I will buy knowing that they will only last me a few months of playing. If 7D2D goes Beta, I will be happy for TFP... but I still hope it remains in Beta for years to come with additional improvements.

 
That was admittedly a huge hit for the game and it has lost at least 99.7% of its uniqueness with that change.
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ARK did turds and fertilizer before 7DTD, btw. Your character, and all of the dinos, literally pop a squat and lay an egg frequently.

 
For me, it has always been the combination of build-and-defend. Even when it looked and smelled like Minecraft with Better Zeds, it was building towers to defend against the zeds. I cannot remember the Alpha, but I remember spending nights under a lake with a long hallway and water elevators at each end until we could build a better raised platform outside. I remember waiting at one end of the hallway until dawn, running to the other side and escaping. And the thrill of finally being able to spend all my time outside with a base to actively defend, even with crappy weapons and no traps to assist.

I remember the change over to better voxels, coming out an seeing everything we had built floating on these twelve-sided side and going WTF.

And then restarting the world and seeing how cool the new build was, even if the digging and mining took a while to get used to.

 
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