 |  | Blog, |  | Dominik Głowacki |
No matter if you’re drifting downstream in an armoured aircraft carrier, working on the fifth instalment of your franchise, or paddling upstream in a ramshackle raft, putting all your efforts in developing an innovative new IP: you need to promote your opus magnum so that you don’t drown in the sea of competitors!
In the last 15 years the video game industry has geared up momentum. If we travelled back to the very beginning of the millennium and told the experts in the industry how rapidly and diversely video games would develop, they would all probably think we were bonkers. The community divided itself into hardcore and casual gamers; the video game market broke fiercely into the Internet, social networks and mobile devices, and now it focuses on introducing innovative equipment using augmented and virtual reality.
Statisticians claim that everyone plays games these days, and although that may be an overstatement, demographic data seem to prove the same. At the same time, we need to understand that each of the game industry segments has been thinned out. Consumers, who were once focused around two leading markets: console and PC, more and more often use these new branches of interactive entertainment. Meanwhile, game developers also need to accept the fact that as the competition grows stronger, they will have to share their target audience with their competitors.
The market entry threshold has been significantly lowered owing to self-publishing and digital distribution, and nowadays we are deluged with a vast number of fantastic games produced by continuously active indie game devs each month. The quest for new models of making money on video games resulted in creating completely new business models, including free-to-play and early access, which became the most popular. Today, independent game developers can also use powerful game engines like Unreal Engine 4 or Unity 5 free of charge, which will soon result in spawning a flood of video games.
We have lived to see times when video game journalists are not able to keep track of all new games and review them on time, even if they are interested only in three particular genres. Nowadays, both mainstream productions, such as Assassin’s Creed Rogue, Cities Skylines or Sid Meier’s Starships, and long-awaited indie sequels, such as Shelter 2 or Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, can hit the shelves within the space of the same few days. And that’s not all – new games supported by crowdfunding sites get published all the time. It’s really hard to keep up!
Game competitions, such as Independent Games Festival or A MAZE, feature hundreds of creative games, only a few of which will be nominated to awards and later be featured in the media, thus eventually finding its way to reach the gamers. Therefore, it is very important to communicate directly with gamers, and at the same time to keep in touch with video game journalists, as well as social influencers and youtubers, as once they become fascinated with your product, their coverage can reach hundreds of thousands of avid game fans all around the globe.
Games with the highest development budgets require the highest levels of promotion, as in order to compete with other blockbusters, they need to focus the attention of gamers on their own products, so that the game can sell well and make back its development costs quickly. However, players have limited financial and time resources, so it is not enough just to get them interested with your game. It is of utmost importance to employ narration dedicated to promoting your product. One AAA game with extensive content and high replayability value purchased by a games fan usually equals several other AAA games that the fan decided not to buy. For game developers who don’t invest in the promotion of their products, mature capitalist economy observed in the video game industry proves to be an unbeatable boss.
Generating income on one’s own account, without the support of publishers and their powerful marketing campaigns has become equally problematic, as gamers are not able to identify true gems in the avalanche of games regularly hitting the shelves of online stores on their own. The growing tendency to purchase games distributed online at a price determined by the purchaser, i.e. the so-called Humble Bundles, also makes it very difficult for game devs to make profit. There was a time when favourable market conditions available to independent game devs would be praised, as everyone was fascinated with the fact that indie products could reach the audience without the outside help of corporate giants.
However, today it is quite common to hear that whereas publishing a game using your own resources is relatively easy, the really hard part is to reach a huge number of gamers and generate profit. It’s like crossing the ocean on a yacht during a storm with a force 10 on the Beaufort scale, relying on an inoperable navigation system, with thunders roaring above your head. Sometimes you get to reach the port safely; however, it may so happen that it is not the million population port city you intended to sail in.
Games need an intriguing and engaging promotion. Nowadays, there are thousands of games for mobile devices only, including hundreds of clones. During numerous gaming events where I worked as a journalist or simply attended them as a participant, I would frequently observe that this need was not recognized; moreover, I would often witness a persuasion communication ineffectively used by game developers, who would talk about their games without genuine involvement, in a very dull and mundane way. For many game creators, running an immersive promotional campaign involving gamers is still not an obvious solution. If you don’t have an ace up in your sleeve, such as fresh and innovative 80 Days or Superhot, without intelligent promotion you will simply go unnoticed and drown.
Some time ago, ludologists were involved in a heated debate with narratologists. The latter wanted the other to know that they incorrectly study only the entertainment, ludological aspects of games, while in fact games should be analyzed through a narrative lens. Video games as a medium can be undoubtedly used as a tool for telling stories, and ludologists have known that from the very beginning of game studies history, as they themselves originated from the narratology culture. It is widely known that the magic of games comes not only from ingenious gameplay or amazing graphics, but also from the engrossing stories they tell! So how should we effectively promote video games? Also by telling engrossing stories! More on that to come!
