PR/Marketing thoughts at Gamasutra (on blogs)

[cyrus_zuo]

For those who haven't been following it, Gamasutra has been posting an article a day highlighting a session at the recent PR For Games Conference. The articles have been quite thought provoking (at least for me). Much of the comments have been about the shift towards blogs as being a major source of information (and for indie games I think potentially traffic...though indie games haven't really succeeded in the widely read blogs yet).

A couple of quotes from todays:

"you need to look at the property you’re working. If it’s a casual game, I don’t know if the casual gamers really care what bloggers say"

"I think bloggers find you," according to Reilly Brennan of Midway, "I don’t think [we] can really go out there and find it."

Midway also recently talked about the lack of power of advertising when considered against getting a feature on their game. The feature is probably cheaper and far more effective.

Lots of interesting nuggets to consider.


Today's article is here: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=11310
Yesterday: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=11273
Monday: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=11264

[Tom Ohle]

The "PR is more valuable than advertising" thing is something us PR folk have been hawking for years :)

But yeah, blogs are a tough beast. Unfortunately, the vast majority of blog content is geared toward only the most lucrative franchises. If you're working on Gears of War, Halo, or anything next-gen, you're going to have a good shot of getting mentioned on a blog. Do something slightly unorthodox -- create some goofy game-related swag or whatever -- and bam, you've got a post on Kotaku. But I suppose those bloggers are really providing content that their readers want to hear about; the fact that the larger blogs don't present the whole spectrum of gaming sucks, though.

[Coyote]

Thanks for those links! I hadn't been following the articles. VERY interesting.

Well, I know from my perspective my blog has become a CRITICAL source of traffic for me, as an indie.

It came down to a simple problem that people come back to your website for new content. I can't make a new game every month (I'm having trouble making a new game every year!), and even bolstering my lineup with third-party titles doesn't provide enough unique & interesting content at a high enough rate to keep people coming back (and generating good Search Engine results).

The answer, this year, was to try and post more to the blog. I can write - not well, but I can write. And I hope I have some interesting observations and stories that people enjoy reading. It's borne fruit - I've seen a significant growth in sales this year. Not like thousands per month or anything like that, but I went from "My site is dead!" to "Rampant Games is paying a couple of my utility bills now." I attribute it to both the blog, and the addition of third-party titles through affiliate sales.

There's a big problem - blogging can be a major distraction. It takes TIME - a not-insignificant investment of time that I COULD be spending on actually, I dunno, COMPLETING MY GAME. That's a problem.

The other trick is finding topics of interest to potential customers of indie games. I can find plenty to talk about on game development - but that's mainly of interest to other game developers, not so much pure gamers. And I can bring up topics about mainstream games that draw some attention - but are they interested in indie games? Some of my most popular articles have been more mainstream-oriented: my "wish list" for Guitar Hero 2, my "Why Battlefield 2 Sucks (http://www.rampantgames.com/blog/2005/09/why-battlefield-2-sucks.html)" article, and my personal favorite, "Oblivion: The Flower-Picking Simulator (http://www.rampantgames.com/blog/2006/06/oblivion-flower-picking-simulator.html)."

Do people coming to these pages become regular readers, or end up buying a copy of Void War or Cute Knight? Not usually, no. But maybe some do. So I just try and provide a mix.

[cyrus_zuo]

It came down to a simple problem that people come back to your website for new content.
Very true. I write [a little;)] as well and have noticed a lot of things over the years in regards to what people read and what they don't read. I've also become fascinated over time with what people pass on to their friends to read versus what they don't pass on.

I started the blog on Reflexive about a month ago after considering how to approach it for about 4 months. In the end I had a few leading guidelines:
1) Needs to be something 'I' would be interested in reading (if I don't want to read it, neither will my readers...which means they clearly won't want to pass it on)
2) Needs to fit the audience (which in my mind means short, light and fun)
3) Needs to be personal (if it doesn't leave you open to ridicule it probably won't connect you to your readers)
4) Needs to occur on a semi-regular or regular basis (a % of visitors will frequent a website based on how often they believe it is updated...sites are forgotten over time if they don't visit it enough)
5) Needs to be unique (Content is available in mass quantities, original content is hard to find...it is also harder to grow audience for unique content notably, but the audience, I believe, is far more loyal...b/c they can't get it elsewhere)

However, that is only one side of the blogging story. I think writing content is interesting and fun...

...getting other people to write/blog about your company/the games you are working on is is an increasingly important key to success in mainstream gaming. With the cross-over from casual/indie to mainstream via Xbox Live and other channels, getting people to write about casual/indie games should become easier (for those who are trying to take advantage of those channels). How to get something mentioned in a blog is an art, and I think that is an area where a lot is left to be learned, especially in the casual/indie sector. I loved the line in the Gama article that mentioned that bloggers see advertisements a mile away and won't post anything of the sort...I really have found that to be true myself and spend a fair amount of time writing releases that fit different audiences...I may send 3 different releases depending on who the release is going to.

Rolling forward things such as how/when to release information on current and on-going projects in addition to how much information to release and where to make that information available may become quite important (especially for those working on XBLA projects). I believe that the 'blogpress' can be much more utilized by indies as they tap into already existent areas of interest (such as what is coming out on XBLA). I think it likely that using the blogpress could help to level the playing field a little more in terms of creating awareness due to the fact that getting someone to write about a game on a blog DOESN'T require you to spend thousands of dollars advertising.

Certainly worth considering better how to do it...with impact (meaning have large and diverse blogs talking about what you are doing)... ;)

[Coyote]

It's like High School all over again.

"How can I make people think I am cool?"

I never came up with a good answer then, either.

[PoV]

"How can I make people think I am cool?"
Yeah dude. You can't make people think you're cool. You have to *be* cool.

I never figured that one out either.

[zoombapup]

Naah.. its easy.

You hire a PR guy to TALK ABOUT HOW COOL YOU ARE. You get them to hawk your coolness to all and sundry.

You hire a few goons to blog about your coolness and how all the cool people are talking about how cool you are.

You keep doing it for a month or two.

Win!

At least, thats how Pete Molyneux does it.

Actually, generally its easier if you have a good team of leet people actually doing cool things you can take the credit for, or at the very least have something you once made many moons ago that was cool, but thats only a small part of the big picture.