作者：Tadhg Kelly

游戏项目病症诊断：

1、你的游戏是主机和电影的搭卖产品

2、你的游戏位于App Store中策略类游戏的第二页

3、你的游戏名称类似于“Town Ville”之类的产品

4、你的游戏发布时位于排行榜中列

5、你的艺术风格灵感来源于某个同题材巨擘

6、你的游戏设计尝试满足所有4种Bartle玩家类型的诉求

7、你的PR战略总是在讨论某些独特的卖点

8、你的独立游戏含有稀松平常的图像设计

9、你的游戏被他人描述为“就像A和B的合体”

诊断结果就是：你的游戏成了隐形体。

the invisible(from whatgamesare)

隐形

伦敦的俱乐部有许多喜剧演员，他们很机智而且表演也很有趣，但他们看起来毫无差别。在看过表演之后，没有人会记住他们的名字，在你看过多场表演之后，甚至很难回想起某段笑话出自哪个演员之口。他们存在的问题在于，他们只是把表演喜剧当成例行公事。为了成为此类演员，他们讲有关性和乡下习俗的笑话，与观众交谈，询问他们的名字和职业，抱怨生活的状况。

他们很难被人记住。于是就有了Eddie Izzard，这个名字的确令人印象深刻，因他为模仿异装癖的穿着，将有关革命、历史和《星球大战》的笑话。还有Bill Bailey，他用音乐和想象力来调侃喜剧。

同样，多数游戏已经被隐形。它们存在于模样相似的游戏之间，拥有相同的艺术、游戏玩法、销售策略和机遇。在你当地的零售店中，这些游戏很快就会打折销售，售价只有原价的20%。Facebook上也存在这种现象，某些游戏几乎相同，采用同样的能量和升级游戏玩法。

隐形是未获众人关注而产生的结果。游戏之所以被隐形，因为它们没有足够好的质量吸引玩家的注意力，玩家因而也不记得这些游戏。无论是大型游戏还是小型游戏，品牌游戏还是非品牌游戏，在线游戏还是离线游戏，只要是未曾被人们广泛讨论的游戏就是隐形游戏。

有时，不受整体市场关注并没有关系，只要你能够引起部分群体关注即可。《Rail Simulator》便是个范例，尽管这款游戏确实很棒，但是因为主题的缘故永远无法获得玩家的普遍关注。如果是这种情况，那么游戏市场的大小可能就会受到限制，但是忠实玩家会对游戏充满激情。他们想要的并非包含水下模式或拥有驶向太空的铁路模拟游戏。他们想要的是实时掌控从伦敦到爱丁堡的铁路带来的良好体验。

Rail Simulator(from gamefaqs.com)

多数游戏并非锁定细分市场的游戏。它们或许会通过行业所定义的题材（游戏邦注：多数用户并不关注这点）伪装成细分市场的游戏。细分市场的玩家会自行通过谷歌搜索自己喜欢的游戏。但是，多数游戏却是主动上门寻找玩家并说服他们去体验游戏内容。

隐形性通常是游戏制作机械化的方法所产生的结果。就像普通的喜剧演员所展现出的趣味性那样，过于平庸的游戏也只能在限定的范围内展现出趣味性。游戏开发同其他娱乐形式一样，越机械化和平庸化就越难以售出。

用户对游戏的感受来源于第一印象。他们会立即做出判断，在心底告诉自己“我已经知道了游戏的所有内容”，随后立马做出价值判断，确定游戏是否无聊乏味。如果他们知道了游戏的内容，那么他们就知道将在游戏中出现的东西，这意味着他们已经玩过许多同类游戏。

曝光度战术

要使游戏获得曝光度，可以采用两种方法：花费大量的资金迫使人们关注游戏；创造与用户当前关注的内容有关的营销故事。第一个是战术，而第二个属于策略。

与我交谈过的多数人在谈及游戏营销时都只关注战术层面。他们对实现曝光度的想法是，在尽量多的地方露脸，包括使用付费和免费广告的方式，通过由此带来的宣传效果获得所需的关注度。

假如你的游戏质量尚可，那么这种俘获大量关注度的战术的确很好用。用户市场对广告具有斥性，但并非完全免疫。因而如果你的游戏可以触及到足够多的目标市场用户所使用的渠道，并且持续投入资金维持这种效果，那么势必会推动游戏的影响力。

战术需要足够的资金和传播渠道。诸如《使命召唤：黑色行动》之类的游戏发布时会受到几乎每个媒体的报道，被各种杂志和博客关注，其电视广告时间很长，游戏广告占据了零售商的大量货架空间。这种铺天盖地的宣传俘获了用户的注意力。这种注意力能够转变成销量，尤其是在圣诞节期间，这就是大型游戏发行公司所采用的营销方法。

有些渠道的比较容易控制战术，但也有一些例外情况。尽管iPhone极为流行，却很难使用战术方法来吸引用户关注。关注的主入口（游戏邦注：即App Store的首页）被苹果公司控制，该公司会慎重地选择推荐那些不同寻常的应用而不是花费巨资营销的应用。因而，在这里采用上述方法很难奏效（游戏邦注：但并不意味着完全不可行）。

战术化思维的最大错误在于，认为隐形范围会呈比例变化。某些游戏的曝光度和传播度比其他游戏更强，因而这些游戏处在风水岭的一侧。所有的隐形游戏则处在另一侧。它们之间的差别不是隐形性的强弱程度，而是极端的曝光和隐形这种一分为二的差别。投入5%额外的营销预算或7%额外的开发时间都无法让游戏跃过这道风水岭。

问题很简单，相同市场中的多数开发者会以相同的方法来思考，于是就会使用相同的战术。这样，最后结果是他们都不过是对游戏进行了宣传而已。要通过强大的战术来实现曝光度的关键是吆喝声要超过竞争对手，如果你的宣传落于下风，那么很可能就会被埋没。

Zynga的成功超过所有的社交游戏公司，因为他们愿意不计成本地做广告，以获得每个Facebook用户的关注。其他公司也采用了相同的战术，但却无法进行同种程度的投入。即便他们的游戏可能与Zynga产品相似，但是他们营销投入处于下风，所以他们在竞争中失败了。他们被当成是Zynga游戏的克隆产品，即便引起用户关注和安装，用户也会因自己已经接触过相同的内容而逐渐离开游戏。

曝光度策略

实现曝光度的另一个方法是构建营销故事。这意味这在你的游戏中创造出不同之处，而不是单纯靠资金来打败对手。营销故事属于策略，而不是战术。

这是什么意思呢？

战术的方法极为简单化：如果我的游戏能够获得名人的推荐而且在大型杂志中进行传播，那么我就可能获得X个人的回应。战术很容易被理解成一个过程，因为它是以机械化的方式来决定最终结果（游戏邦注：也就是回应数量）。因而，战术可以很容易地向营销部门解释、打包融合并传播开来。他们的做法就像在构建营销积木。

但是，将你自身与市场用户联系起来，让用户成为最好用的营销人员，借着这股力量你就可以获得成长。这个做法的确较为困难。交流起来很难，因为对于每款游戏来说，策略都是不同的。这也很难向营销部门解释、很难打包和传播营销方法，也没有像战术那种可供拼凑的营销积木。

纵观市场，所有营销故事的成功看似都是侥幸。它们不具有所有人都能够理解的战术，因而看起来就像是复杂的系统一样，带来了魔法般的效果。然而从内部来看，策略是唯一能够产生作用的营销方式，战术营销无疑将会退出舞台。

营销故事策略的效果往往比溢卸要好。溢卸的意思是游戏以目标用户前所未见的方法进行扩展。

溢卸可以传播内容、游戏动态或者趣味编撰等其他因素。《愤怒的小鸟》溢卸的是关卡内容。花59便士（游戏邦注：或99美分），游戏向玩家提供逾75个独立的谜题以及6种不同种类的小鸟。游戏还定期发布新的谜题供玩家尝试使用，并且还会发布新种类的小鸟，因而游戏现在有逾150个谜题，将来还会增加。

T-Mobile Presents Angry birds live(from usahangout.com)

溢卸的另一种形式是多人模式。长期以来，暴雪都允许玩家在通过战网免费玩《星际争霸》多人模式，Valve的《反恐精英》和《求生之路》也采用相似的方法。这些游戏中溢卸的内容还有新的关卡包和mod工具等。

只要游戏中溢卸的内容较为特殊，那么溢卸就会成为形成策略的绝妙方法。《愤怒的小鸟》克隆产品尽管可能有许多关卡，但是很难转移玩家的注意力，因为他们已经知道了克隆游戏中的内容，因而玩家会觉得乏味，克隆游戏拥有200个关卡已经不重要了。

在溢卸方面，召集Techthulhu也是主要的错误来源，因为开发者已经相信公众确实关注游戏的风格。比如，尝试通过溢卸盈利往往是个错误的做法。如果《Minecraft》对游戏中的更新和资源以米为单位来收费，那么它看起来就不像采用了溢卸这种方法。

溢卸需要愿景，需要坚持产品风格和讯息风格。溢卸应当清晰明了，这样玩家就会马上明白是什么让游戏更棒。你所要做的事情就是选对溢卸的内容和方向，然后放手去做。

实现曝光度的战略方法需要连续性的监管和较高的愿景，而且二者并重。而多数开发者遇到的问题是，他们没有足够的资金来实施战术方法。因而他们需要转变成策略模式。他们需要营销故事。他们需要溢卸来提升游戏的曝光度。

就像Eddie Izzard一样，他的出众之处并不在于其名字或着装样式，而在于其对自己表演内容的溢卸，还有其演出的新颖技巧，这样观众就不会马上产生“我已经知道内容”的想法。他正是通过新颖的内容使得自己的营销故事真实可靠，这样观众多年以后仍会记住这个名字。

游戏邦注：本文发稿于2011年2月16日，所涉时间、事件和数据均以此为准。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Are You Invisible?

Tadhg Kelly

The Invisibility Differential Diagnosis:

Your game is a console-movie tie-in

Your game is on the App Store, on the second page of the Strategy category

Your game is named something like Town Ville

Your marketing strategy is based on exposure via Applifier

Your game launched in the middle of the charts

Your art style is inspired by a genre leader

Your game design is trying to appeal to all four Bartle types

Your PR strategy consists of talking about unique selling points

Your indie game contains ordinary retro graphics

Your game gets described by others as ‘it’s like A meets B’

I’m afraid the diagnosis is: you are invisible.

Invisibility

There are many stand-up comedians working the clubs in London. They are funny, self deprecating and witty, but they are all the same. After their shows, nobody remembers their names, and after you’ve seen many such shows it becomes difficult to remember which comedian told which joke. Their problem is that they have bought into the idea of comedy as process. In order to be a stand-up they make jokes about sex and suburbia, talk to the audience, ask their names and what they do, dress casually and complain about life.

They are invisible. Then there’s Eddie Izzard, whose name is memorable, dresses like a transvestite and tells jokes about evolution, history and Star Wars. Or Bill Bailey, who uses music and a wild-man image to make wry observations about comedy itself. Or Bill Hicks, who used his Southern roots as a contrast against his liberal ideas and the troubles of America. Or Shappi Khorsandi.

Most games are, similarly, invisible. They sit alongside identical-looking games with the same art, same gameplay, same sales strategy and same chances of success. In your local store, they are the games that are quickly discounted, selling for a fifth of their original price. On Facebook, they are all the games that are isometric, with energy-and-levels gameplay quietly stalling on app strips.

Invisibility is the result of failing to be noticed. A game which is invisible is so because it is neither startling enough nor present enough in users’ attention spans for them to remember it. Big or small, branded or unbranded, online or offline, the game not talked about is invisible.

Sometimes being invisible to the whole market doesn’t matter, as long as you’re visible to a niche. Rail Simulator is an example of a game where no matter how awesome the game may actually be, it will never achieve much visibility because of the subject matter. If you are in the niche business then your market is likely limited in size, but also deeply passionate about the kind of game that you make. They’re not looking for rail simulators that now involve underwater modes or trains that go to space. All they want is the best experience of manning the London to Edinburgh route in real time.

Most games do not serve niches. They may sit in industry-defined genres (which mean nothing to most customers) pretending to be niche games, but genres are just cloaks of invisibility. Niches result from players who have a specific interest googling for that interest on their own. Most games, on the other hand, are searching for players to convince them to play.

Invisibility is usually the result of a mechanistic approach to game making. Just as average stand-up comedians are funny within their stereotype, so too average games are only fun within well-defined and well-worn boundaries. Game development is the same as any other form of entertainment in that the more mechanistic and ordinary it becomes, the harder it is to sell the result.

The audience senses what an invisible game is about from the moment they see it. They judge it instantly, internally saying to themselves ‘I already know exactly what this is’ and they make an immediate value judgement that tends to regard it as boring. If they know what it is, then they know what to expect, and if they know what to expect then they’ve already played some version of it.

Visibility Tactics

There are two ways to become visible: Spend unimaginable amounts of money to force people to pay attention, or create a great marketing story which aligns with their existing attention. The first is a tactic, while the second is a strategy.

Most people that I talk to about game marketing only talk in terms of tactics. Their idea of achieving visibility is to get featured in as many places as possible, whether with paid or free advertising, and through the resulting volume of noise eventually gain the required attention.

Provided your game isn’t so badly made that it’s unfit for purpose, the tactic of mass-attention-grabbing is perfectly valid. The market is resistant to advertising, but not wholly immune. So if your game can feature in enough channels that your intended market uses, receive enough endorsement from figures that your market respects, and continues to do so with sufficient scale then it will probably move units.

Tactics require deep pockets and broadcast channels. At launch, a game like Call of Duty: Black Ops features in every broadcast media outlet, is reviewed by every magazine and blog, and occupies lots of TV time and shelf space in retailers. The resulting blanketing of message cannot help but grab attention. That attention converts to sales, especially in the Christmas period, and that’s how the big games business makes its bucks.

Some channels are more amenable to tactics than others, and the tactically minded business tends to regard the more chaotic ones askance. While the iPhone is hugely popular, it is difficult to use tactics to dominate attention on it. The main portal to that attention (the front page of the App Store) is controlled by Apple, who deliberately seek out unusual apps to feature rather than expensive ones. So it’s harder (though not impossible) to make a dent there.

The largest mistake that the tactically minded make is to think that invisibility is a sliding scale. While some games are more visible and widespread than others, all visible games sit on one side of a divide. All invisible games sit in a gigantic heap on the other side. They are not more or less invisible. They are just invisible, in the pig pen with everyone else. 5% extra marketing budget or 7% extra development time won’t flip the switch.

The problem is simply that most developers in the same market think the same way, and use the same tactics. So all they really end up doing is creating a lot of noise. The key to achieving visibility through brute force tactics is to shout louder than the competition, and so if the volume of your message is not loud enough then it simply subsides into the background.

Zynga is so dramatically more successful than any other social game company because their advertising is committed to acquiring the attention of every last Facebook user, no matter the cost. Their competition adopt the same tactics, but without the same level of commitment. Even though their games may look the same and act the same, they lack the punch that Zynga delivers, and so they are noise. They become regarded as clones, and so even users that do notice and install them make the judgement that they already know what that game is, judge it to be boring, and subsequently leave.

Visibility Strategy

The other way to achieve visibility is through building a marketing story. This means creating a deliberate and authentic difference in your game in order to circumvent rather than overcome the noise. Marketing stories are strategic rather than tactical.

What do I mean by that?

Tactics are simplistic: If I get a celebrity to feature in a photo shoot for my game and distribute it in a big magazine, I will expect X responses. A tactic is easily understood as a process because it regards the end result (the response) in a mechanical fashion. Tactics are thus easily explained to marketing departments, easily packaged and easily distributed. They are like building marketing Lego.

However, aligning yourself with a market such that your users become your best marketers and you grow through surfing the wave? That’s hard. It’s hard to communicate because for every game the strategy is unique. It’s hard to explain to a marketing department, hard to package and distribute, and unlike tactics there is no Lego to put it together.

From the outside in, all marketing story successes appear lucky. They have no replicable tactic that everyone can understand, so – like any sufficiently complex system – the outputs look like magic. From the inside looking out, however, strategies are the only things that make sense and tactical marketing appears short-lived and vaguely insane.

A marketing story strategy often works best with over-delivery. Over-delivery means that the way that the game extends is such that it has never been seen before by the intended audience.

Over-delivery can mean delivery on content or on game dynamics, or some other factor like exceptionally funny writing. Angry Birds over-delivers on level content. For 59 pence (or 99 cents) the game gave the player over 75 individual puzzles to solve as well as 6 different kinds of bird. It also regular featured new puzzles for players to try, and a new kind of bird, such that the game now has over 150 puzzles and more still to come.

Another form of over-delivery is multiplayer modes. Blizzard have long allowed players to play multiplayer Starcraft across Battle.net for free, and Valve do similar with their Counter Strike and Left 4 Dead games. New mission packs, mod tools and other means also permit other kinds of over-delivery in those games.

Over-delivery is a great way to found a strategy as long as the manner in which a game is over-delivering feels special. An Angry Birds clone that also has many levels has much less chance of being taken up by the playing public because they already know what your game is, what it’s like, and so it’s boring. The fact that it has 200 levels doesn’t matter.

Summoning Techthulhu is also a prime source of mistakes when it comes to over-delivery, as the developer becomes convinced that the public really cares about realistic fluid flow, or unique faces for all 2,000 trolls that appear in the game. Likewise, tying over-delivery to money is often a big mistake. It takes the joy out of it. If Minecraft charged for updates and resources in the game on a metered basis, it would not feel as though it had over-delivered.

Over-delivery needs vision and follow-through both on the product front and the messaging front. It needs to be clear, so that the players understand instantly what makes the game cool. Over-delivering in every direction is simply getting swept up in unique selling points, and dilutes the marketing story. What you need to do is pick the right direction, and then over-deliver on it. A lot.

The strategic approach to achieve visibility needs both constant supervision and superior vision. And the issue for most developers is, like it or not, they do not have the money to rely on tactics. So they need to have a strategy instead. They need a marketing story. They need to over-deliver, or be invisible.

Like Eddie Izzard, it’s not just about the name or the dress style. It’s that Izzard over-delivers on the content of his act. The other parts just contribute to the showmanship, so that the audience doesn’t immediately say ‘I already know what that is’. The content is where his marketing story becomes authentic, and its images and threads stay with the audience for years afterward.

And that’s why he is visible. (Source: What Games Are)