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手机游戏开发者创造良好PR的9大技巧

发布时间:2012-11-16 11:32:14 Tags:,,,,

作者:Jon Jordan

关于如何为手机游戏创造良好PR其实并不存在任何高招。

在现实生活中,成功是目标,长期计划,辛苦工作以及最终呈现出的结果等结合在一起的产物。

但是这并不意味着不存在其它值得学习的技巧。

除了完善你的PR,这篇文章所介绍的技巧还能帮助你创造出更加出色的游戏。

PR(from heziba)

PR(from heziba)

1.基本事实

在采取任何行动之前,你首先需要思考什么是PR,为什么你要执行PR。

显然,PR代表的是公共关系,我们也必须理解这一术语所具有的局限性。

PR(至少是从本文的目的来看)是指开发者与新闻记者之间的交流。这涉及了各种广泛的活动,包括社区关系,市场营销和用户获取等,并且这些都不是指同一件事。

在最好的情况下,PR将能够让更多人快速了解并谈论你的游戏(和公司),但是如果你的公司刚刚起步,特别是当你还是个独立游戏开发者时,你便会发现吸引新闻记者去阅读你的邮件是件非常困难的事,更别说让他们帮你宣传游戏了。

要知道并不是只有你在进行PR。新闻记者每天会收到来自大大小小公司的电子邮件,希望自己的新游戏或手机服务能够吸引这些记者们的注意。

所以你的新闻稿很容易被掩埋于此。但是这并不意味着你该放弃任何尝试,你应该更重视这一过程。

当然了,你不应该将所有的时间和金钱都投入与新闻记者的交流上。Facebook,Twitter以及YouTube等平台的崛起也意味着你可以利用更多资源在此创建属于游戏的专门社区,并且无需纠结如何才能吸引新闻记者的注意。

当然了,你的钱也可以投资在PR以外的其它活动中,我认为真正有效的PR不需要耗费过多成本,并且能够提供一个稳定的框架帮助你将游戏呈献给更加广泛的用户。

2.何时开始执行PR(第一部分)

我认为开发者应该尽早开始思考PR。

显然,游戏灵感总是会以不同的方式闪烁出来,但是当你真正决定开始制作一款游戏时,你便需要开始考虑PR了。(这时候你同样也需要开始考虑市场营销和社区建设。)

注意,我所说的只是“考虑PR”。

在这一阶段你还不需要“执行PR”。我们需要在明确背景,角色,类型和游戏原型后才开始真正执行PR,而此时你只需要思考如何将游戏呈献给新闻记者。

举些例子来说吧,例如你的游戏拥有独特的游戏机制?具有引人注意的主角?游戏拥有史上最多的坦克/飞机/小丑等选择?为何你要制作这款游戏?

这些点能够帮助你有效吸引那些已经玩过了许多游戏的新闻记者们的注意力。如果你想不出任何这样的亮点,我想你可以重新思考游戏理念了。

尝试着去编写一篇新闻样稿,并衡量它是否具有吸引力。

“我们的新游戏与《愤怒的小鸟》非常相似,但是主角换成了猫,”这样的描述便很难抓住新闻记者,甚至是玩家的注意力。

“我们的新游戏中有名美术人员是来自《愤怒的小鸟》的团队,”虽然不能吸引玩家的注意,但却对新闻记者具有较大的吸引力。

而“我的新游戏在芬兰最畅销排行榜单上战胜了《愤怒的小鸟》”则能同时吸引玩家和新闻记者的注意力。

3.亲力亲为?

我最常听到的一个问题便是“你是否能推荐一个PR代理机构?”

这是我很害怕的一个问题,并不是我不愿意推荐任何代理机构或个人,而是我能推荐的对象实在少得可怜。我与那些新闻记者和PR代理机构真的不熟。

的确,在过去几年间,我对于PR人士的看法(或者说是选择)与游戏产业中的其他人还真是大相径庭。

也许更重要的问题应该是,我们是该使用外部PR代理还是选择内部PR人士?

这是一个很微妙的问题。对于最大的发行商来说,他们将同时采取这两种方法,即让内部PR经理去面对新闻记者,而将更多事物留给外部代理。当你面对的是全球化公司时,这种双管齐下的方法将更加有效。

就像在欧洲,北美和亚洲市场中便都存在这类型的专家。所以大多数公司都未拥有自身的PR能力。

而对于独立开发者来说,独立处理PR能够为他们带来巨大的利益。因为外人肯定不会向你那般对游戏倾注满腔热情,而新闻记者最希望看到的便是热情与激情。

独立处理PR的另一大优势便是所有的交流都发生于公司内部,这也能帮你更轻松地建立起与新闻记者间的长期关系。

但是独立处理PR却不是件易事。如果你同时也是首席程序员或需要运行公司的财务,你肯定不可能在游戏发行期间投入2个月的时间去执行PR工作。这也是为何许多人选择外部代理的主要原因。

当然了,对于大多数公司来说,双重方法还是最有效的。

作为开发者,你应该懂得如何与新闻记者打交道,并注重每周培养彼此间的关系。你可以让代理机构去处理各种繁琐事物,而自己则与一些重要网站保持联系,包括Pocket Gamer, TouchArcade, 148Apps, Slide To Play, Gamezebo, IGN, Eurogamer以及GameSpot等。

同时也不要忽视各种专业的在线资源(游戏邦注:有些是收钱的,有些则是免费的)——能够帮助你传达新闻稿,截图和视频。它们并不是帮你推广游戏的代理机构,但却能够把你的信息带给更多新闻记者。例如Games Press, Appromoter, PRNewswire, MarketWire等。

4.何时开始执行PR(第二部分)

其实你可能一直都在“执行PR”,即在游戏开发过程中利用YouTube,Facebook,Twitter以及Google+等平台而进行。你同样也需要阅读并评估那些你希望游戏进入的主要网站。

既然你希望新闻记者能够成为你的社区的一份子,你就需要先进入他们的社区。

如果是正式的媒体活动(围绕着游戏的发行),我认为你需要拥有6至8周的执行时间。

你肯定希望这种评论审核能够尽可能接近发行日期。这便意味着你需要在游戏发行前一两周通知评论编辑,并通过提供优惠码,Test Flight或APK等方式帮助他们更轻松地进入你的游戏。

同时你还需要注意的是,在一些大型网站中,评论不一定是由新闻编辑所负责,可能还有一些专门人士。例如在PocketGamer便设置了邮件地址reviews@pocketgamer.co.uk和news@pocketgamer.co.uk(将自动筛选出相同和不同的作者)。

评论是一种最难完成的文章。

新闻记者总需要为此投入更多时间——他们需要亲自玩游戏,并写下相关描述,这也意味着需要投入更多成本(一般是2倍)。同时,每周都会出现许许多多游戏,甚至超越了大型网站评论游戏的能力。但是这却不表示你不应该进行尝试,只是如果游戏未能得到评论会让你感到沮丧罢了。

当然了,如果新闻记者能在游戏发行前便对其进行描述,游戏获得评论的机会也就会越大。

我认为最完美的PR活动便是在游戏发行前的2至4周内获得首篇游戏新闻稿。如果你足够幸运的话,你便能在推出新功能或手动预览时获得另一篇新闻稿,或许你还能在像GDC重大活动中遇到一些有帮助的新闻记者。

只要你的游戏足够有趣,你便能够获得更多新闻宣传,告诉玩家游戏的最终发行时间——就像许多网站将聚集了许多文章去报道游戏发行周的相关事宜。

发行后的宣传也非常困难。

如果游戏取得了巨大的成功,你便能在之后的更新或到达1000万下载量时获得相关新闻报道,但是出现这种情况的前提必须是新闻记者非常喜欢你的游戏,并与你保持着密切的联系,而不是因为你不断骚扰他们。

我认为最完美的新闻活动应该是:新闻1(介绍),新闻2(更多细节)和预览,新闻3(发行),和评论(加上后续内容)。

5.具体细节

到现在为止我一直在谈论一些有关游戏的媒体宣传,而真正的实践又是怎样的?

事实上,我认为这是整个过程中最简单的一部分了。

1)新闻稿:这是一篇较短的文本内容,即通过使用明确的术语去解释游戏到底是关于什么。我个人认为,除非你的游戏真的侧重于突显乐趣,否则千万不要耍小聪明去开玩笑或与新闻记者套近乎(除非你真的与他们很熟)。

详细描写相关细节;解释为何游戏是有趣的;阐述游戏玩法;避免多加描述整个开发过程,除非这真的非常有趣;不要喋喋不休地述说着游戏背景故事,除非这能够帮助新闻记者更好地理解游戏;多投入一些细节内容,如定价,发行日期,将面向的平台,设备/操作系统等。

请记住,新闻稿绝非你的应用商店描述。应用商店描述是面向那些可能会下载或更新你的游戏的玩家,而新闻稿则是面向那些从未听说过你的游戏,或对其不感兴趣的新闻记者们。

2)资产:每篇新闻稿都必须具有截图或插图等能够呈现游戏乐趣的内容。例如你的游戏的乐趣体现在列车上,你就应该呈现出有关列车的截图。六张截图就足够了。不要放过多市场营销标签或其它没有意义的插图。

当新闻记者打开你的电子邮件时将会去点击其中的视频链接,而你需要做的便是确保能在视频的前10秒钟便呈现出最有趣的内容。

需要注意的是,当你在介绍游戏时,使用视频去呈现过场动画便很有效,但是有时候新闻记者更希望看到的是游戏玩法。

6.独家报道和非公开协议(NDA)

比起主机游戏,独家报道和NDA在手机游戏领域显得较没有分量。

如果大型公司和品牌愿意花更多钱于手机游戏上,这种情况便有可能发生改变,但是在大多数情况下,独家报道在这一领域都没有多大的意义——例如只能将你的新闻提供给一个网站。

例如Rovio的《愤怒的小鸟》和Yahoo,可以说正是该游戏的品牌知名度以及该网站强大的用户基础推动着这种独家报道发挥作用。

实际上,使用了独家报道也就意味着你大大限制了自己的用户范围,因为其它未能获得你的独家报道的网站将会憎恨你。

NDA或被禁止的信息便是非常有用的工具,让新闻记者能够事先尝试游戏,了解相关信息并访问相关人员;同时还能让开发者掌握新闻的发布时间。

有些网站(游戏邦注:主要是美国的网站)便不允许被禁止的信息的流入。但是绝大多数网站还是乐意执行这些信息。因为这能让新闻记者与PR经理更轻松地相处与交流。

7.送礼物

在英国游戏产业中持续着一股争论,即关于PR人员的送礼行为是否是不道德的。

一开始我认为这是非常愚蠢的行为,但是当了解了美国的制药工业,即请医生吃饭,邀他们打高尔夫球,支付咨询费用等将影响着他们最终所开出的药方时,我的想法便发生了改变。

如此看来人类真的是极为容易受控制的生物。

当提到游戏时,开发者更需要谨慎对待。在游戏领域中,礼物的形式也将发生改变,有可能是优惠码或游戏内部货币。

当然了,如果接收到的礼物只是T恤或毛绒玩具那便没多大影响,但是如果礼物的价值超过了50美元,你便很容易被指控犯了受贿罪或让新闻记者陷入尴尬的境地。

8.简单化

游戏产业还很年轻,而新闻记者也大多都是一些拿着丰厚报酬的新手们。

这便意味着他们往往都不能像你所期待的那样专业。可以说大多数新闻记者都不是很理解游戏的制作过程。他们知道的只是,你在工厂里放置了一台“绞肉机”,每天晚上当你打开开关时,游戏文件就会在此加工,并最终传输到App Store中。

对于你来说,游戏便是你的世界中最重要的事物。

但是对于新闻记者来说,你的游戏只会是干扰他们去做自己想做的事(如早点回家或玩《光晕4》)的麻烦物。

游戏新闻记者并不能真正理解你在做什么,尽管他们收到了无数电子邮件并花费大量时间去玩各种游戏,但是他们却对这些工作没有太大的概念性。

所以你需要尽可能提供给新闻记者相关信息,并吸引他们对你的游戏产生热情。只有他们真正喜欢上你的游戏,他们才会更积极地去描述这一游戏。这也是你为何需要投入更多时间去执行PR的主要原因。

9.拼写检查

如果你是HR,你是否会接受一封带有拼写错误的求职信?

当提到新闻稿时,许多新闻记者的看法也是相同的。

所以请好好检查新闻稿中的单词拼写,而如果你使用的并非母语,也请咨询相关人士的帮助。

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

9 tricks to ensure your mobile game gets the best PR

by Jon Jordan

There’s no silver bullet when it comes to good PR for your mobile games.

As with pretty much everything in life, success comes from a combination of thinking about what outcomes you want, longterm planning, hard work and having a great game to present.

Still, that doesn’t mean there aren’t some tricks that are well worth knowing.

Indeed, more than just improving your PR, reading and implementing this article might even make your game better.

1.Brass tacks

I know the temptation is to immediately start sending out press releases, but before getting on to any of that tomfoolery, you need to think about what PR actually is, and why you’re looking to do it.

Obviously, it stands for Public Relations, and it’s sensible to understand the limitation of this term.

PR – at least for the purpose of this article – is your communications with journalists. It’s related to wider activities such as community relations, marketing and user acquisition, but it’s not the same thing.

At its best, PR will get a lot of people quickly reading and talking about your game (and your company), but when you’re starting out – especially if you are a small indie developer – it’s likely you’ll find it difficult to get (m)any journalists to read your emails, let alone write about your game.

This isn’t anything personal. Journalists receive upwards of a hundred emails a day from companies big and small who are trying to interest them in new games and mobile services etc.

It’s very hard to get your views heard. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try, only that you have to take the process seriously.

Of course, you could decide that talking to journalists isn’t the most important thing you can do with your time and your money. The rise of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc mean it might make more sense for you to focus your resources on building a community and not worrying specifically about journalists.

Certainly, your money might be better spent in other ways than PR campaigns, but to my way of thinking, good PR doesn’t need to be expensive, and it will provide a solid intellectual framework in terms of how you present your game to the wider playing audience.

After all, journalists are gamers too. If you can get them excited about your game, you’ll be able to get anyone excited about your game.

2.When to start PR (part 1)

My view is it’s never too early to start thinking about PR.

Obviously, the spark of inspiration for your game can come in many different ways and forms, but once you’ve decided you’re going to make a game, that’s the point you should be thinking about PR. (You should also start thinking about marketing and community building at that point.)

Note, I said ‘thinking about PR’.

You’re not ‘doing PR’ at this stage. We’ll come onto the formal PR campaign later, but by the time you’ve come up with a setting, characters, genre, prototype etc, you should be thinking about how you’re going to introduce your game to journalists.

For example, does it have a unique gameplay mechanic? Is the main character notable in some way? Will the game have the biggest selection of tanks/planes/clowns ever seen in a game? Why are you making this game?

These are all points that have the potential to get someone who plays a lot of games interested in your game. If, however, you’re struggling to come with any such points, you may want to rethink your game concept.

Try writing a test press release and consider whether it’s exciting or not?

“Our new game is like Angry Birds, but with cats,” is unlikely to catch the attention of many journalists, or many gamers.

“Our new game was made by one of the artists who worked on Angry Birds,” won’t interest gamers, but it might interest journalists.

“Our new game has knocked Angry Birds off the Finnish top grossing chart,” will interest everyone.

(Incidentally, all three examples are press releases I’ve received.)

3.Do you do it yourself?

The question I get asked most frequently is ‘Can you recommend a PR agency?’

It’s a question I dread; not because there aren’t some agencies or individuals I’m happy to recommend. There are a few. But I’m not the average journalist and those PR agencies and people I get on with, might be not the sort of people other journalists get on with.

Indeed, in several cases over the years, my taste in PR people has proved to be the exact opposite of the rest of industry.

So, perhaps the more important question is, should you use an external PR agency or have an internal PR person?

This is a nuanced question. The biggest publishers will do both, with internal PR managers dealing with key journalists but leaving the majority of the work to agencies. This is particularly the case when you’re dealing with global campaigns.

Ideally, Europe, North America and Asia (and key territories within those markets) should be dealt with by specialists in those countries. Few companies – if any – have this level of inhouse capability.

The good news for indies, however, is handling PR internally gives you the biggest bang for your buck. No one will be as enthusiastic about your game as you will be (hopefully), and the thing journalists are looking for above all else is enthusiasm and passion.

The other advantage with handling PR internally is you’ll keep the contacts you make within your company and that makes longterm relationships with journalists easier to build.

Still, handling PR internally is not a simple thing. If you’re also the lead programmer or running the company finances, you probably won’t have the time to devote two months full-time to doing PR during your game’s launch. And that’s why people pay for external agencies.

Of course, for most companies, a dual approach is best.

As developers, you should be reaching out to journalists and nurturing those relationships on a weekly basis. Let agencies deal with the bulk of the work, but make sure you have your contacts at the key sites – Pocket Gamer, TouchArcade, 148Apps, Slide To Play, Gamezebo, IGN, Eurogamer, GameSpot, etc.

Also, don’t forget there are specialist online resources – some paid, some free – that will let you distribute press releases, screenshots and videos. They’re not agencies actively promoting your game, but they will get your information out to a wide number of journalists. Examples include Games Press, Appromoter, PRNewswire, MarketWire.

4.When to start PR (part 2)

The bottomline is you should be ‘doing PR’ all the time, in terms of using YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ etc throughout your game’s development. You should also be reading and commenting on the key sites you want to get your games covered on.

You want journalists to be part of your community, so become part of theirs.

In terms of a formal press campaign – which I will assume is based around the launch of your game – my view is you have a 6-8 week window.

Working backwards, you’ll ideally want to have reviews running as close to the day of release as possible. This means you need to be working one to two weeks prior to inform review editors that your game is coming out and providing them with access to the game, whether that be through promo codes, Test Flight builds, APKs etc.

Remember, for many of the larger sites, reviews will be handled by a specific person; probably not the news editor. For example, at PocketGamer we have the emails addresses reviews@pocketgamer.co.uk and news@pocketgamer.co.uk (which are filtered to a selection of the same and different writers).

Reviews are the most difficult articles to generate.

They take up more of a journalist’s time – they have to play the game and write about it – and that means they cost more to commission (typically twice as much). Also, many more games are released weekly than even the big sites have the capacity to review. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try, only that you should be disappointed if your game isn’t reviewed.

Of course, you’re more likely to get your game reviewed if people have been writing about it prior to release.

My view is the perfect PR campaign for a game would see the first news articles about your game written two to four weeks before it’s launched. If you’ve very lucky, you might get another news piece if you reveal some significant new feature about the game or maybe a hands-on preview if you’ve been able to provide a build or meet up with journalists at a conference such as GDC.

If your game is big, or interesting enough, you should also be looking to get news articles telling people when the game is released – for example, many sites will have round up articles detailing the week’s releases.

Post-launch coverage is extremely difficult.

If your game has been very successful, you might be able to get news about significant updates or when you hit ten million downloads etc covered, but such articles are more likely to come about because journalists love your game and are contacting you, rather than because you’re hassling them.

In conclusion, the rhythm of my perfect campaign is: news #1 (introduction), news #2 (more detail), preview/hands on, news #3 (release), and review (plus possible follow up).

5.Nuts and bolts

To-date, I’ve been talking abstractly about the press campaign for your game, but what are the practicalities?

Actually, I think this is the simplest part of the process.

A. Press release: This is a short written text that explains in clear terms what your game is about. My personal view is that unless the game is supposed to funny (or otherwise themed), don’t get clever and try to make jokes or be very friendly with the journalist (unless you are actually friendly with them.).

Just detail the facts; explain why the game is interesting; talk about the gameplay; don’t provide a detailed history of the development process unless it’s interesting for some reason; don’t tell me about the game’s backstory unless it’s vital to my understanding of the game; also give me facts – pricing, release date, platforms, the devices/OSes it will/won’t work on.

Please note, your press release isn’t the same thing as your app store description. An app store description is for people who might download or update your game. A press release is information you’re sending to a journalist who likely hasn’t heard about and/or doesn’t much care about your game.

B. Assets: Every press release should be supported with screenshots and/or artwork that illustrates why your game is interesting. If your game is interesting because it’s about trains, show me screenshots of the trains. Six screenshots is enough. Don’t put marketing tags or other artwork over them. Just provide pure screenshots.

More important that screenshots are videos. The first thing any journalist will do if they open your email will be to click on the video link, so make sure you have something good to show in the first 10 seconds.

Note; teaser videos or videos just showing cutscenes can be useful when you’re introducing your game, but journalists really want to see gameplay.

6.Exclusives and non disclosure agreements

Compared to console gaming, exclusives and NDAs play little part in the mobile industry.

That’s likely to change as bigger companies and brands spend more money on mobile games, but in most cases, I think there’s little point in exclusives – i.e. only giving your news to a single website.

In the case of say Rovio’s Angry Birds Space deal with Yahoo, the brand and the site’s audience were large enough to make it work, just.

In truth, all you’re likely to do with an exclusive is limit your audience because all the websites you didn’t give an exclusive to will now hate you.

NDAs or embargoed information are a more useful tool, allowing journalists to play games, access information and interview staff ahead of time; also ensuring you’re in control of when the news is released.

Some websites – mainly in the US – get shirty about embargoes, in which case don’t give them information under embargoes. Most other professional websites will be happy to operate under them. It makes journalists’ and PR managers’ lives easier

7.Gifting

There is a big argument ongoing in UK games journalism presently about whether it’s immoral to talk to PR people, to let them buy you a beer, or give you a free t-shirt.

My view is that this is rather silly, but as studies of the US pharmaceutical industry have demonstrated, buying doctors dinners, taking them on golfing holidays, and paying them as consultants does physiologically affect their behaviour when it comes to prescribing those company’s drugs.

Indeed, that’s why charities will include cheap biros in their appeal mail outs – human beings are easily manipulated.

When it comes to games, I think developers should be careful. Clearly, items of monetary value will be exchanged – maybe promo codes or in-game currency – as part of both sides doing their job.

Most people won’t have a problem with the odd t-shirt or plush toy for their nephew, but once the monetary value of gifts is over $50, you make find yourself being accused of bribery or put the journalist in a difficult situation.

8.Keep it simple (journalists are stupid)

The games industry is young, and journalists tend to be the youngest and least well paid element.

Sadly, this means they’re not always as professional as you’d like. Equally, most of them do not understand how games are made. For all they know, you have a sausage machine in your garage and every night you turn the handle and a game flies on onto the App Store.

Or – to put it another way – your game is the most important thing in the world to you.

But to a journalist, your game is most an inconvenience that’s stopping them doing something they want to do, like go home early or play Halo 4.

Game journalists don’t really understand what you do, they get a lot of email but they aren’t very organised, and they spend all their time talking and playing games.

So ignore the bad bits and make the positives work for you.

Give journalists the information and access to be enthusiastic about your games. Journalists love games and love writing about games. The reason you should spend time doing PR is that some of them will write enthusiastically about your games.

9.Spell check

A final point. Would you accept a job application if it hasn’t been spell checked?

A lot of journalists are exactly the same when it comes to press releases.

So, spell check your press releases, and if you’re writing in a language that isn’t your native language, get someone to check it for you.

You can see my slides from the presentation, with an added extra point.(source:pocketgamer)


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