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论述电子游戏营销团队常犯的3个错误

发布时间:2012-12-21 17:08:43 Tags:,,,

作者:Anthony Hart-Jones

我一直认为(通常与我的判断相违背),电子游戏发行商中的营销团队是必要力量。他们了解卖点,销售方式,而且常以奇怪的精确方式指出某款游戏是否值得制作。

他们时常陷入困境,反对依靠信仰决定发行目标,但一般而言,主流发行商推出的电子游戏无论品质多么低劣,他们总能将其推广给目标群体。事实上,有些确实劣质,且遭到批评家严厉斥责的作品仍可能在市场人员的努力下,创下丰厚收益。

为此,我得重新审视自己站立的阵营……

首先,这不是一个挑战邀请,或是对大型发行商营销团队的质疑。如果你打算获得Square Enix或EA的支持,你应通过他们营销团队的认可。即使是他们的错,他们也仍能阻止你的游戏发行。

Team-Roles(from business901.com)

Team-Roles(from business901.com)

接下来,我们来谈谈营销团队经常犯下的错误。

核心用户并非唯一用户

我主要体验非核心游戏。我知道,像我这种拥有出色游戏设备的人却从不玩《使命召唤》这一事实确实令人震惊,但我的确偏爱休闲游戏,不单是所有休闲模式,我还喜爱在线拼图益智游戏与九宫格数独游戏。

坦白讲,大多数时候我会到Shockwave.com上体验一些温和且压力较小的游戏。自大学以来我就有了这种习惯。我会进入FPS游戏杀掉某些僵尸或外星人,取得最佳分数,但有时只会产生低效果。老实讲,数谜游戏如同我的清晨谷物补充,其效果优于扮演Strogg兵种。

有一天,我发现自己经常体验的游戏类型改头换面了。它们现在是‘Nick Mom’游戏。

突然,我有一种被排挤感。我觉得自己像是一个闯入者,如果某个扮演公主造型的玩家突然以美少女战士的形象出现在大会上。人们只会投以疑惑的目光。

是哪类营销团队会坐在会议室内,对着白板沉思,而后指出:“让我们疏远次级市场吧!”与Popcap相比,后者也拥有同样的核心市场,但他们仍会针对‘休闲玩家’推广游戏,而不是指定某个‘主要市场’,他们从未区别性地对待杀死僵尸的玩家与爱玩配对钻石的玩家。

该答案无疑是“在我游戏1000码的范围内没有目标用户”。我并不打算疏远玩家,我可以肯定,我所聘请的任何营销团队不会刻意离间潜在用户。

诚信为上策

还记得大型发行商曾在其所有广告与盒子背面设置游戏过场画面的情况吗?这可是‘诱导转向法’的最糟糕策略之一,也导致那些反感“广告内容与游戏玩法不符”的人在过去十年对游戏广告产生强烈的排斥感。

我们也从中吸取了经验教训,不是吗?我的意思是,再也不会有人采取这种做法……

Assassin-s-Creed-III-the-assassins(from fanpop.com)

Assassin-s-Creed-III-the-assassins(from fanpop.com)

直到《刺客信条3》打破了这种僵局。美国版本的营销方式会让你觉得,自己的行动意在谋杀英国士兵,甚至欧洲版本也倾向这种做法,以致于该特殊版本主要发行在欧洲市场。作为欧洲最大的发行商之一,育碧却无法在总部所在地的欧洲大陆销售这款游戏。

开发者争辩这些广告并不能代表游戏的思想立场,而美国人却喜欢这些视频所暗示的内容,然后呢?这些开发者说得对……谁会想到出现这种情况?毕竟制作游戏的人远比销售游戏的人更了解游戏……

你可能知道,人们并不希望自己看到的与实际得到的东西存在出入。事实上,全球大部分地区的法律系统也并不允许商家向消费者提供实物与广告不符的商品。

不存在所谓的“没落”题材

最后,我将扼要询问;是谁投资了近期出炉的《Broken Sword》、《Tex Murphy》、Obsidian的《Project Eternity》与《Double Fine Adventure》?是玩家。事实上,在传统发行商明确Tim Schafer的这款《Monkey Island Tim Scahfer》不会热卖后,《Double Fine》仅在24小时内就通过Kickstarter创造了一个电子游戏的大众融资纪录。

传统发行商可能不会同意支付开发者40万美元以制作游戏,因为其营销团队认为该作不会热卖,但公众却为此支付了330万美元。

甚至在Kickstarter以外,还有其它诸如Skotos Tech公司仍致力于维护基于订阅模式的MUD与MUSH游戏,尽管市场上存在更具先进性的MMO游戏。

这说明了什么问题?你懂的。

总结

传统发行商的营销团队无法正确决定所有动向。大多数时候,他们只擅长某些方面。在此,我并非否定他们的能力,而是指出他们犯下的错误。

如果他们肯学习,接受教训,改变思考方式,那将会取得可观效果。否则只会造成负面影响,但比起依赖外部营销理念,发行商最好还是依靠内部营销团队。

游戏仍是尚未成熟的媒介,我们还会犯错,但必须面对现实。(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

Video-Game Marketing Teams: A Liability?

by Anthony Hart-Jones

The following blog was, unless otherwise noted, independently written by a member of Gamasutra’s game development community. The thoughts and opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of Gamasutra or its parent company.

I have long argued, often against my better judgement, that marketing teams within video-game publishers are a necessary evil.  They know what sells, how to sell it and can often tell you with curious accuracy whether a game is worth making.

They mess up from time to time, black-balling a game which rewards another publisher for their faith, but the average video-game from a major publisher can be sold to the target demographic no matter how bad it is.  In fact, some really awful games, panned by the critics, are still commercial successes thanks to the efforts of marketeers.

And yet, I am starting to reconsider my position…

First things first, this is not an invitation to challenge or question the marketing team in big publishers.  If you want to get Square Enix or EA backing you, you’ll need to go through the marketing team before you get green-lit.  Even if they are wrong, they can still stop your game.

Okay…  So, let’s talk about marketing gone wrong.

Core Demographic Is Not The Same As Sole Demographic

I play non-core games.  I know, it’s a shock to hear that someone with a decent gaming rig isn’t playing Call of Duty every moment they are gaming, but I like to play casual games.  Not just any casual games, but online jigsaw puzzles and sudoku.

Without a trace of shame, I’ll confess to heading off to Shockwave.com most mornings for some gentle low-stress games.  I’ve been doing it for years, since I was at university studying game development.  I’ll drop into an FPS and frag some zombies or aliens with the best of ‘em, but sometimes I am just after something low impact.  To be honest, a Kakuro complements my morning cereal better than Strogg brains.

One day, I noticed that the kind of games I was playing had been rebranded.  They were now ‘Nick Mom’ games.

Nick Mom?

Suddenly, I felt excluded.  I was suddenly made to feel like an interloper, like the men who play Princess-Maker and dress up like Sailor Moon at conventions.  I was a little bit suspect in the eyes of the world.

What kind of marketing team sits down in the conference room, ponders the whiteboard and says “let’s alienate our secondary markets!” unless they are on drugs?  Compare this to Popcap, who have the same core market and yet they still market themselves as games for ‘casual gamers’ rather than ‘mothers’ and see no distinction between a person who wants to kill zombies and one who wants to match gems into groups of three.

The answer is “not one I want within 1000 yards of my games” of course.  I don’t want to alienate my players and I’m fairly certain that any marketing team I hired would not want to alienate potential clients.

Honesty Is The Best Policy

Anyone here old enough to remember when a certain big publisher used cut-scene art in all their advertising and on the back of the box?  The marketing was one of the worst ‘bait and switch’ jobs out there, leading to those annoying ‘not representative of game-play’ warning on just about every advert out there in the last decade and a half.

We learnt our lesson from that, didn’t we?  I mean, nobody would do that again…

Until Assassin’s Creed 3, that is.  The US marketing made it look like all you did was murder British soldiers and even the EU version was so badly skewed toward killing Brits that the special edition was pulled in Europe.  Ubisoft, one of the biggest publishers in Europe, couldn’t sell their game in the same continent as their headquarters.

The developers argued that the adverts were not representative, that it was not ‘f*** yeah, America’ like the videos suggested and guess what?  The developers were right…  Who’d have thought it?  The people who made the game knew better than the people who were meant to be selling it…

As you might know, people don’t like being shown one thing and given another.  In fact, the legal system in most of the world doesn’t like consumers being shown one thing and given another.

There’s No Such Thing As A Dead Genre

The final one.  I’ll keep this short(er) and just ask this; who funded the most recent Broken Sword game, the latest Tex Murphy game, Obsidian’s Project Eternity and Double Fine Adventure?  It was the players.  In fact, Double Fine set a new record for the most money made in 24 hours through Kickstarter after traditional publishers decided that an adventure game by Tim Schafer, as in Monkey Island Tim Schafer, wouldn’t sell.

Traditional publishing wouldn’t agree to give them $400K to make the game, because their marketing teams didn’t think it would sell, but the public paid them $3.3-million for it.

Even outside Kickstarter, companies like Skotos Tech maintain subscription-based MUD and MUSH games despite the existence of much more advanced MMO games on the market.

What does all this tell you?

Conclusions

The traditional publisher’s marketing team are not going anywhere quite yet.  They are good at what they do, most of the time.  I’m not saying that they are not, just that they make mistakes.

If they learn, if they embrace the lessons and change the way they think, that’s great.  If they don’t, it sucks, but it’s still better than the alternative of losing them and relying on outside marketing ideas.

We’re an immature medium, we’re still making mistakes.  That’s just life…(source:gamasutra)


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