作者：Aaron San Filippo

最近，我与兄弟Forest花了6个月的时间制作了《Race The Sun》这款游戏。

在此期间，除了开发，我们还致力于大量游戏之外的项目。比如我们会经常更新博客与社交媒体。并且制作了一则预告片，发送给媒体，希望借此激发一些流量。我们还开发了一项独特的商业模式，希望有助于游戏推广与社区创建。我们还举办了有奖竞猜活动。并在网站上创建了Greenlight页面与论坛，扩大社区规模。

同时，我们还在Kongregate网站上推出该作的最初样本，并采用类似Kickstarter的购买形式在自己网站上开通预售渠道。甚至还在IGF大会上展出这款作品。

虽然上述举措均取得不同程度的成功，但却耗费了我们大量时间（指完成游戏后耗费的时间）。有时，我认为应好好分配时间，扪心自问哪些做法可行，哪些不可行。

以下是我们从上述做法中清晰了解到的两个教训：

教训1：认识到“理想与现实的差距”

也就是说：有时，我们应退后一步，以客观视角观察游戏的实际构成部分。

为何要在本文中探讨PR呢？

主要问题是，在开发过程中，我们常发现自己的理想成品与现实存在出入。而且这种差异性总超越我们的意识，因为我们内心总认为最后会成功。

在我看来，《Race The Sun》是一款采用独特形式的多人异步游戏，其中内置现代化道具、多种游戏模式以及生动逼真的场景世界，相关社区也十分活跃，每天有大量玩家再次登录，查看这个新世界的动态。

Race-The-Sun(from zombiesatemygames)

问题是，该作并未达到这种效果！而且极易偏离我们的想法。于是，我们开始创建华丽丽的网站，制作推广影片，创建论坛，制作YouTube视频，申请Facebook，“形成一个社区模式”。与此同时，游戏的实际开发进程也有所减缓，最重要的是，我们还未加入突出性能。此时，我们开始感到沮丧，因为用户并没有如我们期望般喜爱该游戏，而且我们始终忘记植入最出色的性能。

坦白讲，该游戏相当有趣。我敢保证自己是以客观口吻阐述这个观点，因为它在Kongregate网站的评分将近4.0，尽管它只是个“样本”，而且需要插件支持（这也是造成其获得1颗星等级的原因）。

然而，即使有些玩家对它的喜爱已有一段时间，但我们还未在该作中植入自认为的最佳性能，而且，我们也未认识到不断优化能够第一时间抓住用户的眼球。

教训2：“获得曝光”不一定代表游戏成功

荣获奖项也无法代表游戏成功。

粗糙作品极易遭受忽视。无论你是发送邮件，发表微博，还是在游戏论坛或Reddit上发帖，都不会有人回复或给予关注。你会感到失望，毕竟，这是款有趣作品。

我觉得自己已冲出这个困境。因为Rock, Paper, Shotgun报道了我们的游戏。PC Gamer也在2013年值得关注游戏的文章中提到我们。

然而重点是，我们应认识到获得新闻媒介的报道并不意味着游戏会获得丰厚收益。玩家在试玩后的看法更加重要。其实新闻报道好比能够一次性影响更多人群的玩家。但基本上其本身不会对你带来多大好处。他们的反应，以及对你游戏的关注，更多是反射出玩家的想法。

比如，《RPS》的相关报道推动我们网站的用户访问量接近2500。这是令人兴奋的结果，因为《RPS》是目前为止我们接触到的最大媒体，但我们的更大计划是每天都能获得类似曝光，一旦相关文章脱离首页，我们的流量将回落到初始状态。相比之下，我们在Kongregate网站上推出该作的某个周末里，便有5万多个用户体验了这款游戏。同比利用记者或名人“获得曝光”，通过用户可以轻松获得游戏的平台发行作品能够更高效地获取粉丝。我们已经决定重新审视游戏，提高其探讨价值。

游戏本身的作用

在意识到新闻媒体不是我们制胜法宝的那一刻，我感到些许惊讶。

以下是我对出色游戏推广理论的修改，至少它符合我的游戏：

出色的PR并非指代假设那是款佳作，而后发送上千封邮件，寄希望于获得5%的曝光率。

出色的PR是指，当你向10个用户展示自己的作品时，其中有5个会成为你的长期粉丝，他们还会向好友宣传，而后粉丝数翻滚提高成50个。

而且，我发现这一理论的实现可以基于多种途径，而且无需向相关对象日以继夜地发送邮件，或在Twitter上@他们。

比如：

*制作一款容易上手的游戏。

*制作一款值得体验的游戏。

*制作一款人们会长时（游戏邦注：比如《Minecraft》、《Triple Town》）体验，或至少在短时间内会激情享受的游戏（比如《Frog Fractions》、《Thirty Flights of Loving》）。

*方便玩家在网上分享你的游戏。

*制作出人们可以免费体验的作品，至少某些内容为免费模式。

*基于人们的喜好制作游戏。同比那些稍微有趣的内容，他们更乐意分享自己喜爱的作品。

我们并不是PR领域的专家，我们只是认识到这不仅仅是游戏制作这么简单。以下是我们接来下的计划：

首先制作出确实值得大家体验与探讨的游戏。

接着致力于让全球大多数用户注意到自己的作品。（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）

Two Important Lessons I’ve Learned About Game PR

by Aaron San Filippo

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.

Note: originally posted on Flippfly.com

I’ve been making a game called Race The Sun for about 6 months now, with my brother Forest.

During this time, in addition to development, we’ve also done a lot of things outside of the game itself. We’ve done frequent blog and social media updates. We made a “teaser” video, and sent press emails to try and stir up some previews. We developed a somewhat unique business model, in hopes that it would create a “marketing story” for ourselves as a company and help build a community.  We held giveaway contests. We setup a Greenlight page and a forum on our website to try to further our community-building.

We also released an early “alpha demo” on Kongregate of the game, and opened up pre-orders on our website, with Kickstarter-like tiers of purchase. We even entered the game in the IGF

These things have had varying levels of success – but they’ve also taken an awful lot of time away from actually finishing the game. Once in awhile, I think it’s important to evaluate where you’re spending your time, to ask yourself what’s working and what’s not.

Here are two lessons in particular that have given us some clarity:

Lesson 1: Be Aware of The “Imagination/Reality Gulf”

In other words: Take a step back once in awhile and objectively look at what’s actually in the game.

Why Am I talking about this in an article about PR?

The problem for most of us, is that during development there’s always a gulf between where we imagine the game to be when it’s finished, and where the game actually is right now. This gulf is always a lot bigger than we realize, because we’re mentally focused on the light at the end of the tunnel.

For Race The Sun, I see a game with a unique form of asynchronous multiplayer, built-in mod tools, multiple game modes, and a lively dynamic world with a vibrant community who comes back every day to see what the new world offers.

The problem is – the game’s not quite there yet! But it’s so easy to get ahead of ourselves. We start making snazzy websites, and promo trailers, and building forums, and doing YouTube videos and Facebook pages to start “building a community.” And in the meantime, the game’s actual progress slows down, and the most important, standout features remain in our heads. And at the same time – we start getting discouraged that people aren’t as excited about the game as we hoped they would be — all the while forgetting that the coolest features are still in our heads.

To be clear – our game is fun.  I feel I can say this objectively, given its nearly 4.0 rating on Kongregate, despite being a “demo” and despite requiring a plugin (both of these facts tend to attract lots of 1-star reviews.)

But even though people love the game for a few hours, we haven’t yet implemented what we believe to be the game’s most standout features, and we haven’t given it that spit-shine level of polish that will grab people’s attention at first glance.

Lesson 2: “Getting Noticed” Doesn’t Makes Your Game A Success

Neither does winning awards.

It’s rough being an “invisible indie.” You send emails and tweets and get no response. You post on gaming forums or Reddit, and almost nobody notices. It’s frustrating – after all, the game is fun, right?

I feel like we’ve started to finally get past this hump. Rock, Paper, Shotgun wrote about us. PC Gamer listed us in their games to watch for 2013.

But it’s important to realize – getting the press to talk about your game isn’t what’s going to make it a financial success. It’s about the players, and what they actually think about your game when they try it. The press are just players who influence a few more people at a time. But fundamentally, press write-ups will do you little good, on their own. Their reactions and the fact that they take notice of your game is mostly just a reflection of what players think.

Case in point: when RPS wrote about us, it drove about 2.5k visitors to our site. This was great and exciting because it was the biggest press we’ve had so far – but in the grand scheme, we need this kind of visibility every day, and once the article falls off their front page, our traffic went back to where it was. Compare this to the traffic we got for “free” from our Kongregate release – over 50k people played it in a single weekend when we launched. Getting yourself on a platform that feeds you users effortlessly is much more effective way to gain fans than “getting noticed” by a journalist or celebrity. We’ve decided to refocus on the game itself and making it into something worth talking about.

It’s About The Game

Realizing that the press don’t hold the keys to our success was kind of an “aha” moment for us.

Here’s my somewhat revised theory of good game PR, at least as it relates to our particular game:

Great PR isn’t assuming your game is good enough, and then sending tons of emails to try to get one out of twenty journalists to notice.

Great PR is when you can show your game to 10 people, and 5 of them become fans who play for weeks and tell their friends, and it turns into 50 people.

And I’m realizing that there are a lot of things we can do to effect this, none of which involves making lists of people and sending them emails and Tweeting at them for days on end.

For example:

Make a game that’s easy to start playing.

Make it a game that looks like it’s worth playing.

Make a game that people will play for a long time(examples: Minecraft, Triple Town,) or at least enjoy intensely for a short time (Frog Fractions, Thirty Flights of Loving)

Make it easy for people to share your game on the internet.

Make it possible for people to play your game for free, at least in some form.

Make it a game that people can make a hobby out of. People are more likely to share their hobbies than something they find mildly amusing.

So, there it is. We’re no PR experts, but we’re learning that it’s more about the game than anything else. Here’s our plan going forward:

First, let’s make the game something that’s undeniably worth playing and talking about.

Then we can worry about getting the world at large to take notice.(source:gamasutra)