作者：Raghav Mathur

我是Raghav，Black Shell Media LLC的首席营销官，也是Black Shell Games的市场营销总监。我很高兴自己在过去几年曾参与多个游戏项目，不管是致力于内部工作还是面对客户，我也从中学到了许多。在此我将分享自己学到的3大重要经验教训，如果你想要进入独立开发领域，你就必须牢记这些内容。

1.玩家并不喜欢开发工作室，他们更喜欢开发者。

在一些在线论坛上待5分钟就有可能让你对艺电和微软等大公司产生讨厌心理。玩家通常都不喜欢大公司，他们当然也不喜欢那些销售给他们游戏的“人”。他们总是将公司与那些破坏游戏世界的对象联系起来。他们认为这些公司总是不断尝试着榨干玩家的钱并破坏粉丝们所喜欢的一切。

不管何时当我尝试着与玩家交谈或使用Black Shell Games这个名字代表自己进行发言时，人们总是会退缩，我们也未能获得预期的交流。所以我决定尝试一些已经取得成功的新策略：即以个人的身份，而不是公司。直到今天，我所发出去的每一封群发邮件或推广信息都不是以Black Shell Games的名义。而是以来自Black Shell Games的Raghav，或单纯的Raghav Mathur。

如此我们的粉丝便能理解邮件的另一端是一个尝试着与自己对话的人，而不是那些迫切想要推销游戏的公司。如此我们的群发邮件也得到了更多点击率（有时达到50%），玩家也能够更轻松地与我们相处。在Black Shell Games，游戏开发的很大一部分是关于用户反馈。人们总是很乐意提供给Raghav一些反馈和理念。那人们是否愿意如此对待Black Shell Games呢？这可不见得。

2.当你能够挑战数学时，付费广告便会失去价值

付费广告很有用。它们能够将你呈现在用户面前并对他们产生巨大影响。但在独立游戏世界，你可能需要更深入地进行思考。让我们再看看第1点—-人们并不喜欢公司。那是谁在发放付费广告呢？没错，是公司。公司并不是尝试着去接触玩家，相反地他们只是想借此赚钱并将产品带到你手上。独立游戏很少能获得成功便是因为他们在付费广告上所投入的努力。甚至在像Reddit这样的网站上，CPM也只有0.75美元，你最多只能做到收支相抵。作为市场营销者，我认为你们应该去计算不可能的ROI。这意味着什么呢？

让我们看看这个ROI等式。

102美元/100美元=1.02=102%

我并未赚到2美元。所以我是亏钱的、

在Black Shell Games，我们一直努力创造能够对抗数学的ROI。我到底在说什么呢？让我们这么想。我们拥有一个社区，这是我花了很长时间所建立起来的。我向粉丝们发送了一封tweet（游戏邦注：仅仅只需要花费1分钟时间，甚至不需要为此花钱），并因此创造了50美元的收益。现在让我们再次使用ROI等式。

50美元/0美元=???:

你不能除以0！我什么都不做就赚了50美元！从长远角度来看，比起不断花钱赚些小恩小惠，花时间和钱去发展可能创造销量的社区更有效。这是一种前后矛盾且非常昂贵的方法，根本没有价值。独立玩家是我所知道的最热情且最容易兴奋的人。如果你能够创建一个强大的粉丝基础，你便不用再担心赚钱或吸引玩家的问题了。

3.比起文字，图片更有说服力。所以请创造一些GIF或预告片。

对于市场营销者来说，写公关文案是必须掌握的技能。每个人都需要接受有关写作的基础课程，如此才能更有效地吸引玩家的注意。但是在今天这个时代，即信息都趋于视觉化，简单化与快速化，比起文本人们往往更希望看到图片或其它媒体。Steam的商店页面便都是各种图片和预告片，而其它描述和功能列表则被置于最下方。

steam(from baidu)

不要浪费时间去完善你的文本内容，相反地你应该多花些时间去挑选一些吸引人的视频片段和截图，因为它们总是比文本更有说服力。甚至在App Store和Play Store，大多数热门应用也都会使用图标和截图去鼓励人们购买游戏。

其实原理非常简单，因为人们总是喜欢看到一些简单的东西。视觉效果，美感和外在吸引力是销售产品并推动独立游戏下载量的最佳元素。就像人们总是会通过封面去判断你的著作。所以请尽可能创造出华丽的外观。

当你在创造并营销游戏的时候，请一定牢记这3点内容，如此你便更有可能取得成功。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

3 Things Marketing My Indie Game Taught Me

by Raghav Mathur

I’m Raghav, CMO at Black Shell Media LLC, and marketing lead at Black Shell Games. I’ve had the pleasure of working on many games, both internal and for clients, over the past years, and I’ve definitely learned a lot. Here are the three most important lessons I learned that I think everyone should keep in mind when diving into the world of indie development.

1. PLAYERS DON’T LIKE DEVELOPMENT STUDIOS, THEY LIKE DEVELOPERS.

Five minutes on some online forums will introduce you to a hive mind of hatred towards big companies like EA and Microsoft. Gamers don’t like big companies and they certainly don’t like anyone that resembles “the man” selling them games. They associate companies and entities with all that’s wrong with the world of gaming. They see companies constantly trying to bleed players dry and ruining everything that fans love.

Whenever we tried talking to players or getting the word out using the Black Shell Games name as our representation, people pushed back and we didn’t get the kind of engagement we wanted. So I decided to try a new strategy that has had immense success: be a person, not a company. To this day, every single mass email or promotional message I send out doesn’t come from Black Shell Games. It comes from Raghav at Black Shell Games, or just Raghav Mathur.

This way, our fans see that there is a human on the other end of the message who’s trying to talk to them, as opposed to some “scummy” company yearning to make a sale. We get immense click through rates (almost 50% sometimes) in our mass emails and people engage with us very comfortably. A large part of game development at Black Shell Games is feedback from our users. People will gladly give Raghav some feedback or ideas. Will people reach out to Black Shell Games and do the same? Less likely.

2. PAID ADS AREN’T WORTH IT WHEN YOU CAN DEFY MATH INSTEAD.

Paid ads can be great. They can put you right in front of your audience and position you perfectly to make a huge impact. But in the world of indie gaming, I ask you to think about something. Look back at point 1—people don’t like companies. Who puts out paid ads? Companies. Companies that aren’t trying to reach out to you, but rather just trying to take your money and put a product in your hands. Indie games rarely become successful because of their paid advertising efforts. It’s rarely detrimental, but it’s just a huge waste of money. Even on sites like Reddit, where CPM rates can be as low as $0.75, you’ll break even at best. My philosophy, as someone who’s been marketing games for a while, is to get mathematically impossible ROI. What does that mean?

Consider this ROI equation.

$102/$100 = 1.02 = 102%

I spent $100 on ads and made $102 as a result. Seems OK, right? Wait just one second. Suppose I bill my time at near minimum wage—$10/hour. It took me half an hour to set up the ads, an hour to interact with queries and talk to people who were commenting on the ad, and another half hour to run the analytics. Now my total spend is $100 cash plus $20 labor = $120. Now,

$102/$120 = 0.85 = 85%

I didn’t make $2. I’ve lost money.

What I strive to do at Black Shell Games is ROI that defies math. What the heck am I talking about? Consider this. I have an existing community of followers that I’ve worked hard to build up over time. I send out one tweet—an action that barely takes a minute and that I wouldn’t even bill for—to my fan base, and generate $50 in revenue. Now let’s try the ROI equation again!

$50/$0 = ??? :

Uh oh. You can’t divide by zero! I made $50 by doing essentially nothing! In the long run, it’s much more profitable to spend time and money on growing a community that you can turn into a sale generating fan base, instead of having to constantly spend money to struggle and make a few bucks here and there. It’s inconsistent, inconvenient, expensive, and just not worth it. Indie gamers are some of the most passionate, engaged, excitable people I know. If you build up a great fan base, you’ll never have to worry about making money or reaching players. They’ll all be right by your side.

3. PICTURES SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS. SO DO GIFS AND TRAILERS.

Copywriting is a vital skill for marketing buffs. Everyone should take a basic course in writing good copy (or get in touch with Black Shell Media and let us take care of it for you!) to effectively reach and appeal to players. But in today’s day and age, where information is visual, clean, and fast, people would much rather look at pictures and other media than read text. Steam store pages focus prominently on pictures and trailers, and push descriptions and feature lists down below all the multimedia.

Don’t spend week after week perfecting your copy down to a T if you could instead spend a few hours culling breathtaking video footage and screenshots that sell your game much better than text does. Even on the App Store and Play Store, the icon and screenshots are stunning for most hit apps, and encourage people to play the game.

Some theorize that society has shorter attention spans nowadays. I just think it’s a simple principle—people like looking at pretty things. Just ask any self-proclaimed pick up artist. Visuals, aesthetics, and outside appeal are what sell products and lead to downloads of your indie game. Players will judge your book by its cover. So make the cover gorgeous.

Keep these three points in mind when you set off to make and market your game, and you’ll do just fine. All the best!（source：Gamasutra）