本文原作者：Antonio Santo 译者：ciel chen

尽管我们觉得游戏发行报道不应该成为向媒体推广游戏的唯一路径，然而它始终是一个非常重要的推广工具。我曾经被非常非常多次地请教过要如何写一份游戏发行报道。这里是需要一些与之相关的本能和天赋的：记者和市场专家大多（至少说应该）具备良好的文字功底——我们发现这对于其他人来说确实非常难做到的。“写好来”并不是一个确切有用的建议，首先因为这是废话，其次因为这话说起来容易做起来难。不过这里有些要点技巧是只要你懂，就可以很好地实施操作，我把它们归结为了几个撰写一篇有影响力的游戏发行报道所需的小技巧。要是这里有一名搜索引擎优化专家他会说这样描述我的文章：“7个小技巧助你出品一份有影响力的独立游戏发行报道”。

gamer(from freegameupdate)

一，选择你的战场。你要花点时间研究研究手头上这些东西是不是你想要作为发行报道的内容。一方面，记住你是为了吸引媒体为你写一篇单独报道或文章才发送的报道，所以你的报道要有报道价值。如果你稿子里都是些零头琐碎的内容，人们会觉得你是个喊“狼来了”的孩子——等你真的有重要的信息要传达的时候都没人想听了。另一方面，投送游戏发行报道也比你想象的复杂，你之后就知道了。所以你要省省力气，为真正的战斗蓄力。不过我不是说你想让自己的声音被听到而作出的努力是白费的，而是说有别的办法：开发日记、写在你自己的博客上或者当个友情作者写篇文章、社交媒体、项目总结等等……你有很多工具：要懂得利用！

二，在你的游戏发行报道上多用点心。不要随便胡乱瞎诌几行话就发出去了。这不仅是因为这篇报道涵盖的信息很重要，而且因为这关乎接收者对你和你的游戏品牌的印象。如果你不擅长写作，那至少别出现语法错误——就像我，明显我不是一个英语母语者，所以我会很认真地校对我的文本。可以加上一些图片和截图，不过不要太多，这会占用人家收件箱空间。

三，信息构架。就像你会知道你最想让你游戏的哪些东西成为新闻内容的一部分，就试着按照这个走向构架就好了。在报道的第一段放上最重要的信息——这篇报道的主要内容概要。比方说：你要在2月28日发行你的游戏扩展内容。用报道的第二段和第三段来提供一些有关内容：你的游戏于1月10日发行在PC上，售价x欧元，这款游戏是有关什么什么内容的。然后你可以引用一些对你工作室或者任意有关的不错评论。当然了，在这里你不是记者：你不需要严格地遵从“5W规则”或者倒金字塔结构，你的目标是让你的产品最好地呈现出来，不过如果你能掌握记者的思考方式和信息构架将会非常有帮助。

四，让记者少费点劲。一名记者每天都要收到几十封甚至上百封的电子邮件。所以想让自己的邮件被注意到真的很困难，所以你好歹让他们艰难的生活尽可能地简单点——如果你要他们通过Google才能搜到你的更多信息，那他们大多不会去搜的。所以附上你的所有游戏相关数据（发行数据、平台、售价等等）以及一个有可视内容的新闻资料包链接，有关你工作室的更多细节内容……Vlambeer的新闻资料包就是很好的模板（不过如果你能用上你自己个人定制的材料效果会更好）。

五，选择点击“发送”的合适时间。不要选择在星期一或者星期五发表游戏发行报道。星期一大多是最重要新闻和那些周末发生事件的报道时间。而星期五，全世界的每个作者都在盯着他们的表等着下班，如果不是什么GRA VI的发表之类的重要内容，他们是不会鸟你的。除了之前说的，你还要看看那些3-A级同行的重要发行、预告片公布和网上见面会等……也许你不是个可以预见未来的算命先生，但是如果下个礼拜二有个3A级大型游戏要发行，那之后的一天里没人会理会别的东西了。除非你真的别无选择，不然就等这个巨头游戏的风头过去了再说。

六，跟进你最看重的目标。在你发出游戏发行报道之后，就到了跟进的时候了——也就是直接发邮件确认他们是否看过你的发行报道了，可以的话你可以礼貌地问问他们可不可以给你写点什么评价。尽管没有规定跟进的过程中你要等多久，不过根据我的经验来说一般要等两三天。请允许我在这里多此一举地再说一遍：那些报道了人们感兴趣内容的文章才更有吸引力。跟进成百上千的媒体联系人是不合适的，不过如你事先知道最可能读你文章的最重要人群是哪些的话，你就可以把注意力集中在他们身上。可以对相关的媒介和记者做一些调查：可以是那些专注你所选平台的网站，也可以是那些喜欢某类游戏的作者……把直接个性化的定制跟进电子邮件发给他们。你还可以提到一些过去的故事或者他们的相关评述，这些评述让你觉得他们会对你的游戏有所兴趣。这可比你发群发邮件给上百个COO强多了。

七，如果他们没回你邮件别放在心上。在强调一次：记者每天要受到几十封的电子邮件。他们真的没法一一回复每个人，甚至对个人的跟进邮件也回复不过来。有一些杂志的记者是从来不会回复邮件的，这可能是提高效率的内部规则。所以这并没有针对，你不要觉得沮丧或者因此怨恨他们：要知道，除了你以外还有千千万万的游戏等着发表发行报道呢。仅作为参考性标志——Mailchimp中游戏行业平均邮件点击率是12.52%（提醒一下：我们游戏邮件的平均点击率比这高出很多，如果你想有更多了解，可以给我们发邮件）。一名PR需要没日没夜地努力耐心工作来让你的品牌和产品得到关注——这是需要天赋、勤奋以及一些运气的——不过运气来的前提是你得刚好在呀。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

Even though we think that press releases shouldn’t be your one and only way to approach the media and to spread the word about your game, it is indeed a very important tool. I’ve been asked many, many times how to write a press release. There’s a bit of instinct and talent about it: journalists and marketing experts tend to be, or at least should be, good with words; we find very easy some things that other people struggle with. “Write well” is not exactly a useful piece of advice, first because it’s obvious, second because that’s easier said than done. But there are other things which can be easily implemented once you know them, so let’s see, in a nutshell, some tips for writing a good press release. Or, as an SEO expert would say, 7 Tips On Using Press Releases About Your Indie Game (why the hell they capitalize every single word, I wonder).

1. Pick your battles. is this really press release material? Take your time to decide if you have to send this as a press release or not. On the one hand, since its goal is to get the press write a piece of news or an article about you, a press release should be about something newsworthy. If you keep sending releases about trivial things, people will see you as the boy who cried wolf too many times, and when you send important info it could pass unnoticed. On the other hand, sending a press release is much more work than you realize, as you will see very soon. Save your strength for the real fights. That’s not to say you shouldn’t try to get your voice heard about minor topics, but there are other ways: development diaries, writing on your blog or as a guest writer, social media, post-mortems… You have many tools: use them!

2. Give your press release the time it deserves. Don’t scribble a few lines and hit send. It’s not only important because of the info it contains, but because of what it says about you and your brand. If you are not a great writer, at least try to avoid grammar mistakes – I mean, it’s obvious that I’m not a native English speaker, but I proofread very carefully my texts. Use images and screenshots in a good resolution, but not so heavy that they obliterate anyone’s inbox.

3. Structure the information. Remember that you are most likely sending what you want to become a piece of news, so try to structure just like that. Put the most important info, what the press release is about, in the first paragraph. For instance: you will release an expansion for your game on February 28th. Use the second or third paragraph to offer some context: your game was released on January 10th for PC, it costs €X, it is about this and that. Then you can quote some good reviews or talk about your studio or whatever. Of course, you are not a journalist here: you don’t have to follow strictly the 5W rules or the inverted pyramid, and your goal is to put your product under the best light, but it’s very useful to have in mind how journalists think and structure info. Read more about the inverted pyramid here.

4. Make journalists’ life easier. A journalist receives easily dozens of emails on a daily basis – or even more than a hundred. It is difficult enough to get noticed with so much noise, so at the very least you should make their life as easy as possible. If they have to Google you to find more info, chances are that they just won’t. Include all relevant data about your game (release dates, platforms, prices, etc.) and a link to a press kit with visual assets, more details about your studio… Presskit() by Vlambeer is a good template to follow (although it always looks better if you use your own personal, customized material).

5. Pick up the right time to hit the Send button. Never send a press release on Monday mornings or Fridays. Mondays are for the most important news and those pile of stuff that happened during the weekend. On Fridays, every single writer in the world is looking intently at their watches. They are wrapping up the week, waiting for the bell to ring to go home; if they even notice a press release coming in half an hour before the weekend, they will just ignore it unless it’s GTA VI being announced. Having said that, you should also check the triple-A industry for important releases, announced trailers or online meetings… You may not be a fortune teller capable of guessing the future, but if next Tuesday there will be a huge AAA release, it’s very likely that during the next days no one will talk about anything else. Unless you really don’t have an option, just wait until all the fuss is over.

6. Follow up with your most important targets. After you send a press release, it’s time to follow-up – that is, to send direct emails in order to check if they saw your press release, and maybe to ask politely if they plan to write something about it. Even though there is no rule about how much time you should wait for following up, as a rule of thumb I would wait two or three days. Allow me to dress Captain Obvious’ cape for a moment: press releases will be more efficient with people interested in what they say. Following up with hundreds or thousands of press contacts is just not feasible, but if you know beforehand the most important people you would like to read your stuff, you can focus on them. Research a little bit for relevant media and journalists: websites specialized in your platform of choice, writers who like a particular genre… and send them direct, personal, customized follow-up emails, maybe mentioning a past story or review they wrote that is relevant and that made you thought that they will love your game. That is always more effective than sending a generic email to a hundred people in COO.

7. Don’t take it personally if they don’t answer or publish anything. Again: journalists receive dozens or emails per day. They just can’t cover or answer to everything, even to personal follow-ups. There are magazines whose journalists never answer back, probably as an internal rule to improve efficiency. It’s not personal and you shouldn’t get depressed or grudge them for that: there are thousands and thousands of games out there. Just as a mark of reference, games industry average open rate in Mailchimp is as low as 12.52 % (our average open rate is much, much, much higher than that, mind you – if you want more details, send us an email!). A PR needs to be tireless, working painstakingly and patiently to get your brand and products noticed. It takes talent, hard work and a bit of luck – but you have to be there when the luck comes!（source：gamasutra.com ）