追踪工具分析适合通过传统媒体进行宣传的游戏类型

原作者：Chartboost 译者;Vivian Xue

如今大部分开发商对传统媒体的重视程度都下降了。在资源有限的条件下，通过新型的替代媒体如小众社区、YouTube评测、谷歌或苹果应用商店的推荐来宣传游戏似乎能更有效地利用时间（和资源）。

然而，一些手游仍然可以从传统媒体中获取超高回报。那么问题来了：什么情况下适合利用媒体报道来宣传游戏呢？ 尽管这个问题没有确定的答案，但你也许能够通过观察比对近来的成功案例获得一些启示。

Thomas Bidaux的研究公司Ico Partners正在研发一项游戏行业PR追踪工具。我们和他一起确定了六种适合新闻报道的游戏类型。

1.有粉丝基础的游戏

《辐射：避难所》是2015年广受媒体宣传的热门手游，该游戏充分利用了它与一款热门PC/主机游戏的联系。（指Interplay公司1997年发行的角色扮演游戏《辐射》，游戏邦注）

游戏在公布发行后的一天内，就破纪录地获得了将近600家游戏媒体的报道——这是手游历史上实现的最大幅度的飙升。开发商Bethesda故意挑选了一个没什么大新闻的日子公布，因为他知道这一天传统媒体都在寻找新闻材料。

2.流行文化或名人品牌游戏

大部分开发商很难有机会获得一个有着18年历史的游戏IP，但他们可以利用名人和品牌效应达到类似的效果，比如Glu Mobile的明星养成游戏《金·卡戴珊：好莱坞》（Kim Kardashian: Hollywood）。许多的开发者都选择借助明星品牌的力量：《黛米·洛瓦托：成名之路》（Demi Lovato: Path to Fame），迪士尼手游《星光继承者》（游戏邦注Descendants），甚至还有《米兰达vs 喷子》（Miranda Sings vs Haters）。

和上一个类型一样，知名品牌本身就足以激起许多记者的兴趣。但注意，许多品牌在社交媒体上要比在新闻报道上更具影响力，从《神偷奶爸》（Despicable Me）和《辐射：避难所》对外公布撞期中可见一斑。“《辐射：避难所》有600篇报道，而《小黄人大眼萌》（Minions）只有不到100篇的报道。二者相比简直天差地别。”Bidaux说。

Kim Kardashian Hollywood(from pocketgamer.biz)

3.商业化的游戏

如果你用谷歌搜索比如 “《部落冲突》收入数十亿”，你会发现成百上千关于游戏收入的著名新闻——其中根本没怎么提到游戏本身。2015年King被动视暴雪收购，引发了无数的争论报道称手机游戏不可能值这个价格。.

如果游戏的收入平平无奇，那就在下载量上做文章，下载量超过 1万、1000万也是能吸引一定关注的新闻。“从很多方面来说，比起你的游戏，人们更关注游戏背后的商业故事。一旦你取得了一些成功，(记者)会更多地谈论你而非游戏的内容，”Bidaux说。

4.具有独特视觉效果的游戏

“精致的美存在于奇特的比例中，”埃德加·艾伦·坡在《丽姬娅》一书中写道。游戏新闻记者们似乎生来就能理解这一点，大量报道像《纪念碑谷》这样美丽而奇特的游戏。

“我希望我们在PR上付出的努力能够成为这个游戏永恒的财富，而不是在几周内就结束了，”Luke Whittaker在谈到游戏《爷爷的城市》（Lumino City）时说道，这款游戏中的物件由纯手工搭建而成，营造了一种独特的视觉效果。

对于独立开发人员来说，寻找一个视觉亮点是吸引媒体关注最可行的方法之一。一些游戏截图或短视频可能足以引起作者的兴趣。“对于传统游戏媒体来说，（视觉效果）是他们所能理解的，”Bidaux总结道。

5.行业声誉良好的开发者的游戏

一些在行业内存在感极强的开发者也许可以利用他们在同行中的受欢迎程度来获得更广泛的受众。

Bidaux指出西雅图工作室Spry Fox就是一个很好的例子。工作室创始人David Edery和Daniel Cook在创办公司之前就在圈内很有名气，于是他们利用自己的关系网宣传游戏，包括《字母小熊》（Alpha Bear）。

6.奇葩的游戏

最后，手游界存在一种成功的PR案例，用两个字来形容就是：奇葩。像《山羊模拟器》（Goat Simulator）、《猫咪后院》（Neko Atsume）和《飞扬的小鸟》（Flappy Bird）这样的游戏得到了媒体不断的报道，原因嘛你懂的。

《飞扬的小鸟》是这种类型游戏的典型。游戏本身简单到几乎侮辱智商。开发者Nguyễn Hà Đông居住在遥远的越南河内。正如游戏突然爆红一般，不久后Đông突然把它下架了。总之，《飞扬的小鸟》曾一度让人们癫狂。

我们也许再也无法见到像《飞扬的小鸟》一样“奇葩”的游戏，但是独立开发者总能不断创造出这种魔性的东西。比如《猫咪后院》就是一款关于吸引流浪猫的不可思议的游戏。在《山羊模拟器》中，你到处瞎撞东西就行了。玩家们也很吃这一套：《山羊模拟器》手游发行成绩超越了《愤怒的小鸟史黛拉》和《劳拉Go》（Lara Croft Go）。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

Traditional media coverage has declined in importance for most mobile developers. If faced with limited resources, working on newer alternatives like niche communities, YouTube reviews, and Google or Apple App Store features can seem like better uses of time (and resources).

However, some mobile games can still reap strong returns from the traditional press. The question is: when is it a good idea to bet on getting media coverage? While there’s no sure answer, pattern-matching against recent successes can offer a good indication.

We worked out a short list of press-friendly game types with Thomas Bidaux, whose research company Ico Partners is developing a tool to track PR across the world of games. Below are the six categories we identified.

1.Games with a build-in gaming audience

The biggest press hit for mobile games this year was Fallout Shelter, a game that fully exploited its relation to a popular PC/console game.

Fallout Shelter broke records with almost 600 game press articles in a single day on its launch announcement—the largest spike ever achieved by a mobile game. Part of developer Bethesda’s strategy involved positioning the announcement on a slow news day, knowing that the traditional games press would be looking for material.

2. Games with pop culture or celebrity branding

Most developers don’t have a game franchise with 18 years of history to exploit. But they can simulate franchise power with celebrity or brand tie-ins, as Glu Mobile did with Kim Kardashian: Hollywood. Many developers are choosing this route, with games like Demi Lovato: Path to Fame, Disney’s Descendants and even Miranda Sings vs Haters taking advantage of star brand power.

As with the previous category, the name branding alone is enough to pique the interest of many journalists. But be aware that many branding exercises are more powerful on social media than with the press, as demonstrated when Despicable Me was announced on the same day as Fallout Shelter. “Fallout was on one side and Minions on the other. Minions had less than 100 articles, compared to the 600 for Fallout Shelter,” says Bidaux.

3. Games with a business tie-in

Type in a simple Google search like “Clash of Clans earns billions” and you’ll find hundreds of articles by big-name outlets reporting on the game’s revenues—without mentioning much about the game at all. Activision Blizzard’s acquisition of King this year prompted endless articles arguing that mobile games couldn’t possibly be worth the price.

For smaller fish, it’s a great press hook to say that your quirky game has passed some threshold of downloads, whether that’s 10,000 or 10 million. “In many ways, it’s like mobile is a business story more than looking at the game. Once you have some success, [journalists] talk more about you than what the game is about,” says Bidaux.

4. Games with unique visuals

“There is no exquisite beauty…without some strangeness in the proportion,” wrote Edgar Allen Poe in Ligeia. This is a truth that game journalists have an instinctual understanding of, producing hundreds of articles about beautiful-but-strange games like Monument Valley.

“I’m hoping that the PR push we’ve done helps give the title a legacy, rather than it all being over within weeks,” says Luke Whittaker of his recent launch Lumino City, which uses video of intricately crafted toys for its unique visual edge.

For indie developers, finding a visual hook is one of the most viable routes to press love. A few screenshots or short video may be sufficient to pique a writer’s interest. “For the traditional game media, [visuals are] something they understand,” summarizes Bidaux.

5. Games with developer community cred

Those developers who cultivate a strong industry presence may be able to use popularity among their peers to reach a wider audience.

Bidaux points out Seattle-based studio Spry Fox as a good example of this. Founders David Edery and Daniel Cook were well known in the development community before starting their company, and have used their connections to spread the word about their games, including the recently-launched Alpha Bear.

6. Games that are weird

Finally, there is a type of mobile game PR success that can be summarized in one word: weird. Games like Goat Simulator, Neko Atsume and, yes, Flappy Bird generate torrents of press because, well, the story pretty much writes itself.

Flappy Bird is the archetypal example of this category. The game itself is almost insultingly simple. Its developer, Nguyễn Hà Đông, lives in distant Hanoi, Vietnam. The game was a sudden viral hit—then just as suddenly killed by Đông. All in all, Flappy Bird generated a perfect storm of head-scratching facts.

We may never see a game as “weird” as Flappy Bird again, but indies still find a bit of its magic on a regular basis. Neko Atsume, for example, is a somewhat inscrutable game about attracting stray cats. And in Goat Simulator, you just butt things. This oddness goes a long way: Goat Simulator out-competed major company franchises like Angry Birds Stella and Lara Croft for its mobile launch.（source：Chartboost  ）