游戏邦在:
杂志专栏:
gamerboom.com订阅到鲜果订阅到抓虾google reader订阅到有道订阅到QQ邮箱订阅到帮看

关于开发者面向媒体推广游戏的PR建议

发布时间:2013-05-14 14:22:45 Tags:,,,,

作者:Shannon Drake

开发者在处理PR时常犯的第一个错便是面向世界上各种水平的游戏编辑发送电子邮件。也许在一开始这看起来是个不错的想法,但是因为编辑一般都很忙,并且这类型宣传不一定属于他们所涉及的范围,所以极有可能被打上垃圾邮件的标志,并被彻底删除。

选择合适的推广对象和找到编写与你们游戏类似内容的编辑并联系对方一样简单,但除此之外你还有其它需要注意的。

PR(from yuandekai)

PR(from yuandekai)

明确自己的发言权

最初的这部分最轻松:你所面对的是哪个平台,你正在创造什么,或者你面向这一平台创造过什么?

举个例子来说,只面向PC创造游戏将排除所有Mac网站以及只针对主机的网站,也就意味着你可以无视许多用户。专注于RPG游戏则意味着你可以删去所有只针对FPS游戏的网站,MMO网站,以及所有专注于非RPG类型游戏的网站。这样你的任务清单便被压缩到最小了。

第二部便是决定你们公司的身份,这能让你们在编写发行游戏时更有发言权并具有自己的风格;推广语调也要根据你所瞄准的不同媒体而做出改变。大公司的宣传通常比较乏味且古板,因为其发行内容和资料都要经过10人以上的批准:他们的审批过程将呈现在一个巨大的图表中,但最终却只能呈现出一些无聊的宣传内容。

而小公司则拥有更多的自由和灵活性,但同时也承受着打败其他作者的压力。暴雪和Capcom理应基于“暴雪和Capcom将在PAX East展会上公开一些我们不知道的事”而获得大量新闻宣传,同时我们也发现一些不知名的小公司正在通过“这是我们自己创造的游戏”去吸引注意力,特别是当他们的媒体交流很无聊或者写得很糟糕时。

举个例子来说,我们作为代理的“发言权”通常都很随意且不正式。我们知道应该包含一些有点关系的视频,或谈论我们对于新一周的期待,而不是发表一些正式的言论。重要的是,这并不是一种欺骗。我们并不是在讨论对与错或者批判双方的休闲言论。这是我们的个性,我们只是在发行以及执行其它任务中将其表现出来。

休闲的表达也能让你在媒体和用户面前显得更加人性化。但是如果你的宣传内容太过休闲或亲密,便也会让对方觉得你不够专业(游戏邦注:这在面向大型销售商进行宣传时是个大忌);同时如果一家不知名的公司呈现出一些无聊且呆板的宣传,那便会遭遇YouTube上那些不想阅读5大段业务成就描述的用户的忽视。实际上,我们在新闻稿的最上方以编号方式罗列出了关键内容,从而帮助那些没有足够时间阅读全部内容的用户快速且清楚地进行理解。

决定传达对象以及谈话对象

在接触媒体前,你必须明确传达对象,这将影响着你最终所面对的群体。

我们必须清楚,媒体每天都会收到数百封电子邮件(游戏邦注:许多是来自开发商或发行商或代理),所以如果你将宣传内容发给错误的对象,你的努力便有可能白费。

举个例子来说吧,简单的新闻稿需要在邮件地址上附加news@或tips@之类的内容,从而让新闻作者在寻找突出内容时能够一眼看到它们。如果你所呈现的是他们不想看到的内容,这便意味着你的游戏将不可能出现在新闻中。

截图,视频和其它媒体资产将基于不同的资产邮件地址,并且由不同的团队进行处理。也就是说,瞄准那些对游戏感兴趣的人发行游戏比起瞄准媒体的收件箱更有可能获得成功,因为基于后者你将需要与其它带有新闻宣传的游戏进行竞争。就像之前所提到的,暴雪和Capcom很容易被写进新闻中,但是你却不能。比起任何进攻,具有个性的宣传总是最有效。

审核和预览架构或代码将传达给不同的编辑(有可能是主编或者分发到相关编辑手上),如果你知道哪些人负责这些内容,你便可以与之进行直接联系。

为了创建你自己的外联列表,你需要检查潜在的网站,并基于你在早前所创造的描述对其进行压缩。最理想的地方便是报头,你可以在此列出所有负责人及其负责的事物或节奏,以及他们的联系信息。有些网站在About页面上刊登出联系信息,而你必须抵制向所有人进行推广的诱惑。对于那些已经刊登过你之前游戏的网站来说,你可以轻松地判断该瞄准哪些负责人,但是因为你现在拿着的是新游戏,所以你需要寻找负责过类似游戏的人。

有时候,评论者/编辑已经拿到了你的游戏,因为这是他们被分配到的任务。也有时候,这刚好就是他们所感兴趣的领域,他们渴望接触到一些新内容。

让我列举一个我们的工作例子。一位客户曾让我们去寻找一个对他们即将发行的实时策略游戏续集感兴趣并愿意与之交谈的销售商。

我所采取的第一个行动便是前往主要的新闻网站并明确哪个销售商触及了他们的最初安装。在那里,我发现一些编辑真的对他们最初的安装非常感兴趣,所以我们便将潜在对象列表删减到只剩2个真正具有潜力的联系对象。

接下来我便瞄准了那些接触过第一款游戏的人。如果他们之前为游戏刊登了许多新闻稿,并认为它具有成功的潜力,那么他们便会想办法接近之后的续集。

然后我需要接近的便是刊登过新闻稿或以任何途径接触过第一次安装的编辑和网站。也许他们并不是这一系列游戏的忠实粉丝,但是他们却对游戏非常熟悉并且知道它的存在。

最后,还有其他人会接触到这一特殊平台。这里也存在一些报道机遇,因为编辑们并不熟悉游戏或类型,所以他们会要求更深入的介绍。这并不是指放弃对他们的追赶,而是我们发现来自一个销售商或者一些销售商的报道将围绕着游戏创造一种势头,即帮助它获得更多的新闻报道。

如果你的时间有限,那么你最好专注于那些熟悉游戏类型并能够最大限度带给你帮助的人,然后再将其细分为谁接触过平台而谁又对游戏感兴趣。确保将正确的事物(不管是资产还是新闻稿)传达给正确的人能够提高你的成功几率。

对于那些没有现有用户或者很容易被人比较的游戏,事情就变得较为棘手了,并且要求你投入更多努力。在这种情况下,你必须从平台关卡开始做起,然后在真正索求报道前向那些接触过自己平台的媒体介绍自己和项目。

对此,我们想要通过一个段落长度的描述去总结游戏内容。考虑将文本内容呈现在游戏盒子背部。同时我们也需要明确地说明游戏真的存在着,例如提供游戏玩法的录像或项目的其它文件进行证实。

我们必须注意,难以进行描述的游戏将在记者招待会上面临更多刁难。创造性是所有人都想要看到的元素,但是如果它并不适合高端理念,即“它就像是游戏与功能的集合”,那么我们便需要付出更多时间并进行更繁琐的解释,而如果人们发现这与自己的理念矩阵不相符,他们便会抵触它。

对于那些很难进行解释的游戏,游戏演示或视频便很重要。不管你拥有怎样的口才或文笔去描述理念,1分钟的游戏视频或较短的游戏演示都比你的电子邮件来得有效。考虑通过像Twitch.tv这样的串流服务或Skype这样的桌面共享程序去提供游戏导览。这不仅有利于吸引媒体的注意,同时也有可能将好奇的旁观者也变成你的用户。

独立游戏vs.AAA级游戏的残酷真理

目标过程的一部分便是瞄准用户,而不只是编辑。

独立开发者们会幻想着如果游戏能够出现在IGN或GameSpot上,他们便有可能取得巨大的成功,但是事实是,对于没有名气的独立开发者或休闲游戏而言,它们很难接近这些大型网站,因为这些网站也拥有自己的用户,并且他们认为用户也拥有自己的品味。

不过我们也拥有许多游戏在知名网站上获得很大曝光率的例子,但是因为这并不是这些网站的用户所喜欢的游戏,所以最终只获得了极少数的点击以及极低的销量。相比之下,我们可以看到YouTube上数千名订阅者为独立游戏带来了巨大的销量,因为他们的用户都很喜欢具有利基性的独立游戏。

即使你能够攻克收件箱的阻碍并让编辑真正喜欢上你的独立游戏,但是他们网站的用户却不一定会吃你这套。一些主流网站上的玩家都倾向于主流游戏。如果你创造的是带有怀旧感图像的FPS会是怎样的情况?他们可能会将其与《使命的召唤》进行比较,然后翻翻白眼继续玩自己手上的游戏。如果你创造的是带有较小预算且带有20小时游戏玩法和未进行完善的RPG又会是怎样的情况?他们会判断它不是《质量效应4》而对其置之不理。还有一些像Facebook游戏和手机游戏等拥有一些特殊的玩家群体,那么网站们便有可能对其置之不理,而它们的用户也会如此。如果你编写的是一款浏览器游戏(即使是非常优秀的浏览器游戏)或者免费游戏,你便会将大量的用户阻挡在门外,即使游戏本身真的很出色。

有趣的是,我们的很多客户都要求我们专注于呈现一些更广泛的内容,而不只是致力于面向更大型网站的“本垒打”风格游戏。尽管出现在知名网站的首页将吸引许多高管和投资者的注意,但是比起声誉,我们所面对的开发者们更加关注于结果,他们希望看到更多人对自己的游戏感兴趣而不是向那些对游戏漠不关心的人进行宣传,这也意味着他们更希望与YouTube以及其它100个较小的网站进行合作而不是10个大型网站。我们与一些具有Gmail地址,YouTube渠道以及Twitter帐号的人进行合作,但是即使他们能够常常带来数千美元的销量以及刊登在大型网站上的宣传文章,但最终却只留下少数玩家的点击。

PR是关于关系

PR的核心便是创建关系。当你雇佣了我们或其它优秀的PR代理,你并不是拥有人人都能编写电子游戏并能够轻松发出新闻稿的数据库。你所支付的是我们关于Destructoid喜欢这样,GameSpot更愿意选择这种方法,Polygon的用户的喜好以及GamesRadar希望事物如此进行分解等知识。

当大量CCed电子邮件将获得大量的报道时,游戏新闻稿也将发生改变。有些网站只对视频内容感兴趣;游戏网站则会在同样类型的地方刊登相关截图,但却不对此进行推广;有些特殊的网站只会覆盖特殊类型的游戏;有些网站并不在乎你发送了多少新闻稿,他们只会写下自己想写的内容。

当你开始发送电子邮件并在一些大会或展会上与别人进行交谈时,你将开始积累有关谁喜欢什么,往哪里发送特殊内容等知识。如果编辑在名片上附有AIM地址或Skype信息,你便能够快速将其添加到通讯录上。但是切忌滥用这些信息,只有在必要时才能使用这些信息与之交谈。

对于PR,Twitter便是一种很棒的工具,不管是对我们这样的专业人士而言还是那些尝试着自己执行PR工作的人。它能够帮助我们即时察觉到人们正在写些什么,哪些议题是大家的关注焦点,编辑们希望寻找怎样的新游戏。他们当然不会向产业中的联系人发送大量电子邮件去请求新游戏(如果他们这么做的话我们不就轻松多了),但是他们会询问Twitter上的用户最近都在玩什么游戏。

Twitter带给PR的帮助在于,它能让我们显得更加人性化,更加有趣,且“比较不那么让人厌烦,即只会在对方需要时才进行联系。”我的Twitter信息页面会出现一些有关棒球和游戏的新闻,因为这是我真正感兴趣的内容。尽管比起一些信息页面只会出现客户新闻的人来说,我这样显得不够专业,但却会更加人性化,并且人们也更加乐意与拥有相同兴趣的人交谈。

总之,我们的工作便是关于了解玩家以及他们想要的内容,创建对彼此都有利的关系并避免让对方感到厌烦。不管你的游戏多么优秀,你都需要恪守承诺,并花大量时间去做好分内工作(不管是与媒体进行互动还是创造他们喜欢的游戏),如此才能提高你们公司的信誉,确保你所发出的所有推广请求都能得到回应,或者吸引媒体为你写新闻稿。这可能需要花费数个月或者数年的时间。并且有可能永远都不可能发生这等好事。

对于媒体报道并不存在万无一失的做法,特别是对于发行自己第一款游戏且无任何知名度的开发者而言。你必须清楚自己有可能要长期致力于此,并接受可能多次遭遇失败的现实。然后继续创造优秀的游戏,继续创建良好的关系,不要中途放弃,如此你便有可能迎来最后的成功。

诀窍:

明确自己的发言权(作为一家公司)

找到拥有与你们游戏类似游戏的网站

找到拥有你们游戏目标用户的网站

进行探索并面向那些与你们游戏/故事相关的编辑和经销商进行宣传

比起专注于一些名气较大但却对游戏不感兴趣的网站,与那些对游戏感兴趣的人合作将更有可能取得成功

PR是关于创建关系并了解编辑的喜好及其正致力于哪些工作

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

PR Pro Tips: Targeting And Pitching Your Game To Media

by Shannon Drake

One of the first mistakes developers make when handling their own PR is emailing everyone under the sun who writes about games in any capacity. While initially that may seem like a good idea—I see you writing comments like “Isn’t that what you guys do?!”—writers are busy, and a generic pitch that isn’t in line with what they cover is a surefire way to get Marked As Spam and disappear from their inbox forever.

Proper pitch targeting is as simple as finding people who write about games like yours and contacting them, but there’s a lot more to it than that.

Determine Who You Are

The initial part of this is easy: What platform do you work on and what are you making, or what have you made for said platform?

For example, pushing a PC-exclusive title can eliminate all the Mac sites and all the sites that are console-exclusive, meaning that’s thousands of people you don’t have to talk to. Pushing, say, an RPG means you can cut out all the FPS-only sites, the MMO sites, and all the sites with a focus on non-RPG genres. Your to-do list is already significantly smaller.

The second step is determining your identity as a company, which gives you a company voice and style in writing your releases; the tone of your pitches may also need to vary based on the press you’re targeting. Big companies tend to sound very boring and staid because their releases and materials go through 10+ people for approvals–I’m not exaggerating: I still have a chart of the approval process at one of the bigger companies I worked for and, yes, it needed a chart–and come out very bland and corporate.

Smaller companies have a little bit more freedom and flexibility with their voice, but also have the burden of having to win writers over. While Blizzard and Capcom may merit news posts about “Blizzard and Capcom are going to announce something that we don’t know what it is at PAX East!” we find smaller, lesser-known companies struggle to get attention with “Here’s our complete game that we made ourselves,” particularly if their press communications are boring or poorly written.

For example, our “voice” as an agency is very casual and informal. I’ve been known to include vaguely relevant Monty Python videos or talk about how grateful we all are for the upcoming weekend rather than stick to a deeply formal voice. Importantly, this isn’t a put-on. We don’t workshop it or critique each other’s causal posts for maximum casual. That’s our personalities and we express ourselves that way in our releases and pretty much everything we do.

Using a casual voice is often quite useful in humanizing you and your company to the media and your audience. However, if your pitch is too casual and chummy, you might come across as unprofessional – generally a no-no when pitching  big outlets – while a boring or stiff announcement from an unknown company might alienate a YouTube personality who isn’t quite prepared to read five paragraphs about your business’ achievements. In fact, we specifically include bullets at the top of our press releases with the quick and dirty details expressly for people that don’t have time to read a wall of words.

Determine What You’re Sending And Who To Talk To

Before contacting press, determine what you’re sending, as that will influence who you’ll reach out to.

It’s important to remember that media get hundreds of emails a day – many from developers or publishers or agencies looking for coverage – so if you’re sending pitches to the wrong people, your efforts are likely going to waste.

A simple press release, for example, may need to go to a news@ or tips@-type email address, where the site’s multiple news writers rummage through it, looking for the news gems of the day. Emailing a publication’s features editor with a news release they don’t want is a good way to annoy him or her, meaning you don’t get your news posted and you may not be able get a feature posted when you come calling down the road.

Screenshots, videos and other media assets may go to a distinct and separate asset-drop email address rather than the news staff or news@ address, as different teams handle those for some sites. With that said, a release targeted to someone who is interested in the game is much more likely to be successful than one filling up a news@ inbox, since you’ll be competing with literally everyone with news going out that day. As mentioned earlier, while Blizzard and Capcom may merit instant pickup, on a busy news day, you may not. A personalized pitch is much more effective than any blast will ever be.

Sending review and preview builds or code may go to an entirely different editor or may go to the editor in chief or equivalent for handing out to the writing staff, though if you know a writer fancies your sort of game, it can’t hurt to contact them directly.

To begin building your outreach list, start checking potential sites and narrow it down based on that self-profile you created earlier. The ideal find is a masthead, listing everyone on staff with their titles or beats as well as their contact information. Some sites may have their contact information on an About page, but resist the temptation to blast everyone. For sites that covered your previous titles, it’s fairly easy to figure out who to focus on, but for new games, find who has been covering similar games and start with them.

Sometimes, reviewers/writers with an unofficial beat have them because that’s what they get assigned. Sometimes, it’s the area they are deeply passionate about and they’ll be interested in hearing about new ones.

Let me give an example from our work. A client asks us to find an outlet interested in an interview with them for an upcoming real-time strategy game sequel.

The first thing I did was go to the major news sites and find out who had covered the first installment. Of those, I found a couple writers who really enjoyed the first installment, so I’ve already cut down my list of potentials to two really good potential contacts.

The next thing I did was round up those who’d covered the first game if not passionately, then extensively. If they posted a lot of the press releases, nominated it for awards, and otherwise knew the game existed, they went in the next “tier” to approach.

The third level of people to approach would be writers and sites that posted a couple of releases or otherwise covered the first installment in some way. Maybe they weren’t huge fans of the series, but they’d be basically familiar with it and know it existed.

Finally, there’s everyone else that covers that particular platform. While there’s some opportunity here for coverage, because of the writers’ unfamiliarity with this game or genre, they would require a deeper introduction. That’s not to say hold off on pursuing them, but we’ve found coverage from one outlet or a handful of outlets builds a sense of momentum around a game, making it easier to get increasing coverage on a title as that sense of legitimacy builds.

As your time is short, it makes sense to focus on the people who are familiar with your style of game and can help you the most, then branch out into other people who cover the platform and might be interested. Making sure to send the right things–from assets to press releases–to the right people also increases your chance of success.

For games without an existing audience or an easy comparison, things are a little more tricky and require a bit more work. In that instance, it’s worth starting from the platform level and writing to press that cover your platform with an introduction of yourself and your project well before you actually want coverage.

For that, we like to put together a summary of the game, about a paragraph-long description of what it is. Think of the text that would go on the back of a game box. It’s also tremendously helpful to include evidence your game actually exists, like video footage of gameplay or other extensive documentation that your project is more than a great idea.

Be warned that a game that’s hard to describe is going to face a much tougher press reception than one with easily-mapped precursors. Innovation is one of those things everyone says they wants, but if it doesn’t fit the high-concept “It’s like [title] but with [feature]“, much more time and explanation is required and some people just shut down if it doesn’t fit in their pre-existing idea matrix.

For games that are that hard to explain, a gameplay demo or video is critical. No matter the eloquence of your ideas or rhapsodizing about your concept, a 1 minute gameplay video or short slice-of-gameplay demo can save you days and days of back and forth emails. Consider offering guided tours of the game via either streaming services like Twitch.tv or desktop sharing programs like Skype. These will benefit the press and may even draw curious onlookers that can become customers.

The Brutal Truth About Indie vs. AAA

Part of the targeting process is also audience targeting, not just editor targeting.

Indie developers can get a little starry-eyed imagining that big feature hitting on IGN or GameSpot… something happens here… instant success assured, but the truth of the matter is an unknown indie dev or a more-casual game is going to be hard to place on the bigger sites because they have their own audiences to consider and their audiences have their own tastes.

We have many examples of games where we’ve gotten great coverage at big-name sites, but because it’s not the kind of game their audience will care about, it results in just a few clicks to the game and no sales. By contrast, we’ve seen YouTubers with a few thousand subscribers drive hundreds and even thousands of sales because an obscure, niche, indie game is exactly the reason a lot of their audience tunes in.

Even if you can clear the inbox blockade and make an editor fall in love with your indie title, the audience for their site just may not care. A very mainstream site is going to have gamers that lean towards the mainstream. Making a quirky FPS with retro graphics? They may just compare it to Call of Duty, roll their eyes and move on. Making a small, budget RPG with 20 hours of gameplay and some rough edges? They’ll see it’s not Mass Effect 4 and move on. Then there are games like Facebook games and mobile games where the audience isn’t the usual gamer crowd, so sites are indifferent and their audiences doubly so. Writing about a browser game — even a really good browser game — or a free-to-play game instantly turns off a significant chunk of their audience, even if the game itself is excellent.

Interestingly, a lot of our clients have specifically asked us to focus on sending things as widely as possible rather than working on a “home run”-style exclusive with a bigger site. While a front-page post on a top-tier site may impress executives and investors, the developers we work with that focus more on results than prestige are finding success by working with everyone interested in their game rather than lobbying indifferent but larger sites, even that means working with YouTubers and streamers and 100 smaller sites rather than 10 big ones. We work with several people that have a Gmail address, a YouTube channel, and maybe a Twitter account, but they have, time and again, driven thousands of dollars in sales while a well-placed article on a major site resulted in only a handful of clicks.

PR Is About Relationships

At its core, PR is about building relationships. When you hire us, or any good PR agency, you’re not hiring a massive database of everyone who writes about video games where we mindlessly send out press releases. What you’re paying for is our knowledge that Destructoid likes this and GameSpot prefers things this way and the news people at Polygon like things done this way while GamesRadar wants things broken down like this.

The gaming press has changed from the days when a massive CCed generic email would get plenty of coverage. Some sites are only interested in video content; some sites will post screenshots in a generic gallery but won’t promote them at all; some specialty sites only cover particular genres or titles; and some sites don’t care how many press releases you send them, they write about what they want when they want.

As you begin sending out emails and talking to people at conventions and shows, you’ll begin accumulating this body of knowledge about who likes what and where to send particular things. If a writer has their AIM address or Skype info in their signature, feel free to add them for quick questions or requests. Don’t abuse it, but use it if you occasionally need to talk to them outside of crowded inboxes.

Twitter is a godsend for PR, both professionals like us and anyone trying to do it themselves. It provides real-time insight into what people are writing about, what issues are hot, and even which writers are looking for new games to play. They will not send out a mass email to their industry contacts asking for a new game to play–which would make all of our lives easier–but they will ask the Twitter masses what they should play this weekend.

Where Twitter helps PR people–be they professional or the guy who drew the short straw at the studio–is that it makes us more human and more interesting and less “that annoying relative that only calls when they want something.” Part of the reason my Twitter feed is a barrage of baseball news and gaming stuff (even, gasp horror, non-client games) is because that’s what I’m genuinely interested in. While it’s less professional-looking than a feed that focuses entirely on client news, it’s considerably more human, and people want to talk to people that share their interests and appear human.

Overall, our job (or yours, if you’re undertaking your own PR) is all about knowing people and what they want, building a relationship that’s mutually beneficial and minimally annoying. No matter how great your game is, remember that it will take a lot of time and a commitment to doing things right – from interacting with press to developing games they love – to raise your company’s profile to the point where every pitch you send out will earn a response, or for media to come to you for coverage. It may take months or years. It may never happen. There are guys we work with and like (and like us!) that we talk to only at shows because otherwise they are drowning in a sea of email.

There’s no sure-fire way to secure media coverage, and it’s exceedingly rare for an unknown developer to rise to fame with their first game. Realize that you’re in it for the long haul and accept that it may be difficult at times. Keep making good games, keep building relationships and don’t burn bridges, and soon enough success will come.

TL;DR Tips

Find your voice as a company

Find sites that cover your kind of game

Find sites with the right audience for your kind of game

Do your research and pitch only those writers and outlets relevant to your story/game

Working with anyone interested in your game may be more successful than focusing on a high-prestige but indifferent site

PR is about building relationships and developing a body of knowledge for what writers like and what they’re working on(source:gamasutra)


上一篇:

下一篇: