The Golden Rule of Game Promotion: No One Cares About Your Game
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- čas přidán 30. 04. 2023
- In this GDC 2023, talk, the "no one cares about your game" mindset gets explained and shows how this simple marketing philosophy can help teams laser focus their social media posts, keep their trailers to-the-point, write better emails, and shape a wider PR campaign mindset.
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Summary:
The Avengers Problem (99% of games are not AAA)
1. Get to the point quick;
2. Works for the newcomers; (keep them feel included)
3. Think of the environment; (it's not as perfect as you might hope)
4. Know your next step; (funnel, call to action)
5. Just show your game
Bonus rule: know your money shot
Customize, PR is as personal and unique as a game
I've released 4 trailers of the same project back-to-back within a few days. 95% of viewers come from YT recommendations, therefore most viewers were new to the project regardless of which trailer they have found first.
I used to see marketing as something boring. But as I learn more about it, I start to treat it like a creative process. It suddenly seems way better.
Great talk. I am kinda sad to hear how important TikTok is for marketing, apparently. It does not seem like you can avoid platforms you don't like, looking through a marketing lens - you only diminish your already meagre reach more.
Thats true, u just gotta follow the wave, youtube isn't really the top dog anymore. All of the addicted people are on tiktok, and when they are your target audience you just have to be active on there.
If you want to sell something, complaining about the advertising medium is like being annoyed you have to bail out a sinking boat.
How can you hope to stay above water if you're going to be picky about what it takes to actually float? It's just dooming yourself to failure.
@@TherronKeen that's actually a terrible analogy lol
@@articex That's actually a terrible critique lol
@@TherronKeen it’s really not. Would you like me to hold your hand and write you a better one?
Fantastic vid! Everything is clearly communicated, and the talk itself is still very encouraging and not overly negative :3 keeps the discussion realistic and practical
Yes yes but what about random trader that doesn’t exist number 28?
Most indie videos / trailers are a disaster. Too much text and too little in-game footage. People are only going to give your video one chance to impress them on that Steam page before they close the tab or move onto the next thing in the queue. If you're fading in and out of random snippets of gameplay that don't show people what your game is actually like they're just going to switch off.
But *so many* indie games do this. So I hope they all watch this video.
He talks about this.
He has a very clear, concise and effective delivery style. I always enjoy and learn from his talks.
Thank you for the great advice! Moving videos from the beginning to the end of the roll on Steam store pages is one development, which shows how customer behavior has changed the presentation format. With the popularity of short and to the point video clips, epic cinematic trailers are already obsolete as marketing tools. People just do not have the time or attention to spare for something they are not already invested in.
@@Hahaha12342 To be clear, people have the attention spam just fine to watch _40 minutes_ of a video - _as long as it's something they're invested in._ If they don't care about your game - and they _don't,_ as this talk explains - then anything beyond maybe 5 seconds is time they could be better spending elsewhere.
You're maybe imagining some super cool trailer for your super cool game, and are disappointed that people won't pay attention, but there are plenty of cool games out there and - to reiterate once again - people _don't care._
18:00 "call to actions are mega cringe" - I really did not get this one. Why? Isn't having a CTA the whole point of a post like that?
18:42 this one was great! "vampire survivors - millions sold, but everyday there are still people discovering it" - I am one who doesn't like repetition, but because I am always inside my own gamedev bubble. From this point of view, it makes so much sense to post every single day then!
Not an expert, but I think that a super obvious CTA makes the post feel disingenuous, leaving the audience jaded as "ugh, its just an ad". Of course that in your trailer you want a CTA, but on Tik Tok...
Most marketers use way too many CTAs. If you do a post a day and everyone of them is just like "Hey, buy our game." "Oh hey random person, that never heard about us. Buy our game."
So you do CTAs maybe once a week or twice, but not in every single post. You can do that verbally by the way, like a CZcamsr always says "Follow me and leave a like". But it should be in a creative way and not too often.
@@cenowador thanks, makes sense.
Wow this is really a balancing act! You have to explain what your game is otherwise people don't know what it's about or what it's called, give them a way to find out more information if they're interested but don't put the link in their face because that comes off as too pushy. It makes total sense, it's just crazy how subtle some of this advice is!
I believe that one aspect of indie games that allows them to punch way above their weight is honest enthusiasm. You want your posts to celebrate the process of creation and the people behind it, just as much as the game itself. Your material should be a celebration of what excites you about the game. If your post successfully engages the user, they will be motivated to explore the links in the description. I see this as a direct critique against marketing strategies like Raid Shadow Legends, which can afford to drive click-through rates by overwhelming the consumer. Indie developers cannot compete in this space or attempt to replicate it, as it would be akin to the example of trying to out-shout a loud concert.
This is great info to come back to!
Thanks for the insights and advice! :D!
I don't know which was more entertaining. The talk or the amount of people pretending to be experts in the comments 😂
Excellent. I will be coming back to this for sure.
I learn about a lot of new games from my favorite steam curators. I'm sure I'm in the minority but if you have a niche for your game, consider reaching out to the curators 😊
Excellent thank you 🙏
Great presentation. :)
Great to get assurances that I cannot spam my social posts. I don't post a lot because I want my next social media content post to be about progress. I suddenly feel extremely stupid for ignoring new flavors of existing content.
Well, just like with anything, there's a balance. I don't work in video games, but I do work in marketing and promotion on the post-production side. We're constantly aware that we should light up people's feeds during upcoming events, but importantly it needs to be without coming across as being a bit *too* spammy.
I wonder, what's harder to promote; your homemade video game, or music album?
Why do you want to hurt me like this
Thank you, friend. Really, thank you. I see your message. We all see. Smiles shouldn't be sad. You cool. Smile :)
I just wish new developers know that you can do everything that is sad here by the book and still fail for reasons that are completely out of your control; namely, your budget for marketing and your location in the world (whcih controls your access to budget in the first place, as well as participating on industry events that grease the wheels of competent marketing in the first place); most of those lesson would not apply for those in the global south.
wow just wow
bro got drip
nice talk
iPad is not a small screen, try the vertical mode on normal phone like I watch 90% of all video
WHY DOES THE SOUND NEVER WORK!? 😅
It's like a meme how bad the GDC is at making sound systems work for the PowerPoint and trailers and stuff at this point.
Great but did bro just leak how much money some of his company's games made?? Vampire survivors made 14M??
Pretty much all the things mentioned in this video are things I consider *problems* with the modern games industry and that turn me off of new games.
People don't care about games that don't fullfill their needs and desires. The REAL problem is, most indie gamedevs don't know much about human behavior to make intentional design decisions and would rather make what suits them... Problem with this is devs will design based on how much work they want to put in, not how much is necessary to be effective in the market.
Vampire survivors was not a good example of a marketing gimmick but was an effective game design. It seemed to be a word-of-mouth kind of phenomenon based on it's dopaminergic reward system. It's a good example of exploiting human behavior, especially those with ADHD and OCD; very common in the gaming space.
Most indie devs and modern game devs don't understand the point of a gameplay loop
I didn't even know they ever made an Avengers game...
I like the slide that says "Rule 1: Get to the point quick" - presented only after 6:30 minutes... Kinda puts the whole point of this talk in perspective..
There's a difference between a Talk and a commercial for your product. People went to the talk for a reason and probably knew it beforehand. It's okay to give people context when they're already interested. For your product you need to assume, someone sees it for the first time and you want them to get interested in your product.
Uhm... I feel like a whole part was just glossed over, that being - "knowing your audience". Which also explains why "no one cares" about those games - well, yeah, if they're games that are hard to "care" about, no one will.
If you mainly make (and market) giggle and gimmick games for a wide audience - sure, TikTok this and TikTok that. You throw a wide net onto people with short attention spans, and hope to go trending to scoop out your daily bucket out of the ocean. They'll go spend those couple bucks, lulz at it for an hour, and move on. No genuine feelings, no attachment, boxes ticked, transaction completed. That's a valid strategy to earn money; but is it, like, the only one, really?
There are also older gamers who despise the fake intrigue, fake sincerity, and spamminess of shorts and tiktoks. You can see the pushback in a lot of places - even on CZcams itself. There are people who dwell in specific subreddits and Discord servers and are subscribed to specific channels because they're interested in specific topics, and have been for years. These are people who will "care" about a well-crafted product, and may even want to participate in its creation; the more niche, the indier you go, the narrower - but the more dedicated - an audience you'll get. And yeah, shouty and frequent self-promotion will get you kicked out instead.
Some games are designed to be popcorn, some are designed to be multi-volume novels. Both are fine, but they are different beasts and need different treatment. Sell popcorn in amusement parks, sell novels at book clubs. Simple as that.
I was coming here to say this but you were 39 minutes faster to the punch. Thanks for not making me write it all out
I am glad you wrote that, really needed to read this .
You can advertise many different genre of games on tiktok. I don’t really understand where ‘popcorn games for TikTok’ comes from. You should be advertising everywhere, because there is not one type of human being on tiktok. Not everyone on tiktok just wants popcorn games.
If you can’t make your game appealing in a short amount of time for an ad: whether it’s a battle Royale, visual novel, game about clinical depression, nostalgic pixel game, or experiment art game: that is not a problem with tik tok that is a problem with your marketing.
"They were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think whether they should."
You can find ways to twist reality to advertise anything anywhere. But if your product has niche appeal, inviting wider audiences from outside of it can fracture your core community. Plenty of fandoms dislike each other's cultures and all the baggage that comes with those - be it anime waifus or k-pop or emoji 😍🙌💯👍 spam. If your product has niche appeal and is designed around long-term users that feel like a part of a specific community (or, even more so, has users interact inside it), willingly inviting different audiences can upset this balance. Now your core audience feels alienated and starts leaving the community because the experience got diluted, developer sees the change in the flow of money and starts thinking of ways to cater to someone else, and everyone ends up... with a well-advertised, decently money-making product that "no one cares about". Congratulations, objective accomplished?
@@Lishtenbird If you want to make a niche passion project with a dedicated, elitist fanbase, there's nothing stopping you.
If you want to make a game that also provides income, then yes, making money is an important factor.
I cannot fathom the rationale of people who think game developers are these golden calf types who want to fashion an idealized experience worthy of worship.
They are people. Most people don't like starving to death in a ditch, and so using their skills (which happens to be game development) to make money is the path they choose.
They don't owe anyone anything. This kind of "well it will attract unwanted people into the community" reeks of juvenile, prejudiced whinging.
Find a group of players who you find "acceptable" and play with them and ignore everyone else - or find a new game.
Great speech, but something keeps bothering me here: I'd swap Reddit and Twitter in the every diagram they show up. Judging by my personal experience, Twitter is WAY better than Reddit for game promoting. I've learned about 4-5 different indie games from twitter and 0 games from reddit. And I spend a lot more time on reddit than on twitter. I think twitter's algorithm are (or were) better. I just started following my favorite game developers and content creators on twitter, they started reposting other game developers' posts, bada-boom, I'm following another one. Reddit is quite different: there's practically no way to learn about a new game unless you're a member of the particular subreddits, specified on self-promotion. I think Reddit is more about "hey, we've released a new update for the game you've last played a year ago, check it out".
I've heard Twitter is a great place to network with other Devs, but not so much potential customers. It sounds like people tend to follow games on Twitter after they have already become aware of it elsewhere.
TikTok is probably the most relevant social media platform for creating awareness at the moment from my understanding of the landscape.
Reddit tends to be more useful as a discussion board for people already aware of the game. I frequently use it to find other people that have similar issues/questions, but yeah, it's not something to discover new games.
I don't know about Twitter either, I'd say the biggest exposure is friends/steam.
This is interesting to me because I’ve never found a game on Twitter but have found a ton of Reddit. To me, Twitter is for following games I’ve already found.
A lot of the things he says also apply to paid posts. In fact, when most marketers talk about Reddit, they specifically mean doing paid posts on specific, since most big subreddits are very strict about self-promotion. Speaking from personal experience, I've found (and wishlisted) a lot of new games thanks to paid Reddit posts.
Content is gold but the audio of this is terrible
The secret to successful game marketing is to have a good game in the first place...
Enjoy This Video 😍👍
Yeah... I can only listen to someone talking about tiktok that much, you had me hooked and interested, but with the constant droning on about that soulsucking app and talk about games that pull in people with short attention-spans... yeah... no thanks!
This message is commonly true, but it needs more context. Otherwise it's unhelpful and actually harmful for the industry because it paints game development in a hopeless negative light from the jump.
If you're making a cozy unlit game or walking simulator, no one cares about your game (beyond Twitter or other devs).
If you're making a high fidelity tactical shooter with realistic reloads / graphics, people will naturally care about your game and social media algorithms will also pick it up (for now).
I suppose it makes sense from a marketing / PR standpoint since sometimes you have to work with clients that have picked a weak genre to begin with, but I just wanted to shine some light on this very common nihilistic talking point so that more devs can succeed.
A classic example in the wild of "everyone is like me and nobody is not like me unless they're faking it".
Yeah, there is more context... it's the video.
My ears are closed, don't wanna listen too someone that focuses on tiktok so much
>looks up advice on game marketing
>close-mindedly dismisses the single biggest and most influential social media platform
ngmi son
@@NoFeckingNamesLeft didn't look up, I don't even want any information on marketing, this vid just showed up in my feed since I follow the channel, also if my opinion hurts you, just close your ears like I did.
Please tell us more about how you didn't understand the video.
I want yt to stop giving me tick tock ads. They went from cringe to stupid