Face it – with development costs escalating, retail shelf space shrinking and conversion rates topping out at 1% or 2%, casual game creators can’t afford to play around. Attracting consumers is no longer enough. Even when you hold a virtual monopoly on distribution, it’s also crucial that you court key retail publishers and online portals.
So ask yourself: “What differentiates my game from the thousands currently at market?” Because if you can’t answer that basic question in seconds, sorry . . . it’s game over. With literally dozens of similarly-styled alternatives to choose from, there’s nothing stopping execs or end-users from picking proven performers over your latest masterpiece.
Thankfully, the following tips won’t just make your titles sell better and stand out more prominently. They’ll also help you build buzz, increase awareness and generate headlines worldwide:
Don’t Get Fancy
Can the high-concept ventures: Games should be simple, straightforward and make immediate sense to consumers in an everyday context. You’ve got less than three seconds to catch a buyer’s attention. To maximize sales potential, position your products around familiar themes, such as food, fashion, music or art. Added bonus: The simpler the subject matter, the greater the international viability of a games—and the easier it is to localize. One need only look to proven hits like Cake Mania, Dream Day Wedding, and, of course, the Sims series (the best-selling franchise ever on PC) to see this phenomenon in action.
Go Wide or Go Home
Pick topics with broad appeal. Think horizontal: Before developing any new game, ponder all potential audiences, which of their needs it can meet and how to instantly communicate that value to as many people as possible. From artwork to surrounding text and in-game features, assets should universally support and reinforce this core messaging, helping you reach a wider audience and increase return on investment accordingly. With that in mind, you may want to rethink that futuristic, turn-based, strategy/shoot-‘em-up hybrid featuring the music of Pantera and go with something more universal—such as a globetrotting adventure or IQ-building brainteaser—as a safer alternative.
Add Tangible Value
Two ways to succeed in business: innovation or invention. Either way, risk-taking is essential: Daring ideas move the medium forward. Likewise, it’s not cloning that is killing the market—it’s developers’ inability to innovate with each passing release. (Risk-averse publishers actually prefer proven formulas with measurable sales potential.) Bottom line? Regardless of how you choose to add value to the space, you should include at least one new meaningful feature with every debut. Additions can be as simple as a new setting (Victorian times vs. modern-day) or a twist to the game-play (say, branching storylines depending on the player’s actions). Note: Better graphics don’t count.
Stay Open-Ended
Avoid the use of territory- or company-specific imagery. By all means—create billboards, jumbotrons, blimps, banners and other in-game vehicles through which content can be cross-promoted or advertisers hyped. Just design such opportunities so that any supporting material can be inserted globally, as partners will want to reserve the right to individually brand these placements. Bottom line: All those buildings plastered with banners featuring silly in-jokes and pictures of your coworkers? Probably not a wise insertion.
Evangelize Your Wares
Promote, promote, promote. Incessantly. Create a striking website and supplemental assets ranging from screenshots to in-game videos. Then court the media. Budget tight? GamesPress.com lets you quickly reach 22,000+ journalists worldwide at zero cost. Throughout development, regularly issue news and updates to whet fans’ appetites. The more noise you make, the better your chances of attracting additional buyers and trade partners. Need motivation? Consider how many of the hundreds of titles are released daily—then how many your mother actually knows by name. I rest my case.
Scott Steinberg is the author of Videogame Marketing and PR, (yours FREE at www.SellMoreVideogames.com) and managing director of game industry experts Embassy Multimedia Consultants (www.embassymulti.com). A successful self-publisher of PC/console titles, he also literally wrote the book on game journalism, The Videogame Style Guide and Reference Manual, and is one of the industry’s most prolific authors and radio/TV hosts, having contributed to 300-plus outlets from CNN to the LA/NY Times, Playboy and Rolling Stone.
