I was invited to speak about this and four other topics at the Kajaani University of Applied Sciences in Finland. This first lecture explains to the students how they should understand and treat the importance of pr & marketing in the creation of their games in order to one day turn them into products. The topics covered in part 1 are: 2.00 Traditional game marketing 2.45 Marketing basics 3.15 Why you need marketing 3.45 Why you need need it even more 4.00 Why you need it forever 4.40 The obvious chores 5.30 What you can do right away in four easy steps 6.00 Step 1: PR ≠ Marketing 9.00 Step 2: Create Assets 10.15 Step 3: Join (and participate in) Communities 11.00 Step 4: Understand how press works 13.45 Why you don't need marketing 14.30 Some handy tricks 14.45 #1 Use SEO and be unique 17.15 #2 Don't forget social media I was invited to speak about this and four other topics at the Kajaani University of Applied Sciences in Finland. This first lecture explains to the students how they should understand and treat the importance of pr & marketing in the creation of their games in order to one day turn them into products. The topics covered in part 2 are: 0.00 #3 Having the look 1.10 #4 Find your champions 4.45 #5 Show your face 5.15 #6 Act like you're already successful 7.20 #7 Deal with the stress 10.45 Summary & Further reading

1. #gamemarketing
Game PR & Marketing ‘101’
aka. “I don’t want to do that stuff because I prefer
working on my game instead.”

2. #starttalkingalready
Table of contents
• Who am I
• PR & Marketing Crash Course
• Handy tips & tricks
• Summary
• Questions

3. #thatguy
Who am I?
This is a lecture by
Vlad Micu
Did freelance journalism, consulting, event management and
research under own company
VGVisionary.com
Used to be the European editor of
Gamesauce Magazine
Wrote for many other international outlets including
GMR magazine, Control Magazine, Bashers.nl,
Gamert.nl, CriticalGamer.co.uk, XBLAFans.com &
Game Mode Magazine
And now went Indie since April 3rd to work on
Snobli Run
This slide’s design is inspired by
Brandon Boyer @brandonnn

4. #e3
What is game marketing?

5. #bs
=

6. #peepeepeepee
From the start: The 4 Ps

7. #ninjasalwayswin
Why you need it
VS
“Obscurity is a greater threat than piracy"
- Tim O'Reilly

8. #somanygames
Why you need it even more
That’s you

9. #theendingsucked
Why you will need it forever
There are
390+ games on XBLA
577+ on WiiWare
188+ on PSN Minis
5748+ on iPhone*
& 554+ on iPad*
*(that are covered in PocketGamer.co.uk’s
database)
How many can you
name?

10. #boring
The obvious chores
• Build a website, write blogs
• Join communities, post there
• Make a Facebook Page, wait
• Twitter account, troll people
• Annoy your friends
Add interesting quote about why this
stuff is still important here

11. #isignedsomeonesboobtoday
What you can do right away in
Four Easy Steps
“You want to get yourself out there, as much
as your game.”
– Phil Fish (Fez)

12. #pubicrelations
Step 1: PR ≠ Marketing
• Get yourself out there
– Talk to blogs
– Do interviews
– Participate in communities
– Join podcasts/contribute
– Don’t spend money, just talk

13. #learnfromthepros
Stay true to yourself
“I have a personal philosophy to PR. I really try to do
things that stay true to the development of the game. I
really am not a big fan of the ‘cheesy.’ I am not a big fan
of beating our own chests or telling everybody how great
we think we are. I’m a big believer in ‘walk softly and
carry a big stick’.”
- Pete Hines (Bethesda)

14. #humbleindiebundle
Learn to spin as well!
• Even bad PR is good!
– Screwups double the
press
– Piracy is always a nice
issue
– Linux port, do it!
“If you support Mac and Linux as an independent developer
you have a good chance of doubling your revenue.”
- John Graham (Wolfire)

15. #prettycolours
Step 2: Create Assets
• Post them everywhere
– Make a DeviantArt
account for your
concept art
– Post gameplay videos
on YouTube
One screenshot to rule them all!
– Publish and spread
screenshots (just 1 can
do magic)

16. #friendsareuseful
Step 3: Join (and participate in)
Communities
• Make friends
– Comment on other
people’s projects
– Ask questions, find
help
– Support others in their
work, too

17. #inversefunnel
#davidvsgoliath
Step 4: Understand how press
works

18. #spamandeggs
Any attention is awesome
“I implemented a dialog popup in my other
games that asked the user if they'd like me to email them when I released a new game. Since
that time, amazingly, I have been able to collect
over 30,000 e-mails.”
– Andrew Garrison (BridgeBasher, SimplePhysics)

19. #celebrity
Don’t force it
Don’t act desperate or force
attention to yourself.
• People can now find you on
Google!
• You will get
–
–
–
–
–
–
Fan art
Likes
Followers
Retweets
More followers!
And lots of other viral marketing
treats!
• Those metrics, numbers, feedback
show you how many people are
interested in your game (and will
end up buying it).
“Promote your game, but make it look like you’re not
trying”
- Kyle Gable of 2D Boy (WORLD OF GOO)

20. #onemanarmy
Why you don’t need it
• #1 reason: It takes away time
from your development
process
• Your daddy owns Activision
• Found the magic formula to
turn code into gold.
• The press already adores you
and went through your
garbage last night.
• Your game is so awesome,
nobody will ignore it.
Build it and they will come, if you’re
lucky (like Minecraft)!

21. #clipartrules
Some handy tricks

22. #gamenamegenerator
#1 - Use SEO and be unique
SEO stands for Search Engine
Optimalization

23. #brandingiron
Tag yourself every time!
• Come up with a unique name and
domain.
• Embrace Google.
– Google Analytics ftw!
– Google Pagerank is your friend
– Start asap for yourself!
• Tag you and your stuff on Youtube,
favorite others.
• Start using Social Media – Aaargh (I
hate it too).
Make yourself findable

24. #selflessselfpromotion
The case of Snobli Run
Snobli or Snobly?

25. #googledominationtakestimetoo
Snobli Run vs Monica Snobli

26. #tigerblood
#2 Don’t forget social media
And remember: Write 20% about
yourself, 80% about others

27. #I<3gearbox
#3 Have the Look
“One of the hardest parts of the job when trying to get
people to look at games is having something that is
interesting to look at. Just in the fact that we did a very
dramatic change, which was perceived to be late in
development, everybody was looking.”
– Steve Gibson, VP of Marketing at Gearbox about Borderlands

28. #brandingiron
Make it special. Make it yours
• Make it personal
• It has to be easy
to describe and
easy to love.
• Make it ‘pop’

29. #battlefield
#4 Find your champions
“Militarise your fanbase.”
– Kieron Gillen (former game journalist)

30. #embracethefunnel
Funnel them out

31. #superbestfriends
Pick the right ones
• You need advisors
– “There’s two types of people you
should have play your games, first
is your advisors, and you can’t
have too many of those because
you’ll get conflicting information.
For me very early on Dan Paladin
from The Behemoth helped out
[…] He kept the game from being
more cerebral, which is what I
tend to do, and made it more
arcade and snappier.”
-Andy Schatz (Monaco)

32. #superbestfriends
Listen to the rest
• You need supporters
– “Who don’t know shit about
games. […] What you do
want to listen to, is their
impression of the game.[…]
Their impressions and
experience are always right.”
“Have people playing your game
from like day two.”
– Andy Schatz (Monaco)

33. #homework
Ask your champions
• Three important
things:
– What do you like
– What do you not like
– What confused you?
Marketing = Research

34. #lookingatbadges
#5 Show your Face
“As an indie, you’re half the story.”
– Phil Fish

35. #nerdherd
A Test

36. #whereswaldo
A Test

37. #notlikebritney
#6 Act like you’re already
successful (in a good way)
“In order to get people to pay attention
to you, pay attention to them first.”
- Manuel Saint-Victor (InfiniteUnity3D.com)

38. #helpmehelpyou
Use your voice
• Visit other studios
• Play other games
• Help other people out
• Make fan art/tributes
• Interact
• Give people credit
• Give tools credit
I <3 Vlambeer

39. #thinkoutsidethebox
#7 Deal with the stress
“If you’re a one man or two man show, by far the
biggest thing you can do is make a great game.”
– Andy Schatz (Monaco)

40. #delegatelikegaia
Getting things done
Just want to make the game, not
do marketing as well?
• Tough luck pal, it’s part of the job.
• Marketing starts from day 1 of
development.
• Still too lazy?
– Have a friend help you. It might be
his/her big break into the game
industry!
– Be prepared to let go and involve
them
– Ask others for advise. Everybody
loves giving their opinion!

41. #lifehacker
Read a book about it
• Loose ends eat up energy,
be aware of them.
– Don’t think about
everything you need to do
to market your game all
the time.
– Think of it once, write it
down and move it up to
when you have time.
– Dump all of it in a
document and go on with
making your game.

42. Summary
• Blog
• Do your research!
• Make a game, get it ready and
send it in for next year’s IGF
(or any other competition)
• Google alerts
• Be friendly to other
devs/fans/press
• Continuous marketing effort.
Just a little bit each day

43. #scottsteinberg
Download this book
It’s 4 years old, but still.

44. #readallofthis
References/Further Reading
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Most importantly:
http://www.pixelprospector.com/indev/2010/08/the-big-list-of-indie-marketing-and-business-tips/
http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/aSGuest87210-848525-tmg-advertising/
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4117/building_buzz_for_indie_games.php
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=22866
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/01/super-meat-boy-postmortem/
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4230/postmortem_ronimo_games_swords__.php
http://gamesauce.org/news/2011/01/19/studio-spotlight-codeglue-in-rotterdam/
http://www.gamedevradio.net/?p=151
http://www.gdcvault.com/free
http://dragonmaw.tumblr.com/post/4273836091/indie-game-developer-meme
http://gillen.cream.org/wordpress_html/?page_id=693
http://bashers.nl/gdc-dagboek-deel-een-virtual-worlds-en-indiegames (Dutch)
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/BrendaBrathwaite/20090721/2537/Why_Game_Developers_Should_Ge
•
•
•
http://skullsoftheshogun.com/?p=102
http://christophermpark.blogspot.com/2010/07/wearing-multiple-hats-is-tough-and-pr.html
http://www.pamorama.net/2010/03/03/35-great-social-media-infographics/

45. #imlonely
Contact me
• I’m in ur campus, working in ur Gamelabz
• Will be staying in the guest lecturer house at Talo 6 #F28.
Look me up there in the evening and let’s play some
beer pong.
• Mail me at v.micu@vgvisionary.com
• @vgvisionary
• Website: www.vgvisionary.com

46. #letstalk
Sauna, Beer + talking games
• Tomorrow (Tuesday 17th) after my 2nd lecture
• Bring a towel and some snacks to Talo 6 #F28.
Cold beers will be in the fridge.
• Share your opinion, ask questions, let’s talk
making games and selling them!
• First come, first serve. As long as we all fit in the
sauna !