Developing a New Major

big questions – what role do advertising, pr, sales and promotion, customer support have in the game industry, how can we build and maintain fan communities, questions from end of chapter#6 – find some player communites around your fave game (or maybe the video game they’re analyzing) – and see if/how develoeprs are connecting with them, what topics are discussed, is there any evidence of these people being sneezers; extra credit for #8 or for #9. lso could give extra credit for becoming an active member of sme game community – have to document their involvement and any reactions they get from other community members.

fan part ties back in somewhat with our talk about game metaculture – all the conversations around games

marketing = persuading people to buy your game, make your game stand out and get it noticed by consumers and get it accepted by the retail channels, there are lots of games competing for attention and even more products of all kinds advertising – hard to stand out, one way to do that is to build early buzz about hte product, get players to be eagerly waiting for it and asking retailers to carry it – could do sneak peaks and previews and work with the media to get articles written. Get betas out to the people or demo disks or set up kiosks at local events (can be expensive), develop the best advertising you can, and ya have to be different – have to be consistent about getting the message out about what is great in your game.

Marketing usually done by the publisher.

gota tarket the audience – game industry separates hard core and casual gamers as market segments. Casual = seldom plays, attracted by games with commercial appeal or that are based on stories from other media – can use mass marketing to reach these people. Hardcore = plays games regularly, enjoys competition, deep gameplay – need niche advertising to reach. Hardcore vs casual not the best segmentation – lots of other more descriptive segments. can segment the market based on geographics, demographics, psychographics to reach niche audience or can go nationwide. Marketing includes adv, pr, sales, promotions. All helped by strong fan/player communities. Going for a niche audience might give you the opportunityt o build base of die-hard fans – talks about seth godin and his purple cow – early adopters he calls sneezers because they’ll spread word of your product virally (idea virus).

never going to get all gamers to buy your game – so just forget that idea. Need to target somehow. MIght go after people who already like the genre your game is because they have already shown they like games like that. Then look at the setting or story or type of characters in your story – do they give you eny idea about kinds of people to target your audience around

marketers also do competitor analysis, track sales trends, put together marketing plan, think about managing the brand, working as connection between publisher and game studio and int’l marketing team and licensees

might be other products released with your game – movies, novels, action figures, cartoon, comic books

check to see if htere’s anything unique about your product – look at hte game’s premise (the high concept) and it’s unhique selling proposition (USP)

might create a website for you game (or a page off the compnay site). Might put community features on the page to start spreading the ideavirus – newsletters, blog, forums, chat rooms, links to other sites (hopefully they link back)

the package is marketing materials – some people gonna buy on impulse from seeing it on the shelf

can market online – the websites, sell game online, loyalty programs community support and newsletters. in  many companies there’s a budget for the online advertising/marketing. can use the internet to do research too – by talking to customers, looking at other companies marketing efforts

Advertising = using paid ads in media outlets to reach audience

PR = let people know about the game before it’s released using press releases to the media, setting up game previews, review articles, interviews with developers and leads, feature stories, and cover stories (the best). Can make available to hte media assets from teh game – art, demos, screen shots. PR team puts together PR kits for media outlets, for conferences. New thing – developer diaries on blogs or game’s website – developer comunicating iwth the fans, attracting new fans, strengthening ties in teh existing community – developer involvement makes it seem like more trustworthy communication and not just PR hype

sales – set up relationships with buys from retail (brick and mortar, online) stores, wholesalers, discount stores, game rental outlets. Sales team’s purpose is to make sure these outlets get product to sell. Sales tries to get hardware guys to bundle the game with hte console.

promotion = put together events, contests, give aways, merchandise – goal = get audience excited. could give away at retail store, might give away free trials of games, might have in store game signings or online chats with game developers.

customer support – fields questions about the game – might have online game managers who deal with in game player issues, shut down harrassers, take feedback from players and pass on to developers. might put together online tutorials for new players – some games put togheter weekly tutorial sessions that new players can come to – get feedback in the game abou tht eir play

players of any specific game – only 30% of them will be part of the community outside the game – go to hte website, post on the forum, tell ya about  a bug. However, many of hte leaders in teh out of game community are also active leaders in game so need to make sure they stay happy. they could be your “sneezers” who will talk about your game to others. a different point of view – maybe the games should have the community features built in

prosumers – players making their own game or mods based on your game, creating machinima with game concepts, creating content based on teh game like fan art and fan fiction, fan websites about your game are a great way to spread awareness of yourgame with out any effort or cost on your part

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Advertising, Game, Market segment, Marketing, Marketing plan, Public relations