游戏开发中14种可行宣传方法和技巧编辑本段回目录
如果你未曾见过Kickstarter为项目制作人提供的数据，那么可以看下以下这张图表。这是张赞助随开发时间缓慢增长的图表。
线条中任何点的倾斜度都与你的情感状态有直接的关联。我们的图表所呈现出的情感状态是：希望、有所缓和的希望、失望、绝望、稍微减弱的绝望、顺其自然、谨慎的惊奇、狂喜。
chart from gamasutra.com
我们公司的名称为Cipher Prime。我们喜欢制作游戏。我们甚至还成功出售了某些游戏（游戏邦注：比如《Auditorium》、《Pulse》和《Fractal》）。但是，作为成立不足4年且只有4个成员的小公司，我们处在波动的营销状态中。我们在外并非完全没有名声，但是在庞大的游戏社区中依然只是普通的成员。
当我们决定针对《Auditorium Duet》在Kickstarter开展为期1个月的资金募集活动时，我们就知道自己将面临残酷的战斗。我们知道，行业内肯定存在喜欢我们的游戏及其风格的人。但是在整个Kickstarter社区中，我们吸引这些人目光的能力有限。
以下是对我们宣传计划的概述。有些我们尝试过了，且效果很不错。有些我们还未尝试。我们将这些想法提供给其他与我们类似的游戏开发者，因为我们觉得Kickstarter是个强大的募资工具，可以为大量优秀游戏的开发提供帮助。
1、大型游戏媒体的报道很难获得
我们获得的最大媒体是Joystiq，他们在首周推荐了我们的故事。然而，冷冰冰的谈话、提交新闻以及努力联系编辑和作者，这些过程都会遭遇众多挫折。确实有许多流量更高的站点的新闻文章提到了我们，但是我们最终获得Giant Bomb报道的唯一原因是Patrick Klepek联系了我们。这个方面没有具体的解决方案，只要不断与他人面谈和联系即可。
2、小型游戏媒体的报道较容易获得
对于想要对游戏原始版本发表评论的媒体，我们都赠送了Steam激活码，而且还与任何索要激活码的媒体开展了大量的访谈。这需要投入大量的时间，或许换来的可能只会是少许的关注，但是我们认为，构建与新晋游戏作者和小型站点的良好关系依然相当重要，这仍然有助于让公司的名称更频繁地出现在搜索引擎上。在这个过程中，你还会结交许多很不错的人。
3、侵略性的评论跟踪
如果有人编撰了有关我们的故事，我们会花时间来回答人们的问题或澄清他人对我们公司和Kickstarter的误解。当然，应当合理限制在这方面所投入的时间，因为这种工作有可能会消磨你的全部开发时间，而且并非所有的评论都能够有合理的答案。
4、机构内邮件列表
我们的列表中约有2.4万的个人邮件地址，这是我们逐年积累起来的。我们在Kickstarter开始时使用了一次，在项目开发期间使用了一次，在本周开始时使用了一次，计划以后至少再使用一次。你必须与这些人联系，因为他们是最先对你的作品感兴趣的人。如果你的公司没有邮件列表，马上创建一个，并鼓励人们在上面注册。只是不要滥用这个邮件列表即可。
5、地方名称品牌会引起关注
Philly的游戏开发产业很小，所以我们可以被称为“Philly游戏工作室”，使用这样的名称能够发挥一定的作用。如果你正处在某个可以冠名的地点，完全可以利用这点优势。地方科技站点会乐于推荐你，小型的新闻媒体甚至也会因此而愿意与你交谈和编撰相关报道。我们也积极参加地方IGDA组织和其他小型团体，还成为Global Game Jam在Philly分部的赞助商之一。交友可以为你节省大量的时间。我们知道，他们成为了Kickstarter活动期间最坚实的支持者。
6、游戏交叉推广
在Kickstarter活动开始前，我们更新了两款iPad游戏，在菜单中显示直接链接到Kickstarter的小旗帜。它们会在Kickstarter后消失。我们还将Kickstarter的时间定在于Steam发布首款游戏的那天。Steam的描述也有助于推广Kickstarter。
7、普通网站推广
我们使用的站点中流量最高的是cipherprime.com和playauditorium.com，他们都设置了Kickstarter条幅广告。
8、“侧面宣传”
我们很喜欢《星际争霸2》，我们每个月至少举办1次锦标赛，奖品是披萨。上周六我们举办了首场较大型的锦标赛。我们一直没有将其做大，是因为它只是个实验而已，但是我们希望自己几个月前就把这种锦标赛做大，因为尽管刚刚开始，但我们已经感觉到这种锦标赛有很大的宣传潜力。
9、错失的侧面宣传
我们应该更加重视这个层面。我们参加了Philly举办的每月Unity技术见面会，偶尔还在本地学校发表有关游戏开发中设计或音乐的演讲。我们有许多可以分享的知识。我们应当将这些内容放到YouTube上，与更多的社区群体分享。
10、游戏赠送
这种方法可能会相当有效，但是我们是个成员对大量赠送产品意见不同的小团队。所以为了保证团队成员间的和谐相处，我们所赠送的产品数量并不多。
11、社交媒体
我们对社交媒体的使用很不平衡。我们很擅长使用Twitter，但是对游戏论坛或社交新闻站点的投入并不大。我们想要提升这个方面，因为我们觉得因此错过了很多机会。如果你因为觉得社交媒体繁冗且与游戏制作毫无关联而不使用，这是合理的想法。但是，在你尝试出售游戏时，社交媒体就能够派上大用场。
先注册账户，然后保持活跃、有趣和友好。当然，还要了解这个媒体的运作方式。在我们最终的推广阶段，我们开始有计划地向大型游戏公司和新闻站点发起侵略性的Twitter活动，所有推文描述的都是我们的项目。即便他们忽略了我们，我们也能够获得大量的转推，成功地传播了项目。
我很不喜欢在自己的Facebook好友列表中添加过多的人，但是我还是邀请很多人参加Kickstarter活动。即便有些人意识到这不是真正的活动，他们依然会注意到我们的Kickstarter项目。
12、付费广告
我们希望能够有足够的资金来进行此类推广。
13、运气
我们的Kickstarter项目诞生时机很好，正处在Double Fine和《Wasteland 2》获得成功的时期。我知道，在重量级游戏附近开展推广能够获得极大好处，因为我们的项目可能会被用来跟这些游戏做对比。我们会成功还是失败？我们是否是在借助Double Finey引领的趋势？他们的成功是否会将我们的项目置于死地？相比报道中的描述而言，让读者看到我们的项目更为重要。随着时间的推移，这个故事的吸引力可能会逐渐消退，但是项目总是会有些有趣的内容，你可以将这些内容运用到新闻中。
14、你的粉丝是最棒的人
你不可能取悦每个人，也不可能让每个人都喜欢你的游戏。但是，这世界上确实存在喜欢你游戏的人，他们会为你提供支持。我们对这些人的努力感到欣喜，也愿意尽我们所能来获得这种支持。
Kickstarter之类的群资项目需要投入大量的时间。它存在内在的危险性，因为它会减少开发时间，也有可能毫无效果。但是，无论结果如何，你仍然会学到许多营销技巧和能力。
因为我们上个月刚刚使用了Kickstarter网站，所以对想法的印象比较深刻。我们需要做的事情还有很多！对于未来的游戏和项目，我们肯定还会开展较小型的kickstarter。我们也签订了“Kicking It Forward”承诺，无论结果如何，我们都计划每月将公司资金投入到至少两个项目中。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，作者：Andrei Marks）
Publicity Is the Hardest Part of Game Development
Andrei Marks
If you haven’t seen the data that Kickstarter provides for project creators, here’s a little taste. This is the graph that grows slowly as the days in your funding period tick by.
The slope of the line at any given point in time correlates directly to your emotional state. Our graph reads: hope, subdued hope, disappointment, despair, slightly less despair, resignation, cautious amazement, orgiastic elation.
Our company’s name is Cipher Prime. We love making games. We’ve even sold some of them (Auditorium, Pulse, Fractal). But as a small four person company, not yet four years old, we exist in a state of marketing limbo. We’re not completely obscure, but we still fly well under the radar of the gaming community at large.
When we decided to do a month long Kickstarter for Auditorium Duet, we knew we were in for an uphill battle. We know that there are people out there who like our games and our style. But throughout the Kickstarter we were painfully aware of how limited our ability to reach out to those people was.
This is a rough summary of our publicity plan. Some of these things we did, and did well. Some of them we have yet to do. We offer these ideas as advice for other game developers in a similar position to us, because we think that Kickstarter is a powerful funding tool that will help a lot of great games made.
Big game press is damned hard to get.
The largest outlet we were able to get on our own was Joystiq, which featured our story for the first week. Otherwise, cold calling, submitting news, and trying to get in contact with editors/writers was pretty much a bust. We did get a few news articles or mentions on several more well-trafficked sites, but the only reason we ended up on Giant Bomb was that Patrick Klepek contacted us. There aren’t any definite solutions to this, just keep meeting people and keep networking.
Little game press is easy to get.
We gave Steam keys out to anyone who wanted to review the original Auditorium’s rerelease, and we did a bunch of interviews with anyone who asked. It was a big time commitment, for probably a minimal amount of eyes, but we thought it was still important to build relationships with budding game writers and sites, and it still gets our company’s name out there for search engines. You also meet a bunch of cool people.
Aggressive comment follow-up.
If someone wrote a story about us, we went a little out of our way to answer people’s questions or clear up misconceptions about our company and Kickstarter. There are limits to this, of course, as this sort of stuff can suck up all of your dev time, and not all comments have good answers.
In-house mailing list.
We have a roughly 24k person mailing list, built up over the years, which we hit once at the beginning of the Kickstarter, once at the midway point, once at the beginning of this week, and we’re planning on at least one more. You must reach out to these people, because they’re the ones interested in your work in the first place. If you don’t have a mailing list for your company, start one and encourage people to sign up. Just don’t abuse it.
Local name brand is awesome.
Philly’s game dev scene is really small, so we can be called a “Philly game studio” and have it mean something. If you’re in a location where a place can “own” you, definitely take advantage of it. Local tech sites are happy to feature you, and even smaller news outlets are way more willing to talk and write about you. We also participate actively in our local IGDA chapter and other small groups, and were one of the sponsors for the Global Game Jam here in Philly. The friends you make help you out big time. We know they were our most vocal supporters throughout the Kickstarter.
Cross-Game promotion.
Before the Kickstarter went off, we updated our two iPad games to display a little flag in the menus that links directly to the Kickstarter. They will disappear after the Kickstarter. We also timed the launch of the Kickstarter to coincide with the rerelease of our first game on Steam. The Steam description promotes the Kickstarter as well.
Regular website promotion.
Our two highest trafficked sites are cipherprime.com and playauditorium.com, they both have very prominent Kickstarter banners.
“Lateral publicity”.
We love, love, love Starcraft 2, and we’ve started an at least monthly online tournament where you compete for pizza (we call it Pizzacraft). We held the first one last Saturday. We kept it small because it was an experiment, but we wish we’d started it months ago because we’re just getting started and we think it has big potential for getting our name out there.
Missed lateral publicity.
We really should have more educational stuff out in the aether. We participate in monthly Unity technical meetups in Philly, and occasionally give talks at local educational institutions about design or music in game development. We have a lot of in-house knowledge that we could potentially share. These are the sort of things we should be putting on Youtube and providing to the community at large.
Game Giveaways.
This was something that is potentially very useful, but we’re a small team with different opinions about the business consequences of giving away large amounts of product, and for the sake of team harmony we decided not to do a big game giveaway.
Social media.
We have really lopsided social media use. Twitter we’re great at (follow us!), but we never really contribute to gaming forums or social news sites. We’d like to improve on that, because we think that’s a huge piece missing from the formula. If you don’t use social media because it’s tedious and irrelevant to making games, that’s fine and partly true. But it’s a different story when you’re trying to sell games.
Twitter.
Make sure you have an account, and stay active, funny, and kind. Also be aware of how the beast works. For our final push we began an aggressive Twitter campaign of scheduled tweets at larger game companies and news sites, all talking about our project. Even if they ignored us, we garnered a number of retweets that succeeded in spreading the word.
Facebook.
I was loathe to spam my Facebook friend’s list, but I stomached the awkwardness and invited everyone to a faux end-of-kickstarter event. Our team alone netted 1,500 eyes, which blew that number up hundreds more people. And even if only a fraction of those people realized this wasn’t an actual event, they still noticed that there was a Kickstarter going on.
Paid Advertising.
Haha, we wish.
Luck.
Our Kickstarter had pretty good timing, coming in the wake of the Double Fine and Wasteland 2 successes. We were a fairly sizeable project (read: more than several thousand dollars) that was aggressively pursuing our project. I know we benefited immensely by just walking in the shadow of titans, because we could be a project that was held up as a counter example. Would we succeed? Would we fail? Were we riding on Double Fine’s coattails? Were we doomed because of their success? The portrayal is less important than the readership. As time passes this story won’t be as compelling, but there will always be something interesting about projects, and you have to leverage that something into news.
Your fans are the most wonderful people on earth.
You can’t please everyone, and not everyone will like your games. But there are people who love your games more than anything and they go out of your way to support you. We are so incredibly grateful to these people and are willing to go out of our way to make sure we deserve that support.
A crowd-funding project like Kickstarter is a serious time commitment. It is inherently risky because it cuts severely into development time, with the possibility getting nothing out of that time. But whatever the outcome, you’ll still learn a lot about your marketing reach and abilities.
In any case, because we’ve been lurking the Kickstarter website so much in this past month, we’ve become so incredibly enamored with the idea of it. There is so much cool stuff out there that is just waiting to be made! We’ll definitely be doing smaller kickstarters for future games and side projects. We’ve also made the Kicking It Forward pledge, and whatever happens, we plan on using company funds to contribute to at least two projects a month.
Anyway, hope some of this helps people out there, if you have any questions feel free to ask! And, of course, please check out our Kickstarter! (Source: Gamasutra)
