How to do PR when you are an indie game developer

1. EVERYONE CAN DO PR
How Small Studios Get Themselves Heard
Thomas REISENEGGER
@Olima

2. BUT WHY SHOULD YOU DO PR?

3. @Olima 3
Because not doing PR is like…
Working for years to write a
really amazing book...
… and put it on a shelf without
telling anybody about it.

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Because not doing PR is like…
• You have a perfect first date with the love of
your life…
… grab a taxi, go home and never contact
her/him again.
• You are about to break the world record in a
100m sprint…
…but decide to take a break at 90m.

5. @Olima 5
Thomas Reisenegger, MA
• Currently - German PR Executive
ICO Partners, Brighton UK
League of Legends, SMITE, Fractured Space
Road Not Taken, Dungeon of the Endless
• PR Manager – all about apps
Austria‘s biggest app agency
Porsche, Haribo, A1, Wüstenrot
• consol.AT / consolPlus 7 years freelance video game journalist
• Austrian Award „PR Panther“ in Youngster Category
Launch PR campaign for iOS/Android game Diskobolos

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Content Overview
What is PR?
Get to know your game
The Must Haves
The Nice To Haves
The Awesome To Haves
1
2
3
4
5
Required Skill Level
PRImpact

7. What is PR?
Get to know your game
The Must Haves
The Nice To Haves
The Awesome To Haves
1

8. @Olima 8
What is PR?
• “ (…) management function that establishes and maintains mutually
beneficial relationships between an organization and the publics on
whom its success and failure depends.” Cultip
• (…) management of communication between an organization and its
publics (…)”. Gruning & Hunt
In short: Get people to talk about you without
paying them to do so.

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What can PR do?
PR can get attention for your game, but can‘t
make a bad game good

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Key goals of indie game PR
• Build up credibility
• Get attention
• Transport your messages - right framing

11. What is that PR?
Get to know your game
The Must Haves
The Nice To Haves
The Awesome To Haves
2

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Get to REALLY know your game
• You are not selling a game, you are selling a
story
• AIDA rule (Attention, Interest, Desire,
Action)
• Decide for one key message

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The Friends Test for Key Messages

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Diskobolos, iOS 2012
• Hard sell, due to strong
gameplay focus and weak
graphics
• Space Invaders like arcade
game with pinball elements
Casual is dead, hardcore is back

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The Indie Advantage
• “Luxury“ of speaking to a narrower target audience
• More flexible and faster to react
• More personal, company has a face

16. What is that PR?
Get to know your game
The Must Haves
The Nice To Haves
The Awesome To Haves
3

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The Must Haves
• Website
• Press kit
• Social media presence

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Website 1/2
• Your game‘s business card
• Make a website per game:
 Good for SEO
 Brings credibility
 Easy to get
• Central point people will check if they look for
information about your game

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Website 2/2
• If possible: Do it yourself and stay in control
• Easy to make with tools like Wordpress
• Recommendation:

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Presskit
• Zip folder with all essential information press needs
about your game
• Usually contains:
 Factsheet
 Screenshots
 Logos
 Trailer
 Press releases

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Digital Presskit
• Mix of factsheet and presskit on a website
• Recommendation: Do Presskit (http://dopresskit.com)
• Created by Rami Ismail from Vlambeer
(Ridiculous Fishing, Luftrausers)
• Set up in 30 to 60 minutes

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Factsheet
• Game description
• Feature list
• Short “about the studios“ text
• Short “about the game“ text
• Info box (genre, price, platforms…)

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Define Your Facts
• Don‘t act like the
frontman of a hipster band
• If you don‘t define things,
somebody else will.

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Social Media
• Have Facebook, Twitter and so on, at least passively
• Easy to keep in touch with people
• Good and easy feedback channel

26. What is that PR?
Get to know your game
The Must Haves
The Nice To Haves
The Awesome To Haves
4

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Nice to haves
• What is a news beat?
• Press release
• Gamespress
• Mailing list
• ASO (App Store Optimisation)
• Socialize
• Blog
• Review Management
• Monitoring tools

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What is a news beat?

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Must have news beats
• Game announcement
• First screenshots
• First trailer
• Beta start / preview possibilities (even if press only)
• Release date announcement
• Release announcement (+ launch trailer)

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Other news beats
• New assets (video, trailer, concept art, dev diaries)
• New content
• New platforms
• Awards
• Sales milestones
• Anything else worth publishing for press

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Press communication
• Does not always have to be a full press release (just for
announcement & launch) otherwise just short mail
• Always with short personal text (copy press release below)
• Make it easy to re-use (write it directly in the mail, no crazy
formatting, have all relevant links there)
• Proofread!

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Press communication
• Get to the point
• Hierarchy of information
1. Catchy headline
2. Personal intro text
3. Press Release
Attention
Interest
Desire
Action

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Sample press communication

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Sample press communication
Fist Headline
Quote
Intro
Detailed info
Assets
About texts
Sub-Headline

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Gamespress.com
• Press & asset archive for journalists
• Daily newsletter
• Upload press releases and assets for free
• Get republished on gamasutra & MCV
• Easy to reach and credible
• Good source of inspiration

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Mailing list
• Figure out 2 – 3 similar titles to yours
• Google for sites / journalists / YouTubers who
publish about similar games or wrote about you
• If budget: Get help of an agency
• If regular releases, use mailing software.
Recommendation:

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App store optimization (ASO)
• Crucial for apps, very good online resources
• Good screenshots
• Clear store description (update with reviews,
credibility!)
• Spend time on keywords (iOS)

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Socialize
• Know your media
• Meet up online & offline
• Local events & conferences

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Blog
• Written blog or dev diary
• Build a community and keep
your fans up to date
• Gives you strong personal connection

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Review management
• Decide and make a list of journalists who you
contact personally by mail
• If you send a review key and don‘t see a
review, follow up on it politely
• Always keep Metacritic in mind

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Metacritic in Google search
• Decide and make a list of journalists which
you contact personally per mail
• If you send a review key and don‘t see a
review follow up on it politely
• Always keep Metacritic in mind

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Easy ways to monitor your game
• Tools for basic monitoring
 Google search (by time frame and country in suitable language)
 Set up Google alerts
 Twitter search
• Find new communication opportunities
• Collect press feedback (and contacts)

43. What is that PR?
Get to know your game
The Must Haves
The Nice To Haves
The Awesome To Haves5

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Guerrilla Marketing
Guerrilla marketing involves unusual approaches to
advertising, such as targeted promotional-driven
encounters in public places, street giveaways of
products, PR stunts, flash-mob presentations, or any
unconventional marketing intended to get results
and create a memorable brand experience.
Jay Conrad Levinson, Jeannie Levinson, Amy Levinson

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Why care about Guerrilla Marketing?
• Obscurity is a greater threat than piracy
• If done right small budget, big PR result
• Relatively untapped field

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Risks of Guerilla Marketing
• Often breaks taboos
• Not always 100% legal
• Not always results in good PR
• Don‘t believe that “there is no such thing as bad publicity“
• Budget varies greatly

47. Guerilla Marketing Examples :
Big Games

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God of War II
• Ancient Greece-themed party
• Freshly slaughtered goat,
topless servants
• Sony recalled 80,000 issues of
official PS magazine

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Burnout 2
• Acclaim announced to pay all
speed tickets on launch day
• Police obviously prevented
campaign from happening
• Acclaim planned that from the
beginning – free PR, no risk

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Dante‘s Inferno
• Christian protesters show up to
demonstrate against Dante’s
Inferno at E3
• All hired by EA
• Plus for creative slogans:
“Trade in your PlayStation for a
PrayStation”

51. Guerilla Marketing Examples :
Indie Games

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Velocity 2x

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Velocity 2x on Twitter

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Anodyne
• Advertising on Pirate Bay
• Costs in total: 7$
• Sold 4511 games and
1750 bundles
• 240,000 unique users over the sale period
• Very popular on reddit Destructoid, PCGamer, IndieGames….

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Game Dev Tycoon
• Own version of the game for illegal download
sites
• Pirates complained about their games in their
pirated game being pirated
• Players of this version saw
their in-game creations
pirated, resulting in a massive
loss in profit

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Retro City Rampage
• Devs built playable NES
version of the game
• Made 10 minute Youtube
video explaining the process
• “ROM“ Retro City Rampage video gets nearly
170.000 views
• Major news beat months after release

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How to come up with ideas?
• Creativity techniques
 Look at other industries
 Brainstorming
 Six Thinking Hats
 Method 635
 …

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How to come up with ideas?

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Success factors for Guerrilla Marketing
5

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3 Take aways
KNOW YOUR GAME
Key message
BE CREDIBLE
Professional appearance & news beats
GET ATTENTION
Guerrilla Marketing

61. Thanks for your attention

62. WWW.ICOMEDIA.EU
OFFICE 6, 10 FLEET STREET
BRIGHTON BN1 4ZE, UNITED KINGDOM
CONTACT@ICOMEDIA.EU
+44 (0)20 7193 5158
European Online & Indie Games Experts
WWW.ICOMEDIA.EU
OFFICE 6, 10 FLEET STREET
BRIGHTON BN1 4ZE, UNITED KINGDOM
CONTACT@ICOMEDIA.EU
+44 (0)20 7193 5158
Bespoke PR for video games