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Banned
hiii The Importance of PR in Game Marketing
Each day gamers are flooded with a variety of online, print and TV ads from publishers trying to push their latest titles. Behind the scenes, however, there's another force that's equally important (if not more so) to marketing a game: public relations. We take a look at the role of PR in game marketing.
To an industry outsider, most aspects of a video game marketing campaign are pretty transparent. You have TV, Internet and magazine ads, trailers, reviews, and perhaps a specially devoted website. While marketing teams are known and sometimes given special credit for the success of a product, less is known about the people who run gameplay information, screenshots, and review copies to the press: public relations teams.
The role of a PR worker in the gaming industry is vital, yet under appreciated. They're the ones that help members of the press stay informed, and from a video game marketing perspective they can be crucial. They'll speak to anyone gamers will listen to, including bloggers, webcomic artists and web-TV programs. But doing this is very behind-the-scenes, almost to the point of being invisible. It is reminiscent of a Gustave Flaubert quote, "The artist must be in his work as God is in creation, invisible and all-powerful; one must sense him everywhere but never see him."
GameDaily BIZ talked with David Tractenberg, President of Traction Public Relations, and Corey Wade, Partner in Sandbox Strategies about PR work. We discussed the importance of PR to games, the hidden challenges associated with the field, and alternative means of advertising.
Basic training for PR
Basic PR such as distributing screens, game info and review copies is all well and good, but the PR worker first has to have a proper understanding of the game and the press that game will be pitched to. Most games don't have the sort of clout of something like Grand Theft Auto, and when you're trying to raise awareness of some unknown mobile phone game, for example, the challenge is evident. When distributing review copies, PR workers have to make sure that the reviewer has the right hardware to play it. A PS2 review copy of a game is useless if the reviewer only has an Xbox in the office.
Each day gamers are flooded with a variety of online, print and TV ads from publishers trying to push their latest titles. Behind the scenes, however, there's another force that's equally important (if not more so) to marketing a game: public relations. We take a look at the role of PR in game marketing.
To an industry outsider, most aspects of a video game marketing campaign are pretty transparent. You have TV, Internet and magazine ads, trailers, reviews, and perhaps a specially devoted website. While marketing teams are known and sometimes given special credit for the success of a product, less is known about the people who run gameplay information, screenshots, and review copies to the press: public relations teams.
The role of a PR worker in the gaming industry is vital, yet under appreciated. They're the ones that help members of the press stay informed, and from a video game marketing perspective they can be crucial. They'll speak to anyone gamers will listen to, including bloggers, webcomic artists and web-TV programs. But doing this is very behind-the-scenes, almost to the point of being invisible. It is reminiscent of a Gustave Flaubert quote, "The artist must be in his work as God is in creation, invisible and all-powerful; one must sense him everywhere but never see him."
GameDaily BIZ talked with David Tractenberg, President of Traction Public Relations, and Corey Wade, Partner in Sandbox Strategies about PR work. We discussed the importance of PR to games, the hidden challenges associated with the field, and alternative means of advertising.
Basic training for PR
Basic PR such as distributing screens, game info and review copies is all well and good, but the PR worker first has to have a proper understanding of the game and the press that game will be pitched to. Most games don't have the sort of clout of something like Grand Theft Auto, and when you're trying to raise awareness of some unknown mobile phone game, for example, the challenge is evident. When distributing review copies, PR workers have to make sure that the reviewer has the right hardware to play it. A PS2 review copy of a game is useless if the reviewer only has an Xbox in the office.
