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A common mistake among game designers is to underestimate the importance of marketing.
“Why should I care about marketing? How am I affected by the communication strategy? My responsibility is to design a fun game! Marketing and communication are the publisher's responsibility.”
Yes, but no.
It is true that the marketing teams of the publisher or studio, if the studio self-publishes its game, are responsible for setting up communications campaigns. But they are not responsible when design choices weaken the interest of the game in the eyes of the media and players.
The large-scale distribution of media and social networks has led to hyper-abundant information and communicating a good game is no longer enough to attract attention.
The situation is made even more difficult by the plethora of games on offer, many of which are free and easily downloadable.
A game designed without marketing in mind is likely to be a commercial failure. The design team must therefore ask the right questions from the concept stage.
What are they? Let's start with the most important question: what is the USP (Unique Selling Point) of my game?
Sniper Alley
The USP is the feature of the game concept that must be original enough to attract attention. Developing a concept around its USP is probably the best advice we can give to a game designer, junior or senior.
The USP can be applied to any aspect of the game: the gameplay or mix of gameplay, the game modes, the aesthetics, the narrative theme, the control interface, the atmosphere, the use of an intellectual property, the distribution platform, etc.
The USP has two functions:
First, to differentiate your game from the countless other titles that saturate the media and social networks. Nothing is more attractive than the promise of a new experience. This is how a USP works: it promises players new sensations, stimulates their curiosity, offers them unknown challenges.
The second function of the USP is to become the pillar of the communication strategy that will be implemented during the marketing campaign. A basic rule in communication is to develop a strong, distinctive and simple “message” about the product you want to communicate. “Strong” means talking about something that will probably generate a lot of curiosity. “Distinctive” means that the product should not be confused with any other. Finally, “simple” tells us that the message must be understandable through an image, a title or a slogan.
It becomes clearer why game designers care about marketing from the ideation stage: they need to design the game around a real USP.
So, what tips can we give to find a good USP?
The answer varies depending on the profile of the studio: is it a small independent studio or a large structure developing a game based on an intellectual property?
In the case of independent study, here are the best practices:
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Define a USP that will be immediately visible; Just looking at a screenshot is enough to make players understand that your game will offer them a different experience. Never forget that it is through an image or a video that your future players will discover your game and decide whether it is worth playing in a fraction of a second. A powerful publisher can do without a visual USP to draw attention to a game; it has a high-profile intellectual property or a significant budget for communication and player acquisition. But this is not the case for an independent studio that can only rely on its USP to get noticed.
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Do some research to make sure the USP is truly unique. You may find out that another game is already using it. If that game is successful, change the USP; your USP is no longer a success! But if this game was a failure, that doesn't change the relevance of the USP: try to understand why this game was a failure and learn from it.
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Make sure your team has enough skills and resources to develop your USP. Never overestimate the difficulty and time needed to develop something new.
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Build your game entirely around its USP, even if that means reducing your content ambitions.
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To illustrate my point, here is the case of Time code study and his game, Spin and explodeIt's a match-3 game for which I designed the level design.
In 2015, Timecode study decided to develop a Match-3 mobile game to ride the global success of this genre. But the market was crowded with many Candy Crush clones. The designers then came up with the idea of differentiating the game by offering traditional match-3 gameplay but in a completely different format: players had to align three objects, no longer on a grid, but by rotating two circles.
The result was stunning. It had exactly the same gameplay as traditional match-3 but in a completely new graphic style. The graphic differentiation was accentuated by the simplicity of the shapes and colors, which was far from the flashy style of many match-3 games. The game stood out visually from its competitors, which was the USP that Time code I was looking for.
My advice is different if you are a large studio developing a game around an intellectual property.
Indeed, often the IP itself is the USP, but perhaps this is not enough to make the game exciting: the IP will attract the attention of players and the media, but if the gaming experience is too classic, then you will need to innovate.
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Make sure your innovation is not central to your game's gameplay. In fact, games built around IP often need to be released on a scheduled date well in advance. However, if your innovation takes much longer than expected to develop and is central to the gameplay experience, you risk “missing” your game's release date.
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Propose an innovation that is directly related to the IP. This will allow you to “surf” on the intrinsic pull of the latter. Furthermore, you will prevent the IP owner, who often has the final say, from rejecting your proposal altogether, a situation I have witnessed firsthand on Duck Dynastya game for PS4 and Xbox One published by Activationwhere I acted as a consultant. The IP owner rejected our scenario based on our entire level design.
As a creative director, I have grappled with these issues as I contributed to Wanted – Weapons of Destiny.
Published by universalthe producer of the film of the same name, Wanted – Weapons of Destiny was supposed to be released alongside the feature film; the deadlines were particularly tight. So we took few risks with the core gameplay based on third-person shooter mechanics. But to bring a touch of novelty and stick to the specifics of the franchise, we added a complementary curved shooting mechanic. It offers a challenge, is very rewarding to use and fits perfectly with the film.
However, it is not central to the gameplay and is not essential to dealing with enemies. If this mechanic had proved too complicated to develop, we could have easily “removed” it from the game.
Continues …
In the next part of this post I will talk about two more aspects of marketing that game designers need to consider.
Link to part 1
Link to part 2
Pascal Luban
Game designer and creative director, freelance
Over 28 years of experience serving game developers and publishers
www.gamedesignstudio.com