Game marketing has changed over the years and this presentation from OrlandoiX15 should give independent game studios and indie game devs a roadmap for launching titles into the current market. Always happy to give advice to studios - sean@ide-agency.com

1. Marketing Games in 2016

2. Sean Kauppinen
• Founder and CEO of IDEA
(International Digital Entertainment Agency)
• 20+ years experience in the games industry
• Sony Online, Ubisoft, 3dfx, bleem!, Frogster, PlayFast, others
• Have worked on more than 570 titles
• What I do:
• Mentor CEOs
• Strategic Advisor
• Board Member
• Business Development
• Marketing Strategy
• Angel Investor

3. Marketing Pre-Production
Process
(Ideally) 6 months before launch

4. Marketing Pre-Production Process
• Identify existing communities to target
• Examples:
• Make a list of the different communities you find (yes, some people
fail at this step)
• One Free tool I like to use is: Contact Capture
(http://www.contactcapture.com/)

5. Marketing Pre-Production Process (con’t)
• Become a member of the communities that you identify as
relevant (Seagulls suck!)
• Track your login info in a spreadsheet so you can remember
• Comment, help, support and be active in the community
• I like to comment at least daily for 1-2 months before feeling like I
can start a thread or post something related to the games I am
working on

6. Marketing Pre-Production Process (con’t)
• Research media outlets that cover your game’s genre, platform, art
style, business model
• Try Video game Journaliser for game industry media
(http://videogamejournaliser.com/)
• Researching means reading articles
• Finding out which writers or editors cover your type of game, and what they
like or dislike about competitors
• Again, make a list

7. Marketing Pre-Production Process (con’t)
• Find opportunities to engage them in discussion (Twitter is a favorite
for many writers)
• Share their articles and comment while @tagging them
• If you’re going to email anyone, I highly recommend an email tracking
program like Sidekick by Hubspot (http://www.getsidekick.com)

8. Marketing Pre-Production Process (con’t)
• Research YouTubers and Twitch Streamers that cover your game’s
genre, platform, art style, business model (the answer isn’t always
PewDiePie)
• YouTubers list: http://videogamecaster.com/big-list-of-youtubers
• Twitch Streamer List: http://tinybuild.com/twitch
• Before you contact any YouTuber or Streamer, make sure you
Subscribe to their channel

9. Marketing Pre-Production Process (con’t)
• Look into other game development studios that share news from
other studios and make a list
• Reach out and ask if they would be willing to trade a post to their
community or social media followers for one in your community, or
social media channels
• Coordinate posts and tweets to hit when the game is available and be
sure to reciprocate when the time comes for you to make good
• If you are merchandising from your own site, consider giving each
partner a unique discount code so you can track where the traffic is
coming from

10. Marketing Pre-Production Process (con’t)
• Build a Press Kit
• Use http://dopresskit.com/
• You will need:
• Some screenshots that show the game (preferably in action)
• 15 and 30 second trailers showing gameplay
• Logos for the game and your studio
• A description and features list (if possible)
• 4 Press releases (Game Announcement, Beta Announcement, Coming Soon
Announcement, Launch Announcement)
• *Optional (Studio Backgrounder with info on the team)
• *Optional (Powerpoint presentation on the game with lots of art and info)
• Setup a dropbox for these assets so they can be shared easily
(http://www.dropbox.com/)

11. Marketing Pre-Production Process (con’t)
• Develop several short pitches for your game
• 100 character pitch for Twitter (allows for #Tagging and Re-
tweeting)
• 50 word pitch for initial emails
• Full 300-500 word pitch if you receive a request for more
information
• Develop a boilerplate game description (no more than 200
words)

12. Marketing Pre-Production Process (con’t)
• Build a complete list of assets that can be used to promote the game.
Examples include:
• Art-Related Assets
• Concept Art
• Screenshots
• Videos
• Hi-Res Renders
• Other Assets
• Interviews
• Developer Chats/Community Roundtables
• Developer Blogs and Video Blogs
• Twitch Streams and Let’Sply Tandems

13. Daily Content Program
• There should be something new everyday – create a flow
• You are giving traffic to a site or YouTuber (Content = audience = ad
dollars)
• There are a lot of potential daily programs:
• Enemies
• Heroes
• Weapons
• NPCs
• Spells/abilities
• Zones/areas
• Beasts/animals
• Bosses
• Quests
• Instances
• Power-ups
• Special moves
• Crazy things your AI is doing
• Etc.

14. Community Planning
(Ideally) 3 months before launch

15. Community Planning
• Develop messaging and content specifically for the community.
• Social posts
• Art and asset reveals
• Discussions with fans of the genre and of your emerging brand/IP
• Behind-the-scenes video
• Streaming with the devs

16. Community Program
• Again, the audience is capable of consuming content daily
• Utilize community sites, forums and social media to spread the info
around
• Your site and social media feeds become the repository of all info –
the goal is for people to follow the strings to your site and channels,
and visit all of the communities where you are building your player
base

17. Community Program
• Incentivize virality – If you share and support us, you will be
rewarded:
• In-game currency
• Exclusive in-game items
• Forum badges
• Early access to new content

18. Cultivate and Reward Evangelists
• Look for protectors in the forums or in comments sections about your
game/news
• Empower and positively reinforce behaviors that are helpful or
wanted
• Celebritize and reward individuals – third-party spokespeople are the
most credible with media and the community
• Create cosmetic rewards – Beta 1 Badge, Trophy for house, Special
outfit

19. Beta Testing Group
• Build a beta test group of fans and players that can and will give
constructive feedback.
• Platform examples include: Steam, GooglePlay, HockeyApp and
TestFlight

20. Types of PC Launches
• Limited or Early Access – Good for games with some polish or the
need to keep some things behind the curtain, but also need feedback
and beta/load testing
• Full Access – Highly polished and ready to go, might be testing
additional features
• Stealth – Keep it mysterious as long as possible (bad for pre-orders,
but may delay a potential negative wave until problems are fixed)
• Full Commercial Release – Game is in a shippable and complete state.
Updates will be expected, but this is the level where it is viable in the
marketplace without Level 1 bugs

21. Mobile Launches
• For paid apps, you’re launching it like a PC title
• For Free-to-Play, a period of 3-9 months is expected to tune the KPIs,
• Needs traffic in test country (1,000+ players minimum) – New Zealand or
Australia
• Ironically, launching a free-to-play game is more expensive than launching a
paid title. Minimum for a test is $1,000-$3,000
• This can be aided by segmenting the beta test group

22. Previews
• Normally a week or two out for mobile, or up to a couple months
leading up to launch with PC games
• Plan official assets and exclusives for each outlet
• If you have online or synchronous multiplayer, servers need to be full
or have liquidity
• Be specific in what features or parts are going to be shown at each
time
• If it’s broken, don’t show it yet

23. Post Launch
• Execution of maintenance campaigns that echo previous messages
and tactics
• Expanding the audience through new targeting
• Use additional features to reach people that are waiting for that piece
to be added (determine that from forums and feedback)
• Ongoing and ever increasing levels of support

24. Sample Launch Plan

26. Resources and Additional Tools
• Virality tools –
• Overwolf (PC Games) – www.overwolf.com
• Offerpop (Facebook and Twitter) – www.offerpop.com
• Hubspot (Facebook and Twitter) – www.hubspot.com
• Hootsuite (Facebook and Twitter) – www.hootsuite.com
• TweetAdder (Twitter) – www.tweetadder.com
• Virool (YouTube and Vimeo videos) – www.virool.com

27. sean@ide-agency.com