1.
Being Mike Bithell
Simon Byron, director of games/social,
Premier
@byronicman
Tiny disclaimer: I really like Mike and all this ribbing is meant affectionately

2.
Session objective
To observe the phenomena known as
‘Mike Bithell’ and identify six rules for
being him

3.
Introductions
• Simon Byron:
– Director of games at Premier
– 2,600 followers on Twitter
(@byronicman)
– Co-authored two books on
videogames
– Present One Life Left, a weekly
radio show about videogames
– Videogames PR since 1994
– Won CTW “PR exec of the year”
• Mike Bithell
– Well, he’s Mike Bithell
– 22,000 followers on Twitter
(@mikebithell)
– Worked on a fair few
videogames
– Wrote Thomas Was Alone, is
writing Volume
– Is basically a child (I think he is
about 30 or something)
– Won a fucking BAFTA
Mike is winning

4.
Reasons to be Mike

5.
Reasons to be Mike
“...it will be well nigh impossible to reach an
audience unless you are at least as good at
public relations and marketing as you are at
game development.”
Greg Costikyan, game designer, author
GDC 2014

6.
|A wider view
• Good games aren’t guaranteed to sell
• Review scores often don’t matter
• The industry view is frequently at odds with the consumers’
• People literally like free to play
• It’s not who you know, it’s what you say

7.
Time
Importance

8.
Metacritic:
61 per cent Xbox 360
57 per cent PS3

9.
Metacritic:
60 per cent PS3

10.
Metacritic:
No-one reviews
Facebook games

11.
“[I’m] shit at coding, I'm not a
very good programmer, I've
never had any training”

12.
#1
Lesson one: Share it

13.
#1

14.
#2

15.
Perfect
opening
Brilliant
introduction
Recognises we
are lazy
Absolutely no
fucking about

16.
One Life Left exclusives!
Earliest example of an actual, Mike
Bithell in the wild!
First ever mention of Thomas Was
Alone!

17.
#2
Lesson two: be opportunistic
#2b: Turn up for interviews. I could
have been doing this talk about you.

18.
#3

19.
17 – 23rd
June 2012
24th
– 30th
June 2012

20.
24th
– 30th
June 2012
1st
– 7th
July 2012

21.
#3:
Lesson three: Be prepared

22.
#4

23.
“Mike Bithell” 12 months to 20/5
“Thomas Was Alone” 12 months to 20/5

24.
“Godus” 12 months to 20/5
“Peter Molyneux” 12 months to 20/5“Peter Molyneux” NOT “Curiosity” 12 months to 20/5“Peter Molyneux“ and not “Curiosity” nor “Godus” 12 months to 20/5

25.
A month in Tweets

26.
A month in Tweets

27.
A month in Tweets

28.
A month in Tweets

29.
A month in Tweets

30.
#4
Create personality, but don’t
dominate

31.
#5

32.
#6

33.
#6

34.
Thank you
• Google
• Twitter
• Sysomos (paid)
• Topsy
• Google Trends
• Metacritic
• Mobygames
Resources used in this talk: