Pre-release marketing

Pre-release marketing involves much more than crafting a press release and sending it out with the hope that the media will pick it up. In general, this approach will not work. By looking at pre-release marketing tactics, you’re already ahead of most devs.

The most essential thing to do right away is have a clear and honest assessment of your game in terms of adoption and differentiation. Does it have the “wow” factor or even something that is notably different that will pique interest. I don’t mean to sound blunt, but a high percentage of games available in iTunes really aren’t very good or worthwhile. You really need to be honest about it because if it’s a lousy game, any hype you build up will quickly be diffused. As a marketing person, I’m usually pretty blunt with clients because it doesn’t do anyone any favors by making false promises and under delivering.

If I haven’t burst your bubble yet, here a few tactics to consider. The first is to focus on building your community, and one of the most accessible ways is through social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook. You can generate followers and keep their interest by providing early videos of gameplay or even brief interviews talking about the game itself. Twitter and Facebook are simply delivery vehicles…where you make your impact is through the content you provide. Controversial material will often help with generating attention, but this is a gamble that can backfire. Conservative is often what I suggest especially if you haven’t done viral before, but this all depends on your comfort level.

You can also use giveaways to generate buzz, but of course this depends on your budgetary constraints. But used strategically, these can have high returns by generating word of mouth from your followers. Promo codes are an often used gimmick, and if you’re smart, you’ve selected a specific release date rather than allow Apple to randomly release your game. By selecting a specific release date, you can secure promo codes early and use those as part of your giveaways.

With that content, you should also branch out not just to the typical game and review sites, but to other outlets as well. It’s a typical mistake to simply focus on a site for example such as TA. While TA may have a large audience, I often see devs give up because TA won’t cover their game. That’s a bad mistake. If you understand your target audience for your game, there are other outlets even more relevant than TA simply because it reaches the right audience. Let me know give you an example—children’s games that border on educational. I’ve heard from devs who constantly ask me how to get on TA because no one responds. My response is that you should be looking at other media outlets beyond gaming sites that reach parents and kids. Think about it—Parenting Magazine has a circulation of 750k, and most are looking for educational games for their kids. Know your audience and what they actually read. TA, STP and IGN are not the only games in town.

The use of a lite version is good tool as well, and I typically suggest you get the lite out before the full paid version if possible. If the game is good, the lite version will spur enough people to want the paid version, and the delay between the two can generate the buzz you want. Often what I see in iTunes is the reverse where devs release the paid version followed by the lite. The potential problem with this approach however is that you’ve lost a good deal of buzz by the time the lite version comes out especially with the subsequent and continuing release of new games. From a pure strategic standpoint, it’s to your advantage to do the opposite because nothing beats the initial hype that comes from the release.

These tactics are just some ideas, but they do a lot more to build awareness than advertising. Advertising/banner ads usually don’t pay off. In fact, the click through on ads that generate actual sales is so low, you wind up losing money. Again, PR/viral/word of mouth should be done way before you even think about advertising if at all. Advertising before you do any of this other stuff will simply be a waste of money.

Btw, if you’re considering hiring a PR firm, you’d be better off hiring a consultant who is more cost effective and more likely to give you the attention you deserve. PR firms tend to have too much overhead and overpromise results.

 

You seem to have a good understanding in this area. Are you subtly offering your services as such a consultant?

I am intrigued about the idea of deliberately releasing a lite version first. My first instinct is that you would lose a lot of sales from people who were willing and able to make a purchase after trying out the lite version but then either (1) forget to purchase the game after the full version comes out or (2) too much time passes and all the other hot, new games coming out wind up pushing your game so far back on the "to buy" list that it never gets bought.

However, what you said about building buzz and maximizing initial sales also has merit and perhaps, as a dev myself, I am falling into the dev's fallacy of releasing a lite version afterwards in order to revive interest in an app.

Perhaps the key to success in employing this strategy lies in picking the right timing between releasing the lite and full versions. That is, we can take some time to build buzz but not too much time or else we may lose out on potential sales.

I need to think about this some more but I feel like there is some correlation here with the strategy of releasing a game at full price and then putting it on sale versus launching at a discounted sale price before bumping the price back up later...

 

Do Demos even work? I would have thought if people were interested, they'll put down a couple quid on a game. However if you give them the option to try it and they hate it, then they'll never buy it. I mean theres so many games I woulda wasted my money on if there wasn't a Demo or "Lite" and Apple call it.

 

Actually, I'm not a gun for hire but I do marketing for tech companies. I just think devs sometimes hamstrung themselves even before they're out of the gate.

Marketing is all about timing, and as we all know, Apple really doesn't do devs any favors. That's why pre-release marketing is so important. If you wait until the game is released, you've already missed the boat.

As for putting out a lite version before the full paid version, you definitely do not want too much time to pass between the two. I'm a believer that putting out a lite version first is to your benefit. What often happens is the reverse...where the dev puts out a paid version first. And, by the time they put out a free lite version, the momentum and buzz is already gone. If you use the lite version properly, you can convert many of the lite users to fully paid. Of course, this all depends on how confident you are about your game and its worthiness. If the game blows, a lite version won't help your cause.

As for pricing promotions, I think you also run into problems by using price reductions prematurely. This all depends on what you deem to be a fair price at least in the world of iTunes. I will say that once you cut the price, you pigeonhole yourself into that lower price. The majority of buyers especially those who follow gaming will not buy at a higher price especially if you pull the trigger on a sale too soon. You not only irritate the early adopters with a premature sale price, you also lose leverage with future sales. There is a time for them, but you have to be smart about when to do it.

 

Thats true. But I think that's why he was saying a lite (or any advertising) will only help you if you have a genuinely good game. If you're game sucks and you're trying to "fool" people into buying it, then it probably won't succeed anyway in the long run. If your game is good, then a lite will only make people want to buy it that much more.

I am curious about the whole "initial sale" vs "later sale" thing though. IMO dropping the price later on down the road after release just seems... meh to me. As a consumer I might hold out on buying a game because of these stupid random sales because I know most of the time they are bound to drop in price sooner or later. And then I forget about the game altogether and never buy it. An initial sale would SEEM to allow for a better chance of the early push, where the volume of games sold seem to matter most in order to try to push into a top 100 list. Also as a consumer in this case, you feel rewarded for getting the game early rather then punished.

As for the lite version thing... I am definitely curious to hear more about this, including peoples' experience with releasing a lite before, at the same time as, and after the full version.

 

Pricing strategy is always a gamble and it can work either way. Whatever you decide should be fine as long as it's part of an overall plan that makes sense. The issue I see (or at least get the impression) is that a lot of these decisions from marketing to pricing are done haphazardly. It's like they wake up one morning and see sales are in the tank, and it's "Let's lower the price to see what happens."

Talk to any marketing or PR person, and the first thing they'll do when it comes to planning is to develop a week-by-week timeline detailing activities. The farther out, the better it is depending on the release date. Rush jobs are not good when it comes to launches.

 

The best pricing model now is to make your game free and then charge for in game items. With how easy it is to buy things on your Iphone, people don't tend to think about how much money they're actually spending. The good thing is if you keep your game up to date, the hardcore will give you a constant revenue stream. You'll get a few casuals who will pour a few quid into the game and that is just a bonus really. I think Farmville is the latest proof of how successful that model is. Tap Tap revenge show you how it can apply to any game though, charge for cosmetic items and people will buy them. I also love how they give you credits for going on the advertising which they're obviously being paid for.

I have no problems with Micro Transactions, as long as they don't force you to pay. Give me a way to earn it in game or just make the purchases purely cosmetic. When you start doing what PK AOE does where you need food to level and the only viable way of getting it is paying... when I say no and uninstall.


I think Demos have proven to be pretty useless. I know COD4 is a known quantity but it wasn't well known to many gamers and it sold millions without a demo. All the Demo gives the chance to do is lose you sales. If people are interested they will put down a couple quid no matter what. If the game is good then it'll have good reviews so they wont need to worry.

 

Yet we don't currently seeing this model working for ngmoco, who is spearheading the freemium efforts on the AppStore.

 

good post, I am always wondering why some good company release a lite version before the paid version, not I got some reason, thank you man.

 

I'm only arguing this one point because I wholeheartedly agree with everything else you said. And I actually used to believe strongly in a demo first, to get people 'anticipating' your game, but as I studied the console world more, I wondered why developers are moving away from demos. So I've come to the conclusion that a big part of any new hyped thing, whether a game or a product, is the 'experience'. Gamers want to play your game and see what the big fuss is about and they want to feel the controls and see the graphics for themselves. I think if you give away a demo, you're allowing your players to 'experience' core parts of the game, and I think it's possible that a portion of those players will be less excited to buy the game now they've had that experience. Of course, I don't claim to know how big or small that number of players is, and I definitely think it's worth putting out the demo a while after launch to capture anyone who needs to play a demo before buying. But also, as Scaramoosh said, releasing the game before the demo, there's potential to grab customers who may not like the game but buy it anyway because they didn't get a chance to try it first. Very unethical frame of thinking, but still true as far as the sales go.

 

Well, we are selling an entertainment 'experience' when we sell our games so allowing players to get a free taste of that 'experience' in a lite version is really meant to entice them to pay up in order to consume the entire 'experience'. I guess I'm just stating the obvious but, to get to my point, I think you are pointing out that there is a certain amount of sales that can be attributed purely to how a game is perceived. That is, players may buy a game simply because they think it will provide them with a certain gameplay experience. This much is true but I believe this only applies to 99-cent games since there isn't a whole lot to lose if the player is wrong. In fact, I think a lot of 99-cent crap used to make it to the top paid lists based on a cool name, icon, screenshots, etc. although the app store has matured now so that is no longer the case.

Anyways, I think Big Albie is talking about how to maximize revenues for a quality game in the mid- to high-price tier. These kind of games do not depend on perceived value but actual, real value in the gameplay experience that they provide. They look like a duck, quack like a duck, and when you buy them, what you really get is...a duck. These kind of games are not worried about losing sales from customers who tried a demo first and didn't like the game because such 'sucker sales' (my unofficial term) were never part of their projected revenue in the first place. To be fair, I admit that the actual value of a game is subjective so there will always be some kind of difference between perceived value and actual value but when you translate this into sales lost from putting out a lite version first, I believe that the impact should be insignificant.

 

Bingo! Sure there are ways of gaming Apple's system to get into the Top 100 which seems to be the holy grail of iTunes. This becomes a problem because so many games are, to be blunt, crap. Devs should be looking at this from a business standpoint...this is a marathon and not a sprint. And you need to be planning with a longer runaway. I've seen too many devs become frustrated because their game doesn't become an overnight success. You're building a business, at least that's the way devs should look at this, and that requires a bit of vision.

As for the freemium pricing model, there are a few studies, although it's still early, about the effectiveness of this approach. This tends to work well with the younger demographic because there is less disposable income. So free is good and tends to entice people in that age range (18 and younger). It becomes less effective with the older demographic simply because incomes tend to rise with age. Most prefer to have a game that "feels" baked as opposed to something that is more or less a nickel-and-dime shell. This is partly due to consumer behavior. People prefer to buy things that are more or less complete. The younger the demographic is however, and the more likely you prefer free.

Just from looking at the past polls here at TA, you'll find that a large portion of visitors fall into the 25+ age range. Most gamers are older and tend to have more disposable income, and thus less likely to prefer the freemium model. It's still too early to determine whether or not ngmoco's freemium model works, and thus saying that the freemium model is the best pricing model is far from accurate. I think freemium is one of several strategies, but it's definitely not a one-size-fits all.

 

This is a great thread, a very interesting read so far. This sounds like a lot of very solid advice coming from Big Albie; while we haven't released a game on iTunes yet and I don't have my own experience to share on this, I can definitely see a lot of frustration from devs here and elsewhere who decide to use (what I call) the "spray and pray" method of marketing. It's too bad because that method seems doomed to fail. I'll definitely be working on an organized and longer-term strategy once we get closer to launch with our game. I'm interested to hear some first-hand experiences from other devs as well, if you feel like sharing, let us know what worked and didn't work for you.

 

So was I

The Modern Warfares, the Halos, the GTA Chinatown Wars', the Super Monkey Balls, the Dooms, the Ravenswords, the Space Ore Busts… — Just saying, look at the premium games on the App store that have had chart success and see how many of them have demos. …It's not many.

Of course it all depends on the style of game, and I still think it's an important aspect to discuss further, but I don't think it should be dismissed so quickly, especially when we look at the directions that the successful developers are taking.

 

I think it's worth pointing out that I'm not saying you have to have demos. It really comes down to being honest about the value of your game. Demos are tools that you can use or not use in your marketing. My main point is that devs really need to look at making a concerted effort when it comes to marketing their games. That means using the tools available to you, and having said that, using every single marketing device out there doesn't guarantee success either. Generating awareness is an ongoing process that never really stops for the life of your product. Just because you make what you think is a great product won't make people buy it.

 

In my experience, it all depends on the type of game you're releasing. Figure out if your game is worth the early buzz and if it can easily attract fans or build a community. Sit down, study your game, look at it from different angles and come up with several marketing plans then compare each one. Some games are successful in building a community after its released (i.e. fans discussing strategies, comparing stats, etc.) while others are not.

 

I see a lot of speculation in this thread, but little hard evidence of the benefits of one tactic over another. I'd love to see some scientific studies. It's not like the data isn't out there. The AppStore should be a statistician and marketer's diamond mine.

There are counter examples to some of the things that have been suggested:

- "mediocre" games that have made mysteriously managed to go viral and land on top lists. Even if this doesn't last, the money they make dwarfs what most unranked games make in a year, and so I think it's silly to belittle "tricks" to getting onto the top list.

- good games that succeeded without any formal marketing plan (i.e. Mika Mobile's excellent pair of titles)

- games that had no traction until a lite was introduced (the classic example being iShoot).

- games that are neither mainstream successses nor "crap" with V-shaped user ratings histograms... these may never make top lists, but are a good candidates for targeted marketing

I think a lot of people underestimate how much luck is involved in having a big success. It's not just what you put into your app, but timing of what other folk are putting into the store, what genres have already been filled, and small butterfly effects where there's a huge gap in success between an app that just barely misses cracking a top list and a similar app that just barely snags that first precious rung, to say nothing of fluctuations and ripple effects. If you are neck and neck with a similar game, and drift below them in rank based on daily sales fluctuations, you can easily end up in a free fall.

Here's a fun little game. Make a list of all the new releases trickling into the AppStore in any given week and see if you can predict which will end up on top lists and which won't. What's scary is that there are plenty of apps that clearly had a lot of time/money pumped into them, yet end up with zero user reviews. It's overly simplistic to dismiss all these failures as "crap." It's feast and famine... and fun.

 

Very good point.

For all my examples above of popular games without demos, it's worth mentioning they also all had a significant amount of media buzz. If you've got the publicity, it's possible you can benefit from not having a demo. But in the case of iShoot, with no publicity, it's the demo that got it exposure. So I think your strategy should be completely tailored toward the type of game and the amount of publicity you're getting.