How to work with the games media

[Music] [Music] so I'm super wood I'm from Staffordshire University and if you wondering why there's somebody from university here I'm my background is actually I'm a journalist I've been a news editor and I've been an editor right across most of the media so I've worked in newspapers have worked in websites I've done all of that the reason I'm actually here a kind of gaming event is I'm also the course leader for the UK's only degree in games journalism and PR and what that means for the industry is I'm working really really hard to make sure that there's a whole bunch of new people coming into the industry who really are trained journalists train PRS but train journalism PR knowing absolutely

everything about games so that they they work really closely with our games people in the working with that as well so that's kind of why I'm here so I'm gonna do the same thing with with everybody else which is to ask them to tell you who they are what they do with their organization and why they're here today we alright with that Jackie thank you see I'm Jackie Vaz I'm from de moto which is the world's best PR agency for the games and yet we've specialised in in this area for I would say five years now so we were right at the beginning of this this industry and hundreds Harry who's actually been a colleague of mine over the years so yeah hi my name's Harry Cole I've been freelancing PR for about five years now lucky enough to work with Jackie not so long ago which is great to be up here with her as well and now Edelman and doing some work on Xbox but a lot of my experience comes in mobile gaming and technology I'm Greg

Chappell I'm senior editor of Pocket Gamer dobby's which I hope you recognize from being this conference today and I also ever see influencer update Dobies which is our new website dedicated to the world of influences and influencer marketing I've been doing this for about six years used to work at develop magazine I had some time at Nintendo and throughout the last year and a half I've been a steel media I'm Harry Slater I'm the deputy editor of Pocket Gamer go to UK in the editor of one for a apps and to do a variety of things all across the still mainly a b2c network again but doing it for about six years now written for a large variety of publications about mobile games and I've probably played more mobile games than most people in the world thank you and obviously now you know who you are hopefully you're gonna stay in the room for a bit longer you'll notice I've helpfully put them in O two of their name so if like me you kind of wander in

and think who is that person who just spoke it's all if they're in that order okay so one of the things I want to find out now is who you guys are so how many of you in the room are on the production side I you're making games are you involved in building games or you you basically at that site of creating the product okay we've got anyone in the room who's on the promotional side ie your press your PR your doing marketing okay right I'm so actually a bit of a mix I was sort of thinking if it went one particular way I would kind of skew things like that way I'm gonna start with one question to the panel and then I'm gonna start asking questions of you guys okay my question is rather than how to work with the media how not to work with the media what's the worst thing you can do particularly if you're a developer and you're trying to get the media interested let's start with you Jackie okay don't randomly send messages via email

filling up her very busy journalists inbox with the relevant stuff that is immediately going to get deleted we have to appreciate you have to put yourself in other people's shoes and appreciate that they are seeing as as you said Harry a lot of game was having to review a lot of games having to look at a lot of information all the time and just be very appreciative that that person has their life and look at what they're doing and understand what they're interested in and then maybe trying to make a contact that is meaningful and valuable to them rather than just and some spurious press release yeah I think Jackie hit the nail on the head there really but the other side of that is to try to build relationships and to make sure what you're sending is relevant because sometimes I think people will rush into thinking contact many people and you know see what happens but it's not really a numbers game it's more of

build relationships you're better off speaking to three to five people that actually want what you're doing rather than sending out a hundred emails and not even getting any responses and then the next time you you know an even smaller number of people want to hear from you one of the things you could do is appreciate if you're trying to tell someone about your new product or your new game you're very excited about it and you want to tell them absolutely everything that's great about it but what you need to do is you need to send like a very short email and we've like a link to pictures or a video or something if you've got paragraphs and paragraphs and paragraphs explain every feature I get so many emails a day I just don't have time to like read it all so that's a big mistake that I see quite often and unfortunately often it doesn't means it doesn't get rid I think for me if I get an email that starts dear editor I'm gonna delete you instantly

it's incredibly as journalists we all have massive egos and we like to be pampered and told was special and the best so if an email is clearly a form email then I feel horrible about myself for an hour and I don't like that it's a good okay so those of you in the audience who said that you're on production site on the development side have you made any of those mistakes so far you're not gonna own up to them okay I've got another question then for you how easy do you find it yourselves to make those relationships with the media those of you that on the development side if you kind of started doing that yet found it easy found it difficult come on it's audience participation like okay go their way okay [Music] so it's a really difficult thing because

it's your passion you know you've put all that time into it you put all that effort into it and all you want to go is and and and and this and that and it's it's quite tough and I was I was on this

a similar panel in in PG connects Helsinki which is a great we're gonna put a big advert for that because it's brilliant brilliant XO but it was in certain problems with a guy called Keith Stewart who was a freelance journalist and what he said to me was yes is difficult for those relationships you made very very quickly as quickly as you want them to be but what one thing he said which I said which really resonated with me said if you can tell a really really interesting story that will make you just take some notice and he was he was just saying a story about a guy who was developing games in Iceland or something in an igloo was out but it just really captured his interest and it really made him remember that guy and remember that person and and want to write about that guy's games so maybe that's the way to get over the you know the wanting to get that quick connection so actually make a really relevant and interesting story I mean one thing I would say is as obviously you've been working on a game

for two years don't come to us at the end of the two years come and say I'm building this they of the shows like this and PTC and Helsinki and all the other places are great to come and get early built into our hands to put big I mean obviously one of the big problems is email is very impersonal but if I get an email saying hi Ari I saw your panel whatever and then then that's a link to something light and the remember I'm putting a face to a name so I think even though we're journalists like we want to be there for you at every stage not just the end if you come to us at the end saying I've released this game and sometimes I got emails that it's like I'll release this game a week ago and it's like I don't care anymore it's a week ago it's this is my while gaming like everything before that is the really interesting stuff with if I'm excited about your game and I want to write about it and make other people

excited about it but a week after it's come out and it's you know it's missed its feature on the App Store or whatever then it's not it's not news to me anymore it's not worthy of well it might be worthy of review but eight other games have come out in the time that yours has been out so make sure you're always updating us and telling us and even if you don't get replies just keep saying oh you know now we've got build three and this is adding new features and so it's a it's almost like you're creating the story for us rather than coming at the end and saying it was a game what's your name and what game noon I think I know this because you've already yeah okay okay so obviously when you contact Harry Uhl he'll know exactly who you are I think what I think what

you said about about picking you journalists is actually really quite important and so I'll show you to say that as well and being able to massage Harry's enormous ego by being able to say what what are the really good reviews that you've read of him or the stuff because we know what's a good work and we really like to know that somebody else has noticed that as well and and even things like keeps it keeps to you it knowing that he was from you know Guardian and all of that kind of stuff knowing that knowing our backstories as a journalist it also helps but actually what Jackie was saying which is what we really want to get to as a journalist is the story of why you made that game that's the most important thing that matters is in some ways it's more important than the game itself is is being able to have that backstory around you and why you kind of hassling everybody and driving all over the place trying to say play my game play my game you know we need to kind of know that that it's not just about by my game that there's a reason why you want us to play ok there's somebody over here have the hand of wanted to say that they would have got

some contacts with the media as well as a developer no ok right ok I'm gonna go with another question then and this is another one for and the developers in the audience have you ever been knocked back by the media or journalists have you ever had that kind of sending emails out and not getting a response and not knowing why and if you had that yeah what was your game by the way it's Swedish okay Harry might remember that was on PlayStation yeah I mean I personalize doll of those I've got about 40% hit rate and I've got a bunch of good reviews and stuff so I felt they worked but yeah you can't expect to get a response to everything so I think that's fine I've got some responses okay and

since then how was it well I don't work for hire since then so I haven't done that game after that yet okay towards that so we'll see things have changed but all the advice I heard before but it's good to hear that it's kind of the same and the same process so far what we've got in terms of advice is get to know the journalists and their work have a bit of a backstory yourself one of the other things I'd ask is whether and I think it kind of came up a little bit is whether the timing you mentioned about not coming to us at the end of the process and that are there kind of key points when it's better to contact the media within that whole process would you say did you're bein all right and maybe not quite answer to that question but I I would say that coming to events is actually really important events that you know journalists go see because I know a bunch of developers that I've

probably been speaking to you for years now and they still haven't released like their games but if we talk we see each other oh hi how's it going or how's that game going so we've already built like up a weird rapport of just meet each other events but now Lee when their game is gonna be released so people oh I remember you and I'll give them very a bit more time that I might give someone else which sounds really harsh but they have made the effort to actually build up that rapport get that game in my minds and is constantly thinking about it I was just gonna say that in terms of when to contact press I think sometimes it can be really good to start thinking about your your your marketing which is essentially what it is from the moment you start to make a game you could speak to a journalist and the initial stages when you're talking about your projects conception and you could get an idea of whether they think it's interesting at that point it can decide your entire you know whether you make the game or not and that sounds quite brutal but it's you've got to think about what people are looking for and if they're not

looking for your type of game or you don't have the story that's going to really create a lot of interest you know use it to shape what you're going to create yeah total segue from what you were saying is a lot of a lot of particularly the indie game developers that the big guys get this right actually they manage to see things out creative bars because they've got the budget to do it but also they've got the confidence to do it and I think when you're an indie developer you just don't want to lay yourself bare you don't want to say hey these are the starts of this is the root of my game I'm not quite sure if it's all right it's buggy all those things that are going on within the game that you're not necessarily quite proud about so a lot of people just hold back they put all of their effort and their money and time into getting the game perfect and then with by the time they've got it done everyone's like why didn't you why didn't you tell me about this before so it's kind of like have the confidence to lay yourself bare and show things while

they're in development because we all know that it's never going to be perfect from day one and no game is perfect even from day one is it I mean is there constantly under development and improvement so I think people need to be a little bit more confident when they come forward first day which kind of leaves me sorry you know what yeah [Music] you guys are not going to dislike the idea where we are in a very early stage and how can we actually present it better that get your interest that you actually don't miss leading your idea at that moment because I think for developers always what's the right time to talk to you guys I think from my point of view like as a as a as a writer I understand that the criticism of the

finished product isn't it isn't doesn't begin at the start if you see what I mean so if you come to me with a game that you say look this is built this is they might do this it might do that and I play it and I see that the germ of the idea there and you know I'm always happy to talk about games because I think that's one thing a lot of people forget is that most people got into games journalism vickysd a love games so I'm not I'm not gonna pick apart a build that's you know in in the in the early stages that there because that's not I don't I don't want to destroy things I want to make sure that when you you've got a great idea and I want to make sure that it's the best idea when it comes out because I like writing nice reviews and I don't like going but actually there's so many times that I've written a review and then like if you know just send me an email no I don't do that do that put out that

unfortunately I've no talent in actually making things but I think if you can't be scared to bring out at any point one thing I would says sometimes if I someone says I've got a game show yeah and it's just some slides I'll forget about it because it's just pictures and but get the game in our hands as you think you want to basically yeah would you say that that would be at the first MVP like the first when you would be showing that and testing that with people with audiences yourself internally or maybe with friends and family that that would be the time really to put it out to you guys I think it's import I think especially with smaller indie developers they'll come with a game that they've spent years working on but

they've only ever like had their mom and dad play it and then you know their mom and dad are probably lovely people but they don't know as much about mobile games as I do I think it's you know even from a writing point of view just getting something out there is a terrifying thing and and saying this is a thing what I have done what my team has done but we're not going to try and destroy your career or your lives basically I'm gonna just ask you a follow-up question and I've come to the chap over there is is that it's the fear that you will end up with negative press and that that will follow you forever kind of thing I don't think it's a negative feedback guys figure us it's more about how do you prepare people that doesn't know what you're trying to bill how do you best prepare that in a very short paragraph because in the beginning you guys mentioned that people tend to write a lot of feature brief and then when we are in the development

stage you kind of think that okay we still have five months until we reach to the goal but do we want to show this doesn't show the final concept and how do we actually talk to a media press I think that's kind of preparation work that we don't know how to deal with media press one developer point of view and the reason I'm sticking here because I'm charging the phone up because I [Laughter] how'd it be on the chair I will say the one tactic that I've always found in PR is the kind of like how would you tell someone about it in a pub concept which is you know similar to the lyft concept of you've only got five seconds but if you can sort of summarize the idea early on or a stage in the the games development or publicity or marketing where you can get the idea across as quickly as possible and for someone to understand it and like it then you're in

a really good place to build on that and similarly sorry but similarly we worked on a CCG I think we were working together on this on on earth course chess tournaments I was before but anyway it's a CCG it was it was coming up against hearthstone and the way that we kind of communicated it was not only just through the gameplay the the the MVP but it's also through the artwork because it was it was a collectible card game so he we pushed out a lot of the artwork to create a buzz to introduce people to it properly so as much as you can do visually it's really really important because it's not just words I think you guys must get it so blasted with words and words and words and just show us a trailer show us a video and that you know that that will that will show us what your concept is even if you haven't quite built it yet okay go there had a question yeah I was just going to give you this

room from my perspective because I my day job I produce programs for the BBC so there's that sports programs but I'm also developing games so they're there sports themed games so I'm kind of kind of seeing it from both perspectives so as a journalist I think the relationships are well there's three things one I'd say the relationships because the the people who get the best access on the show that I produce they're the people we know you know and they can call me out they could take you out for coffee or go go drinking but like you said come to events like this where you actually see people and speak to them so they that's an ongoing relationship story you know have you have a great story and journalists are

you know quite often they're lazy people they'd rather a good story fell into their lap then they may go around you know spending hours trying to find a story so if somebody comes to me with a great story you know that makes my life so much easier and if they bought me a meal as well great you know the other things the timing because you know you could have you could have a great relationship with me you could have a great story but if I'm not doing that story that particular week it's it's not going to work but in three or four weeks time you know we could be covering whatever it is so let's say in in a games perspective if it's indie game I'm looking for indie games about pets for example it might not work this week but in two weeks time we want to do cover that story so there's this I think there's those three things okay which is time to make a wing what you've said anyway [Laughter]

so did going a bit sideways but yes sometimes you're not just marketing gay maybe you would like to get your company story out or you've raised funding or there are types of news so that's that that's that like differ somehow from from you know the game pitching and and what should be done differently if the story is about about the team new company you know other milestones when it's like a new company personally I'm always very happy with an exclusive so if you could offer if you come to me and say oh we're starting this new company we've got this funding then that's that's great well any publication will pretty there's a b2b will be very interesting that I think a lot of things are very similar though so again you wouldn't like send an email there it's just like paragraphs and paragraphs and paragraphs or just endless stuff about your company right at the start it has to be oh this is what we're doing this is who it is does that sound of interest

and then we can get the conversation going after that which might sound weird cuz then the next email is probably gonna be paragraphs and paragraphs of stuff but you have to get their opening response ads the amount of emails you get a day the amount of stories you have to think about and you have to think about or what am I going to cover it or cover that or cover that like the best way to do it is assure you Merrill explaining like the best things about what you're doing so again I've got questions for the audience which is how many of you feel that you do in your own media at the moment maybe you're in your own YouTube channels maybe you do know your own tweeting you do know that kind of stuff who's doing all their own media you you who's paying people to do their media oh no one in the room okay that's that's kind of one of the questions I've got for you like and again particularly because I'm aware of kind of what you do how what's the difference in terms of going to a PR company getting that PR

companies to come up with a proper plan and then making those approaches or just come in raw as the gamer and straight to the the journalists how do you I'm kind of thinking that might be split here from my prospective I speak to a lot of indie game developers I speak to a lot of big game developer publishers and it's it's down to the objectives what you trying to achieve you mentioned corporate PR and getting the company well known and everything else so that could be one objective so many Indies come to us wanting PR to drive downloads and it doesn't and so you know everything else we do we will commence any you use acquisition activity but the bottom line is that PR is is the basics the fundamentals building reputation their company awareness getting you know great recruits all that all the others all the good stuff and really augmenting what you're doing in terms of user acquisition so I'd say you know you have

to really think about what you want to achieve first before you even think about why are you using PR it okay [Music] [Music]