Welcome to Make the Game. My name is

Matt Hackett and today we're talking to

Robbie Bishop, a marketing and PR expert

at Pirate PR. Let's jump right in.

You're listening to Make the Game with

Matt Hackett.

Marketing and PR is such a big thing

with indie game developers cuz I think

so many of us just jump in and make our

games and then later we're like, "Oh, I

got to what's PR? I got to market this

thing. Are you kidding?" It dep and then

what's PR? It just depends on what they

want it to be. It can be press releases.

It can be public relations. Oh, I like

that. Whatever. Whatever we need it to

be. And in our case, it's just PR with

some extra RS attached. PR. I I love the

pirate theme. Pirate PR. Uh you've got

this picture that that you post

everywhere where you're wearing just a

like it's funny how just a little bit of

pirate gear really sells it. an eye

patch, a hat, you know, if you want to

put a parrot on your shoulder, get a

hook hand, but like and if we ever meet

in person, I'm giving you one of these.

Wait, where's the camera? Oh, sign me up

for that. So, that's a metal coin. It's

our business card basically with the

slogan. We put the R in PR and then the

Twitter handle for as long as that's

still a thing and our email address.

That's amazing. This these worked

wonders, by the way, in getting new

clients because everybody's just handing

out cardboard cards that are a dime in a

dozen and you lose them and then these

things just stay around. People keep

them on their desk because they're fun

to fidget with. Wow. Yeah. Right over

here. I have a stack of business cards

and like I there's hundreds. And at some

point you're like, I don't want to go

through all of them and you just toss

them all out again and then you start

over when you go to a new event.

Exactly. Right. Yeah. Wow. So, obviously

a coin is going to be way more expensive

than a car, but it sounds like you've

found that to be worth the investment.

Yeah. And the coin is something we give

to potential clients. Um, so what's

these? We had thousand of them made at

€2 a piece. So that's a €2,000

investment for business cards. That's

high. But they stay around and one just

having one or two clients already pays

back for them. So

bigger clients, right? Yeah. And we

actually thought about it because uh

it's difficult to see, but there's a

star on the other side and we made it

protrude so they don't stack as well,

but also you can put the star side on

your coin on your desk and you can just

spin them.

No

kidding. That was intentional. That was

intentional. This This is a stroke of

genius. You made like a a memorable

business card/fidget toy slash pirate

booty. Yeah. the the the the most fun

story I've had is I it was just a client

for a smaller budget. Like we just sent

a single press release for them and that

was it. Uh but they reached out to us

saying like I found your coin at

Gamescom and was like found I gave them

to people. Yeah. It was just lying at

some booth and at first I was like oh

how dare they just leave it hanging at a

booth. But then afterwards I was like

but someone found it picked it up and

contacted us because it was too cool to

throw away. Exactly. Yeah. If they found

a business card, you wouldn't have

gotten that email, right? They would

have been like, "Exactly, here's here's

some garbage." I mean, and we also went

to TwitchCon and there we went for a

cheaper option and instead of coins

because these are more expensive to make

and just not going to hand them out to

just everyone. But on TwitchCon, uh we

had uh pirate eye patches made in paper

with our logo on one side and just a a

silly string on to connect to their face

to actually put it on their face as a

eye patch. And on the inside had a QR

code to become a partner

partner. Yeah. And I just they give with

a question like what's your Twitch uh

handle so we can add them to the press

list if you wanted to. That's brilliant.

Yeah, it was brilliant. But that that

conversion was really low because

apparently TwitchCon is not full of

people who play

games. It's just full of people who have

an account on Twitch, but most of them

aren't gamers, it seems.

So are they their games? Do they watch

they like watching the streamers? So

they like games. Most people there are

like just chatting artist stuff, react

stuff. Uh

like the you you'd be surprised how the

majority is not really playing games of

the bigger ones. That is surprising. I

have seen that just chatting is an

extremely popular category. Like I saw

it eclipse, you know, League of Legends

and and Fortnite and I was thinking I

guess that kind of makes sense because

anyone can do just chatting whereas only

certain play like I don't play Fortnite.

I don't play League of Legends and so

you're discounting a lot of people just

based on the games they play. So I don't

know if that was like a oh it really is

that popular or it's just because it's

so easy and anyone can do it. Yeah. And

then also they the ones that do play

games tend to only play one single game.

So, for me as an indie variety outlet or

sending lots of codes for lots of games

throughout the year, it's not that

interesting because I want people who

play new games all of the time and not

just someone who plays one game and

that's it, right? Like I'll never add

people to our press list that only play

Grand Theft Auto, Fortnite.

Like maybe some cases I will see someone

who only plays Slay the Spire and I

think like maybe I can convince him on

the next big rogike deck builder. Maybe.

Right. That's a good point. Yeah. I see

a lot of people who like all they do is

play Binding of Isaac. They've been

doing it for years. Like they're a

Twitch streamer I followed a while ago.

Like they're still playing the same game

all these years later. I've been seeing

articles going around about how some are

wondering if that's hurting newer games.

The fact that, you know, people are

still obsessed with, say, Minecraft,

which is a kind of an older game at this

point. And when you have a new game, you

have to not just compete with all the

other new games coming out. You have to

compete with the last 10 20 years of of

huge hit games that are still getting

updates. Yeah. And that's been the case

more and more in recent years where uh

wasn't there a statistic recently like

only 15% of games played in 2024 were

new games and they were just playing

older games. Wow. On Steam. And then I

find this to be in the case of press and

creators as well like they in their free

time they will just go back to comfort

games and getting them sold on the next

game to play is really hard and then I'm

usually using the length of a game a

short game as a strength and saying like

this will only take you two hours of

your time or only three hours of your

time because more and more I always tell

people you're no longer fighting for the

budgets of pe of uh players

because the age went up, like the

average age of the gamer went up from

like lower 20s to over the 30s recently.

And those people don't have time. They

have money. They have a full-time job,

but they don't have the time to play

many games. So, they just pick something

that they can play with friends,

something they can go back to again and

again when they only have 15 minutes,

only 30 minutes, but they still want to

get that one quick game in. I think

that's also one of the reasons why

mobile gaming is on the uprise because

that's something you can just like play

on the toilet or when you're waiting for

something

versus a commitment of an RPG. If like

if I am a huge Final Fantasy fan and it

took me an entire year to beat Rebirth.

An entire year. It came out in February.

I had a preview code a week before the

game came out. Last last time that

happened in 2020, I beat Remake in the

the full week. I just said to everybody,

I'm taking the week off. I told my wife,

you're watching the kids and I'm just

playing that game non-stop, day in day

out. Still one of my best recent

memories, by the way. I had a ton of

fun. But then this year, I made some

videos. I didn't do a review for it. Um

because besides, I'm also a freelance uh

reviewer on the side as a hobby mostly.

And then for Rebirth, I started playing

in February and I only beat it like at 2

days before the last day of the year,

like on the 30th of uh December or

something or the 29th, I beat the game.

I was like, "Yeah, I still beat it this

year on PlayStation 5."

Yeah. When you're younger, you have time

but no money. And when you're older, you

have money but no time, right?

It's the the cruel nature, I guess, of

being a modern. And all of those people

currently who think I don't have

time, but I have the money, they they

kind of think like maybe I'll get to it

when I retire or something, but then

they don't have health, which is

actually an extra thing in the triangle.

Oh, that's rough. Yeah. Yeah. I'll play

all the games when I'm old, right? But

then you don't have your eyesight.

Yeah. Up. My hands hurt at this point

sometimes, right? Like if I'll be I'll

be playing Spalunky, which is a very

demanding game. You'll be using your

thumbs constantly. And like I didn't

used to get cramps, you know, when I was

a kid playing through Blaster Master,

Metroid, and I was playing uh Tycoon

Noatsuin, and I hope I pronounced that

right this morning on my Xbox

controller. I was like cramping up at

the end of it. Yep. Comes with age.

That's That's depressing, but beats the

alternative, as I like to

say. Getting older is better than dying.

True. That's all I hope we get to live

to that age. I hope so. Then we can play

our backlog finally. I think that's what

it's going to take is retirement before

I finally my wish list right now is 162

strong and I have at least 100 games in

my in my Steam library I still haven't

touched. So, it's like and I I intend

to. Like, it's in the back of my mind. I

just don't know when in the world I'm

going to get around to that. I have

about 550 on my Xbox alone,

and that's just digital. I still have

like physical boxes I haven't even

opened. Wow. Yep. Yeah. I've been

whittling down my game collection over

the years. I used to have several

hundred, mostly classically NES, Super

Nintendo, Genesis is my is my jam. And

now I'm down to like only a hundred or

two.

And to loop back to the original thing

where we came to this topic

is I don't see a lot of people going

back to old games they once bought and

then thinking I'll play this today

basically they will just go back to

their comfort things. And the reason why

me and I don't know if it's the same for

you but why we still go back to recent

games is mostly because we're in the

industry. So we kind of have to stay up

to date with what's happening. like if

I'm reviewing games or if I have a

podcast where we talk about games, I

have to play recent things as well. I

can't just play games that are five, six

years old and that's why I stay updated.

But I don't think that's like for people

in the industry or for people who talk

about with their friends all of the

time. But for more solitary gamers who

just play for their own entertainment or

something, they don't have that same

kind of drive of staying with the

program and playing recent things. They

can just play whatever on their catalog.

Why would they spend se 70 or 80 euros

even now on the latest game when they

can just play something they never

touched from their backlog that excited

them when they bought that in the store?

Exactly. Yeah. Do

you have you found that you need to

carve out time specifically to like keep

up with the Joneses like know where the

industry's at, know what games are

popular and do you consider that like

part of the work? Like do you schedule

that during your workday?

I should but no like my workday

officially on paper should be eight

hours because I'm uh how do you call it

like I also just get a steady month

of what's the term for it? So somebody

that gets a paycheck a salary man or

something. Yeah, sure. I officially on

paper I'm that because I have a mother

company above us who handles all of

that, but I work easily 10 to sometimes

12 hours per day and some of that should

go into playing those games, but most of

it is just like work and then a new

email pops up or a new DM and I just

keep reacting to the thing that then

seems the most urgent until at some time

an external factor, my wife or something

tells me like that's been enough.

So yeah. Yep. That sounds a lot like a

lot of the developers doesn't feel like

work.

Yeah. Still fun to do. So, yeah. Yeah. I

think that's that's the feeling from a

lot of indie game devs is they they work

way more than they should, which like if

you look at your hourby- hour rate, it

takes it down. Like the more you work,

the less you get paid, but they don't

care because they are passionate about

it and they they actually enjoy it,

which is great. Yeah. just for me just

earlier today um getting that trailer

live on IGN just before a press release

and then the developer pushing his his

demo live because Steam wasn't replying

to them. Like I love that rush of

getting everything done like in the nick

of time and still getting everything out

and then for the outside public they

don't see any flaw. It's just like

everything went perfectly like Yeah. but

only barely. Yeah. you were like, "Sweat

and anxiety brought that to fruition."

Um, well, I would love to hear more

about that. What's uh what's the game

and and what's the what's the trailer?

Is there a marketing beat attached to

it? Yeah, so the marketing beat was the

demo going live and then u by the way,

props to IGN for this. Um, so I always

pitch the trailer first. That's usually

the first part of my my job actually is

I push out press releases, but I realize

that the trailer is one of the most

important assets for it. So, I always

give it a close critical eye and give

feedback on like here's how to improve

the trailer. Most of the time it's make

it shorter or remove this boring bit or

something or you're showing way too much

UI, people don't want to see it in a in

a trailer or too many cinematics like go

for the gameplay and mostly the game

play. And then when the trailer is good

and I then I usually have a pretty good

estimate of like this will make it onto

game trailers only or this one will be

considered for IGN if we can pitch it in

the right moment and with the right

exclusivity or something and then that

stuff that happens before I send out the

trailer uh the press

release and I actually have to sometimes

not lie but give IGN a different embargo

date than the one I really need them to

do because I want to send out my press

release ideally with a trailer from them

so it looks extra professional with

their official trailer banner on it. Uh

so usually if I have to send out a press

release at like 10:30 in the morning, I

will tell them embargo is 9:00 and they

can just go live an hour or an hour and

a half soon sooner. Um and then for this

game the the marketing beat was my

trailer my demo is out right now. And

then also the trailer had the demo out

now call to action at the end of it. And

props to IGN because I asked them like,

"Yep, we're good to go." Um, Steam

responded that uh the demo was approved

because he didn't hear from them all

this time. Steam still needs to approve

it on their end as well if a demo can go

up. Uh, and he just showed me the

screenshot of Steam basically

greenlighting everything.

And I just sent to IGN, okay, you can go

ahead. And then the UK person, Emma,

they she came back to me like 2 hours

after this saying, are you sure you

wanted to go up because the Steam page

still doesn't show the demo? And I

double checked. I'm like, oh, she's

right. And I tried to contact the

developer, but he's living in the US, so

he was basically knocked out for the

night. And then he came back in the

evening saying, "Oh, I didn't press my

the button on my end of things." Like,

oo, okay. So was really good that they

did a double check on their end as well.

Excellent. And then when he said like,

"Yeah, I pub I published it. It's live

now." Okay. Sending my email to IGN that

they can go live with it. They replied

within less than half an hour. So again,

really fast. And then my press release

went out at 6:00 this evening. Well, it

was actually scheduled to go out at

10:00 in the morning. But

it's still a sweet spot. Like Yeah. Like

the thing is you can do these press

releases. We used to do it that we sent

them out in waves and then we would send

them

um like to the US people only in the US

times and to the European people only in

the European times. But these days I

just send it out like at one good point

and then we'll just see the the the

articles come out at later stages like

now we'll see US articles come out

before we see European ones. And

normally we see the other way around and

actually value personally the European

UK ones a little bit higher than the US

ones because the success rate is lower

in the US to get through to them.

They're a little bit more AAA minded

then here we are here in Europe.

Um and also the timing doesn't matter as

much because they will still p push if

they were going to push and not like

miss it. And then another thing why I

prefer the mornings is everybody else

seems to prefer that 6:00 to 8:00

evening time for us in Europe as the

moment to send out press releases. But

if you're following that rule, you're

just one of the 20 emails they get at

the same time versus ours arrive in a

moment when people are not receiving

press releases most of the time. And

that helps because I'm also on all of

those press lists from other people. So

I can actually see this happening live

in my inbox when like now is a really

busy time. Maybe I shouldn't be like one

of many and wait a bit. That really

helps.

So you find the less traffic times and

you hit th those when they're getting

fewer emails. Yeah. And then a few days

later if uh a press release

underperformed sometimes it happens

because for example if you send out a

press release at the same time as an

event that's happening but if that same

event has 30 or 40 games and they're all

sending press releases then again you'll

be in that crowd then the next morning

or something we will just check like we

use a tool called Presley and I can just

check the people who didn't open it yet

and send to those people again. Nice.

like only to the people who didn't open

it yet.

That's a really good

strategy. That's That brings up a great

question, which is one of the questions

you get the most at Pirate PR is, can

you guarantee getting coverage by the

big guys such as IGN? Yeah. And then

that's where the feeling comes in. Like

I can if they show me their trailer, I

can usually tell them like this will

make it into game trailers for sure

because they I'm not going to say

lowered their bar or something, but

trailers has just gotten better overall

because of tools and how people use

them. You rarely see very very bad

trailers these days. Mostly just that

not interesting or something like the

content could be more interesting but

the production values are high enough.

Uh, and I get a good feeling for like

this will make it onto game trailers and

if they put it on game trailers, they

automatically also put it on IGN.com on

the website. But that one while looking

cool and you can say like, "Oo, I'm on

IGN doesn't really get that much views

because it's more like a

database like the same location where

you see key art or a box art or

something or screenshots. You will also

see a trailer. it'll pop up in your

YouTube search in your Google searches,

but most people don't organically

um search that one versus the game

trailers YouTube is searched a lot and

people actually like scroll through it

on a daily basis and see like what's new

and chances for that are pretty good. I

think if I look at our press releases,

we have like 80 to 90% success rate of

getting them on game trailers. Oh wow.

And the ones where it doesn't happen,

I'm usually able to pinpoint them and

tell them in advance like, "Yeah, this

I'm not feeling it." And they probably

won't as well. And then indeed

afterwards, I see that like and there's

also other factors for this where they

send me a trailer and say like, "Hey,

can you pitch this to IGN?" I'm like,

"Yeah, but it's the same trailer on your

own YouTube channel for two from two

months ago." Like if you don't make

something new, they will not share it

because there's no news value to it. And

then sometimes I will ask them to like

just change the call to action or like

tidy it up a little bit. And then the

one I'm sending to IGN uh will be one

that's unlisted. And I will also send

them a download link to the 4K version

to really like lower the friction for

them to do all of the work. I will even

give them suggestions of this is like

good key art you could use for the

thumbnail, knowing where they will put

their official trailer thing in the top

in the bottom left corner and keeping

that in mind. and also attaching the

logo so they can put it as large as they

want to, right? Because they don't they

if you look at uh game trailers and IGN

on the channels, you will almost never

just see the key art from the game. They

always take a screenshot or some other

artwork from the game, but never the

same thing that the developers are also

using for communicating about their

game. They always make their own custom

handle and then lowering the friction

there really helps.

So, it sounds like getting your trailer

posted on IGN, it's not going to get as

many views or wish lists or or whatever,

but it's is it more of a legitimizing

thing? Yeah, that really helps other

people talk about it. And sometimes it

does help because you can have trailers

that go viral. Um, and like I said, game

trailers is lower than IGN. So, I was

mentioning before IGN the website, but

IGN also has their own trailer um hub on

YouTube. getting on that one is usually

better and even less of a chance of

actually succeeding there. That's

usually when you pitch an exclusive

like, "Hey, I will let you put the

trailer on your channel

live 24 hours before the developer even

does so. Your trailer on YouTube will be

the only possible place to find this

trailer for 24 hours. And whoever writes

an article about it, they have to use

your your trailer. our press release

will use your trailer like everybody

anywhere they will have to either link

to yours or they can upload it to their

own channel but they will have to say I

found this trailer on IGN and that's

where you pitch the exclusive and it's

not something we do for every single

game because I just know it would be too

much and then otherwise I also see the

success rate. I know what kind of

trailers they're looking for. uh it

won't just be like any any old indie

trailer, but something that I already

went viral or that just looks like high

quality and it's never been shared

before

and that's for the main channel.

Um but then like yeah, like you said,

including this is good for us because um

just people on our press list seeing

like whoa, almost every press release I

get from these people is with the

official trailer must be doing something

right. So that's already an ego boost a

little bit, but at the same time it

converts better as well because it

legitimizes the game. Like in the same

way that uh if you create a new Twitter

handle and you start posting, it's not

because you're only just posting that

you don't get a lot of interactions, but

it's also because you don't have a lot

of followers. If people see a post by

you and they want to know more about you

and they click the the the profile and

they see this person has 15 followers,

they're like mentally more ready to

easily dismiss you as not important yet.

And then the magic number there on

Twitter, etc. seems to be like 1,000. If

they see an account that has 1,000 or

more, it's like, ah, this this has been

around for a while. People engaged with

it, they followed it, it's probably

important. and then pack mentality or or

herd mentality, they will just follow.

Yeah. They want to see that you've done

the work and you've gathered a little

bit of so you've got momentum that they

could jump off of, right? You know, with

a hit rate uh of 80 or 90% like you were

saying of getting those trailers onto

IGN. That's amazing. Um you must have

really good intuition for for which

trailers are going to get picked up and

which aren't. Do you is does that just

come from the experience you have or do

you have specific things that you look

out for that other developers could look

to try to do for their trailers? Yeah.

Uh there's some basic things but a lot

of it is feeling and then basically if I

were just a gamer seeing this for the

first time I keep a mind like of at what

point would I click away like when do

they bore me? When do when do they lose

me? Um, the tricky thing is to keep this

fresh mindset when you're looking at

multiple versions of a trailer for a

client beforehand because every time

they send you a new version, you have to

try and look at it with fresh eyes and

going like, I've never seen this before.

Go. And that's the hard part because

you've you have pre-existing knowledge

of like, wa, this is 10 times better

than before. And then you will you're

easy to think like, okay, so it's good

enough because it's 10 times better, but

is it? And then sometimes it still needs

that extra tweak which could be like

timing in the music hitting the right

beats or something. Um or just what's

being shown. Um easy some easy ones and

that you'll everybody listening will

probably have heard a few times but

still it happens. Um don't start with

your company logo. Yep.

But you'd be surprised how many people

still do it. Um a recent example was

with uh Barour which you can agree is a

really cool title for a game and they

also started with like Varsaf Studios.

Uh and the feedback was given to them

like yeah don't start with your studio

logo but they really wanted to make the

studio like a known entity. So they

incorporated into the game. So Varsaf

was written on uh like how do you call

it the lid on a sewer grate or something

and that's what like the first shot was

that sewer grate with Varsaf on it and

then panning and then you saw the dog

running on the wall because

parkour. Um that's pretty good.

Dioetic and part of the game world there

and like related not just totally

separate like oh here's this thing and

then separately here's a game. Yeah, I

like that. Like if you're making a

trailer for the Nintendo Switch, for

PlayStation, for Xbox, you're going to

have to follow some rules. And that rule

is always to start with our or click or

you can't mimic the PlayStation sound

well, but basically they're opening

sound. Yeah. And you will have to use

this. By the way, it's really funny how

they have these rules of you have to use

this, but when you are talking to them,

it's not like they give you a kit with

like here are all of these materials.

Like most of the developers I know, they

just downloaded a YouTube video where

it's already in there. Downloaded the

YouTube video in its entirety and cut

off the first or the end or something

like the important bits like we need

this in our own video

because they have this very strict rules

but they don't really easily provide it

like here is the template, here are the

rules to follow or something. Usually

it's after you submit the first time um

your video that they will give feedback

like this has to be better or the

Nintendo Switch icon was covered by a

green leaf for like one

pixel denied. Yes, I've heard of that.

Yeah, I podcasted with Derek Lou who's

uh one of the most prolific indie game

trailer makers. And his article um is

also the one I sent to everybody because

he has a single article where he goes

over all of the requirements for all of

those platforms as well. Yeah, he does

he does he does a better job at

explaining it than all of those

platforms do themselves. Yeah, his

resource is like more useful than the

than the official uh like like Sony

themselves or Microsoft or whoever. like

I don't know if it's in this article as

well or if I found those externally

because I don't know if you can share

them but like for each platform there's

also so I made my trailer now who the

hell do I send it to is also like very

specific procedure

like sometimes it's submitted via the

back end but most of the time it's

basically just email it to this person

and then you have a timeline of if you

want to be live at that time you have to

send the trailer so many days in advance

Interesting. Well, it sounds like that's

where Pirate PR comes in handy. You send

your trailer to Pirate PR. Yeah, I don't

make them, but I I do give a lot of

feedback on them because I I realize how

important the value is. And then

sometimes I will even greenlight a

trailer and say like this is perfect for

your Steam page because it has so much

different gameplay things you're

showing. But now, let's talk about the

YouTube version that we want to share.

It should be shorter, compact, and more

interesting to watch because nobody's

going to watch the entirety. And on

Steam, no one is going to watch the

entirety as well. But there, I basically

do the click at random random moments

trick. And every time I click somewhere

randomly on the trailer, it should show

interesting gameplay.

That's a great rule of thumb. Yeah. Uh

Chris Zukowski of how to market

agame.com did this study where he

watched actual Steam users um shopping

for games on Steam and their eyes. Yeah.

a lot of them would skip the trailer

entirely and go straight to the

screenshots because you can just go

click click click and you get a faster

uh it's a faster way to view the game.

But then even when they did click the

trailer, you would see them skip cuz a

lot of times as you mentioned their

logo's there and the intro stuff and

like get out of here. So they they go

like they skip 20% in, they skip to the

middle, they skip near the end, they

jump around and that that that's a great

point. Why? Like every single moment

pretty much in your trailer needs to be

great because if you have like a down

like oh well I want to have a downturn

before we get back to the exciting stuff

like well they might have skipped right

past the exciting stuff and they ended

up right in the middle of that dull

stuff. So that's not good. And if your

if your exciting stuff isn't audio based

or leaning on audio too much like a

rhythm game for example then that also

translates into gifs. And I always tell

people on Steam, like they have a really

good compressing tool behind it or

something, use more GIFs. Like if you

have key features at the bottom of your

about the game, like every key feature

should have at least one gift explaining

the key feature and showing it to

people. Nice. That can just be the best

moments from your trailer cut up into

GIFs. But yeah, really useful. In my

press release, there's always at least

one GIF as well because you can't embed

uh a YouTube trailer in your press

release. Like in my side of things, on

the press release that I do on Presley,

it's an embedded YouTube trailer, but in

people's inboxes, it will just appear as

a preview uh thumbnail and when they

click it, it opens the

website. Or you can also program it that

if they click it, it opens directly the

the trailer itself. But usually I want

to send them to my press release so they

all the information. But the GIF shows

the game play right away. Right. Did I

hear Presley? Is that the name? That's a

tool I'm using. So if you're not

familiar with it, it's basically a

Mailchimp, but it's more specialized for

games press. Nintendo use it as well. Uh

I see more and more PR agencies and

publisher use it as well. Maybe also

partly because I'm recommending it to

everybody to use it. And it's only

afterwards that I found out it's created

in Belgium. Oh, cool. Well, they should

they should start giving you uh

commissions for all your

recommendations. It was because I saw in

their um like partners or something uh

but I forgot the name for it like

basically uh a press outlet for Belgian

press but then not not for games like

really mainstream like the newspapers

and TV and stuff. They all get their

resources from one single location and

that was like one of the partners they

listed. I was like that's weird from all

of the countries in the world that they

would list this one and then only later

I found out like ah the founder is from

Belgium and most of the people working

here as well. Okay, cool. Perfect. Well,

it's kind of a small country, right? Uh

you were saying the other day it was

just like a few you could drive across

in just a few hours. Three. Yeah. Like

diagonally you can probably do in three

hours from the far end most far end to

the other end. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I live

in California where it's just stupid.

It's too big. It's too big. Like the

whole country is too big. But uh yeah,

so you live live nearby. That's that's

awesome. Uh when you send your your

press uh release out, what what is the

format there? Is it is it PDF or do you

send like a link to say like a Google

slides or how does that work? No, it's

it's uh just like Mailchimp works. I

guess is like there's an online

equivalent of it that people whenever

they click an image or uh like the

YouTube trailer, they go to the online

version of the press release and it's

basically a web page but in their inbox

it's just an email. It's an email with

HTML formatted stuff in it like gives u

the that's also one of the downsides of

Presley is that freedom wise in

formatting this I'm a little bit limited

versus um on Mailchimp for example

there's some easy things you can do

there like a line left like having a

small a square image and then having

text line to it that's like pretty basic

stuff but it doesn't work on their site

so I have to work around it and I

basically made this template that I'm

still using 2 hours after almost

untouched. And whenever I have people

send press releases through us because

that's one of the solutions we have

where they write the press release, I

send it out. I still make changes to it

of course to make it better because

everybody receiving it doesn't know is

this Robbie writing it or is it one of

his clients? So the the level needs to

be high up there. But I just basically

send them a template that they can fill

in a Google doc and I can just copy

paste it into Presley afterwards.

Excellent. Send it out. That sounds like

a great system. Yeah. And this the

reason why I always use the same

template as well is also because I want

to create a habit for people that

receive multiple press releases from us

that they can just know like half a

scroll gets me exactly to the request

the code link or something or the

trailer is always here and uh the very

first paragraph will always talk about

what game it is and who's making it and

there will always be a clickable link

there bringing me to Steam even though

that same clickable link is like listed

three or four times more in the press

release. So, I don't I don't want people

to have to go looking to it. Like

basically it's releasing on Steam that's

clickable and goes to Steam and then a

little bit later it'll say uh wish list

here on Steam and then at the bottom it

will say press kit here, Steam page here

like multiple times because I want them

to wishlist it even though press and

media aren't our main target like they

are not the consumers buying the game or

not most of them at least but them just

adding it to their wish list also helps

the momentum of just having a few more

Right. I know a lot of indie game devs

like me are obsessed with wish lists.

Like I'm trying to gather wish lists for

my game Pixel Watcher right now and it's

it's slowgoing. A lot of game devs that

come to me, they want to know what works

for getting wish lists. Yeah, I wish I

had a golden answer to this that works

every single time. Um, what works for

wish lists? Well, first of all, having a

really good game. That goes a long way.

Um, and then this is the more boring

answer, but having a game that people on

Steam want because that's basically the

only place where wish lists matter. You

have wish lists on Xbox, Switch,

PlayStation, people don't know that they

they all have a wish list system. People

just don't use it. I don't I I use wish

list on Steam. I know Xbox on Xbox I use

wish lists, but it's only when I'm

browsing the sales and I think this sale

isn't big enough yet. and then I'll wish

list it so I get a ping when the

discount is bigger. But it's not like to

know when a game comes out. But those

metrics are also not used. It's not like

those platforms are putting games higher

up into their order or something because

they have more wish lists that they

basically play the friend politics game

where they push games from publishers

that they know well or people who have

connections to ask them like, "Hey, can

you put me in this sale?" or something.

That really helps,

right? Um, but wish lists on Steam,

things that really work, like getting a

good trailer on IGN, that will go a long

way. But nobody can guarantee you, not

even IGN themselves, like what will this

trailer do? Sometimes you launch one and

it will only get a few thousand views.

Like on on game trailers itself, the

average seems to be around 2,000. So if

you get more than 2,000, your trailer

probably is doing well. If it's less

than 2,000, either your trailer itself

didn't do well or the timing when it

went up in between other games was just

bad luck. Nothing you can do about it.

Yeah. Like if I if if I had uploaded the

trailer today before the Switch 2

announcement, then probably a lot of my

views were consumed by people going

like, "Let's click on that game trailer.

Was this the Switch 2 was announced?"

Click. And they're not looking like

that. That's just bad luck. Nobody knew

what time or what hour it was going to

be. Yeah. Um and then on game on IGN

itself, sometimes you can get lucky and

get into the millions of views. Like

earlier this year, we had a a trailer

for Zucosis that had 2.5 million views.

Wow. Like yeah, that'll get you wish

lists. That'll translate into wish lists

that many. And then even the trailer and

it was the only thing was shared like

the Steam page existed. The trailer

existed. There was no demo and hundreds

of people, lots of them from India by

the way, uh they made shorts analyzing

that very short trailer and saying like,

"Yeah, we saw a monster giraffe, but

what's what are the other animals that

will turn into monsters? Let's look for

clues." And then those videos became

videos with multiple view with millions

of views. And core to that is just

having a game that visually very very

interesting. Like here you had a monster

giraffe that walks around like a spider.

Visually interesting. Later in the year

we worked for Skim. Every screenshot or

video you see for the game Skiim. And

for people who don't know it, it's the

game. You probably already saw it where

you jump from shadow to shadow in like

an isometric perspective. Every

screenshot from that looks like piece of

art. Like it looks really good. Um the

trailers performed well for it. Um, the

wish lists also went up in the 200,000

and above. Um, but then you would even

see people because it's so visually

interesting. There was this one person

with like 8,000 followers on Tik Tok.

No, on on YouTube, like 8,000. That's so

okay. That's that's nice that you have

8,000, but you don't expect anything

viral from it. But then he made a short

and that short had 3 million views and

it was the best viewed short in the

world for the game. Wow. With three

million views. And that's to to say this

like don't never never downplay the

small guys like they could be your

trigger to success as well. Uh in this

case that was the case for Skim like was

one of the best performing views. Uh

that got us some wish list as well. And

then sometimes you will even see

coverage that you as a developer might

not like but it will still be a wish

list. Cannon. Um, concrete example here

was when we launched the the Steam

NextFest trailer of

Voxlands, now renamed to Vauxile for

some legal reasons, I think. Um, so on

IGN it was uploaded and I was surprised

because this one I would have guessed

they would put on game trailers, but

probably not IGN because the trailer

itself was shaky. The game was

interesting. It was basically um

Minecraft with guns. I'll get back to

that later.

Uh, and the the game itself was really

interesting. Looks really good as well.

I like also wondering what magic they're

pulling off that it runs smoothly even

on my laptop. Uh, but the trailer was a

little bit shaky. Could have been

optimized more. I didn't also have my

usual feedback around on it and was

basically like, "Nope, we don't have

time. This is the one. Okay, I'll send

it out as such." Um, and they uploaded

it to the main IGN channel. didn't get a

ton of views immediately, but I think we

ended up at like 180,000 or something.

Wow. Uh, which is which is good. Uh, but

that was a contributor to the wish list,

but I think the biggest boost came from

two gaming bible articles and really

most people are not the biggest fan of

them because they basically write

clickbait articles as they did here. And

then for people around in February last

year, the biggest trending game was

Palworld, like Pokemon but with guns. So

they wrote an article saying Minecraft

but with guns. And then the developer

was like they're oversimplifying my game

and they shouldn't compare it to PAL

World. But I was like, what does the

graph of your wish list look like? Whoa,

it's spiking. So, let's just go by the

there is no really bad press uh old

statement and just let the thing do its

thing and look back and enjoy the wish

list going up. I saw something from uh I

want to say it was Finy where they were

saying what they like to do is put

something out there and then the fans

will tell them what it is or how to sell

it. Yeah. And an example being like um

uh Overland I think was their their kind

of dystopian turn-based tactical game

like survival game. I hope I'm getting

that right. And they didn't know exactly

how to position it. They didn't know

what to say it was to sell to people in

exciting way. And they were showing it

at some event like you know uh E3 or PAX

or something. And one of their players

was like oh this is great. It's and they

like nailed like like just it flowed

right out of their mouth. It was like

the perfect way to sell the game. Uh it

was something like, "Oh, it's like a a

dystopian road trip where you help

people and save dogs or or something

like that, you know, and they were like,

whoa, that's great." Obviously, wasn't

that exactly, but that that makes me

think of uh uh how you were saying the

was it gaming bible like they they came

up with maybe maybe a better positioning

like a good way to sell the game and

that can be that can be useful too.

And it's also that that's usually the

game plus game equals this new thing is

something I almost never use myself in

press releases, but I try and kind of

push people to it by using the same

vocabulary as one game usually does and

then a little bit lower the same

vocabulary as another game usually does.

And they'll usually come to the

conclusion themselves and think they're

pretty smart for coming to the

conclusion without me basically telling

them. Uh, for example, for Ruffy and the

Riverside, I would say this is Banjo

Kazouie plus Paper Mario aesthetics or

something, right? But I don't want to

use those um well-known games in a press

release and just like lean on the

popularity of others myself too much and

basically let it speak for itself. I

like that. Yeah, I posted some advice on

my art uh my vladri.com my blog where I

was like, don't use other games to

describe your game. And this is advice I

picked up again from uh Derek Lou. I

think he had a talk with someone else,

but they were like they gave several

reasons to not do that. One of them

being like if you say it's I don't know,

you know, Fortnite meets Minecraft,

that's a bad example. You pick more

obscure games right away if people don't

like one of those games, they're out. Or

if they never heard of one of those

games, they're out. And it can also or

if there is one thing they really like

about the game and then they start

thinking this is the game that has that

as well and this is just the one feature

you dropped then they'll be disappointed

and they will complain about it.

Exactly. That suddenly a negative Steam

review. Right. If you say it's like

Minecraft meets something else, what

Minecraft means to you might be

something else to someone else and they

might be like you said it's like

Minecraft which means it has a million

features. Yes, it's got online

multiplayer. I guess you can there's

there's a creator mode like Minecraft

does everything. It's practically a

platform like even beyond a game. So

saying that can be dangerous because

you'll set up the expectation for your

game to let the player down. So that's

that's kind of dangerous. So it sounds

like you're of the same mind where you

don't mention but like it it's

contextual though like sometimes it's

appropriate like sometimes you do want

to mention another game. I I don't use

it in a in a press release because

that's officially what most people will

just copy and paste and base their own

writing on. But if I'm pitching that

press release directly, I will use it.

Like again, the recent example from Rafy

and Riverside. In the press release, I

didn't mention it, but now that we have

a demo coming out and we are sending

keys in advance to people, I am

customizing the message I send to each

individual person a little bit. And I

will say like you'll probably like it

because I know you're one of the biggest

fans of Ocarina of Time. And do you know

what? The developer even has a live like

extremely large-sized 3D printed Ocarina

of Time uh cartridge in his own house.

Like I will use that as something to

convince them. Or if I know that they

played for example Born of Bread

recently and that's like an RPG that

looks a lot like Paper Mario, then it

will also bring that up in the pitch

saying like you'll probably recognize

some things of the game like

inspirations from it because it's

basically this game that you like plus

there also some of the aesthetics from a

Paper Mario game and then just bringing

that up then because I want I know

specifically what they like about that

game and then bring it up. But it's

easier if I'm talking to one person

versus if I'm talking to a group of

people. You know that they've heard of

it rather than you say the name of a

game and they're like, "Wait, what's

that?" And all of a sudden you're having

to explain someone else's game instead

of your own. You're out there selling,

you know, Starcraft or something. Yeah.

If I'm pitching to a YouTuber who

doesn't just say like, "I like Zelda

games," but they in their bio say like,

"Okarina of Time is my favorite Zelda."

That's like, "Aha, a hook." Yes. And as

pirates, we like hooks. Yeah. I have a

big spreadsheet that I'm adding to over

time of just people who've played and

enjoyed Powerwash Simulator and I know

they know the game and I'll be like,

"Hey, Pixel Washer is a little bit like

Powerware Simulator. If you like

watching stuff, obviously a lot of

differences and that gives me an opening

like, "Oh, I like Powerwire Simulator."

I'm like, "Well, I can tell you how it's

similar to Powerware Simulator, but how

Pixelasher is different because

obviously it's very different than than

that." But I know that there's that

shared context where I don't have to sit

there and be like, "Oh, okay. Well,

Power Simulator is the same with blah

blah blah. A little tip for you in that

regard is if you have a channel like

that that did multiple videos on

Powerware Simulator, watch the very very

first video they made for the game

because that's usually the one where

they share their opinions of what they

like and don't like about it.

Afterwards, they will tune in and they

will keep playing it and then they will

go for side things that keep them

playing like ah so satisfying another

achievement or something. But at the

very first like the 10 to 20 minutes of

them opening the game for the very first

time, that's crucial because that's when

you learn why they kept playing it and

also why you can try and come do the

same thing in your game. Interesting.

Yeah, you can see what they didn't like

about it and I could be like, "Oh, well,

my game doubles down on that part that

didn't like, so maybe I will." In that

first video, they might at the end of

it, they might make a half hour let's

play of Power Simulator, but they might

be like, "Okay." And at the end, I hate

this game. I'm never playing it again.

like maybe maybe don't contact that

person with a similar game cuz they

might not like it. And then by the way,

if they do something like this and say I

don't like this game or you get like a

negative vibe from it, watch their

second and third video as well. And this

is a lot of research I know. But

sometimes you'll hear things like

because someone in my community asked me

to keep playing it because trust me it

gets better. And then you you can also

use that and like um either get to the

good stuff that they like quicker is one

thing in the game itself or already just

be honest about it and say like yeah it

takes some get like you'll need to get

into it first before it becomes

satisfying or before it becomes

something that you'll really enjoy but

trust me you'll get there

right. Yeah I've heard that a lot where

someone will say like oh you just got to

get past the first 10 or 20 hours and

then you're really going to like this

game. And I'm like, "Oh, I can't like

I'm never going to get there." Um, like

I I mentioned, I like Final Fantasy

games. I think a lot fewer people would

have played Final Fantasy 13 if it

wasn't for the fan base going like, "It

really gets good 20 hours in." Yes. Yep.

I've heard that exact. They convinced on

mass their their their friends and their

the people they're talking to like,

"Yeah, I know it is a solo linear start,

but it gets really good if you hang if

you hold on to the if you hang in

there." Yeah. Just power through it.

Yeah.

Ideally, they don't have to, but Yeah.

Yeah. This is a question that I get a

lot and that I think comes up um often

when talking to uh PR and marketing

experts is how long do you need to

market a game? Right? Because sometimes

a developer will come to you and they're

like we're launching in a week and

you're like that's I can't that's not

enough time. I can't do anything about

that. Versus some especially solo game

developers have this habit of being like

I've been working on my epic masterpiece

for eight years which is a very long

time to be continuously marketing. And

you might get some people who get bored

and drop off and delete their wish list

and like I'm I've been hearing about

this game for six years. I'm tired of

it. So what is what is enough time to

market a game? Do you look at like

minimum thresholds or maximum thresholds

or is it more more by feeling? Uh at the

very least I need a month or like five

weeks like that's that's the very least

I need and it's usually my game is

coming out. What can you still do? And

if they tell me my game is coming out in

a week or in two weeks, then my I will

just say I can send send out a simple

press release. You'll have to handle all

of the rest yourself. But I can't do my

work to your satisfaction if you only

give me this much time, this amount of

time. I can still send out a press

release because it's better than not

sending out a press release, but you're

not doing yourself a favor by like

launching it now. And I usually ask the

question, why are you launching it now?

And if their reply is because we said it

would launch now then like my follow-up

question is to whom to how many people

saw this how many people cared like yeah

I posted about it on my Twitter show me

the tweet where you said it's going to

launch tomorrow or in a week or

something like this is the one okay you

got 25 likes on that do you really think

those 25 people maybe disappoint being

disappointed weighs up against the fact

that you're not doing your game the full

service that you could be doing it and

then I usually look at uh the entire

timeline with those people and say like

let's look at this like a positive. Is

your game feature complete? Yes. Did you

have it bug tested? Okay. So, use the

extra time where I'm doing my marketing

side of things to bug test it to QA test

it to make sure that when people get the

game it actually is good. Uh and when I

say people I usually mean press and

media because they get access before

everybody else does. But it also means

they usually are the first to spot

mistakes in it. By the way, I always

try, and this is a big word, try, play

test my own games, the one I'm doing

marketing for, so I can already be one

of the first people giving them uh like

a mock review or like bug fixes, like

things like in the first few hours, I

bumped into these issues, fix them

because other people will say the same.

Yeah. Um that's good advice. But that's

like the the minimum runway I usually

want is like five weeks or something. uh

because that that's that allows me to at

least do two marketing beats which are

the most important to me personally as

PR is um announcing the release date of

the game and then when I send out the

press release I do really want them to

hold on to it if possible like if I'm

doing it for um coming out on all

platforms in 5 weeks and then really

saying like day and month. It's okay if

one of those platforms comes later

because you can actually treat it as an

extra marketing beat like, "Sorry,

Switch took a little longer, PlayStation

took a little longer." It's always those

two.

Um, whenever whenever a developer tells

me, I'm releasing on all platforms at

the same time, and I'm always going, are

you

really sure about that? Like, I can I

can show you the list of games I've

worked on and the amount of games that

told me I'll be on all platforms at the

same time. And always like PlayStation

is a month later or Nintendo throws up a

last minute QA check where they said

like yeah check this before first. Um

but that like five weeks I want to say

this is when the game comes out. I want

to say the form is now open so people

can start requesting codes. Then usually

a week later, I'll start sending out

codes. Not too long after, a week later

or two weeks later, or basically if I'm

doing the review package, which is where

I send out review codes from the moment

I send that first press release, I'm

basically sending out codes non-stop

ideally to people who request it from me

because I know they're interested.

They're the ones saying, "I want a

code." So those are the ones who are

committed. But I also do cold call

emails where I send hey so basically

look at what they played. Um or I have a

list of people who just told me like I

don't like forms send me codes okay then

I'll do that and then you need to know

what platform they prefer etc. And so

you don't send them the wrong platform

that they are not going to

cover. Basically I need all of that time

that's really time consuming um to do

it. Ideally, I've been working for the

game earlier because otherwise in those

same five weeks, I also have to start

doing my research like what is similar

to this game and who has played that

similar game and have do I have those

people on my press list or do I still

have to add them? That's all research

research I prefer to do beforehand. Um,

it makes a lot of sense. I should charge

an extra to people who said like, "Yeah,

help me now." And like it needs to be

done quickly. I never do, but I should.

Um, it's a panic fee. Yeah. An

inconvenience fee. Inconvenient. Yeah.

And then the the second press release,

and

admittedly for indies, this one is not

as important as it is for the AAA

industry, uh, is the the game is out now

press release, but it still gets

covered. It still gets copy pasted on

the smaller to medium sites. You will

have a handful of big sites doing an

article on it. Uh it's the the the press

release that triggers people to like

bookmark it and put it on their short

list of like hey am I doing an article

of best games of June or something or

like

or even if it's for a demo like best

demos from Steam next fest like that

kind of press release helps you put them

on the radar again like a few weeks

after you actually they got the code and

then they were reminded like oh yeah

that came out and I played it and I

liked it because don't underestimate how

many games some of these people are

going through on a monthly basis and how

important it is to stay on their radar.

Yeah. Um and also for the people on our

press list who already got a code, it

allows me to poke them about the fact

like, hey, you know that embargo that

ended yesterday, the game is out now, so

that probably means the embargo is over

as well. Feel free to start publishing

your reviews or your videos, right? Or

it can just act as a the first time

around. It could be that people saw the

email, they clicked it, they didn't have

time, and then just sending another

email later can suddenly be at a better

time in their life where they do have

the time to play this game. And they

will go like, "Yeah, I was tempted last

time to accept the request offer, but I

didn't have time, and I do now." So just

being in their inbox a second time is

already worthwhile. Yeah, there's this

term I came across uh which I think is

applicable here called effective

frequency which kind of boils down to

like how many times somebody needs to

hear about and it could be any marketing

product. It could be a toothbrush,

whatever. But in our case, it's games.

Is how many times you need to hear about

that game before you get into the

marketing funnel and you're like, "Oh,

okay. Yeah, no, I've been hearing about

this. Like, I saw one of my favorite

YouTubers play it and then a buddy of

mine recommended it." And then like that

might not even be enough. You like

months might have to pass and you read

about it in IGN and then another one and

then you're like, "Okay, 17th time I've

heard about this game. I'm finally now

uh going to go watch it." I have an

article on the pirate PR website on it

called how the law of familiarity helps

you sell games. Law of familiarity. Oh,

I like that. Yeah. And basically it

tells them also like you want them to

hear about the game on multiple

platforms. Like if YouTube is always the

only platform they hear about it, it's

less likely to stick than if they also

see it at different moments in their day

because people usually use a specific

platform at a specific time in their

day. Um, but if you get to them multiple

times in a day or multiple times in a

week at different times, so that means

they saw a trailer on YouTube, but later

that evening when they were scrolling on

Twitter on the toilet or something, they

saw it come by in a tweet again. And

then a little bit later when they are

like eating their dinner in front of

their computer or something like if it's

a student uh and they're watching their

favorite Twitch streamer play the game

like all of those things stack up and in

the end you'll be in a like a mental

wish list. even if they didn't click the

wish list button on

Steam, they'll they'll recognize your

game and then the next time there's like

a big sale on Steam or on another

platform and they scroll by it, they

will recognize your font or your key art

or something because they've seen it so

many times and they will instantly like

categorize it or filter out the ones

they've never seen before versus the

ones they've encountered a few times.

Right. Well, that's a great point. the

the the best way to treat all of

marketing and marketing is basically

selling feelings is always how do I feel

about games and how do I look at games

like how do I decide what I'm going to

play next and that's usually because

I've seen it so many times so it

probably must be important or a friend

really recommended it to me or it looks

similar to something I recognize or know

that I like.

Marketing is basically selling feelings.

I love that. Yeah, that is so useful.

Um, that brings me to a great question

from uh Kristoff, I think from Blue Sky,

which is uh what's the most important

marketing beat? And so for my audience

who's not familiar with a marketing

beat, it's like a big moment in the

development of your game, right? The

announcement of the name, a teaser

trailer, demo date, announcement, demo

release, launch date announcement,

postlaunch support, stuff like that. Um,

is there a most important one? And I

think this question comes from a place

of like of famine where a lot of the

game devs I talked to again, they don't

have like marketing budgets or dedicated

PR person. So they're like, I'm barely

holding it together making this game,

right? And so they're like, what like is

there one marketing beat I can just

focus on that one or or is it only three

or is it like do they all kind of

matter?

No. It difference per game. Um, like if

I were to ask you what's the most

important marketing beat No Man's Sky

did, is it announcing the game? Yeah,

sure. Because they got mill they got

millions of people interested in the

game, but then it bombed because it was

really bad. So, was it was it the press

release where it was relaunched or was

it the moment where everybody was

suddenly saying, "Hey, this game is good

now." And then people started playing it

like every game will have a different

moment. For some people, you'll see the

interest spike before the game comes out

at around at the moment of announcement.

For other games, it will be the game the

time when the game comes out. And then

for other games, it will be months

afterwards. Among Us that they didn't

have good marketing beats before the

game came out. It got popular by a

single streamer publishing sharing the

game and saying he liked it after the

game came out and then it spiked into

popularity. So, that's going to be

difficult anytime. And then what's the

best way to optimize that is to have as

many marketing beats as

possible. Ideally in as short a time

frame as possible, but also not too

short of a time. Like not like we're

announcing the game and we're doing

Steam next test and we're almost

releasing the game and the game is out

now in like a month time. If you do all

of that, then you're screwed most of the

time. Uh but it also can be over seven

years because then you're losing

interest. And then that wish list number

you think is important. you said before

like they might delete their wish list.

Well, I think that's the better outcome

that they delete if everybody who is no

longer interested in your game deleted

the the game from their wish list would

give you a better uh vision of the

possible success. Then if they would

just keep it around and like they're

never going to buy it, but there's still

a number and then that

number you you make wrong assumptions

saying like, "Yeah, I've got 20,000 wish

lists. That's a good number of wish

lists, but did you gather them over

eight years? And are those people still

fans? Do they still even like eight

years is a long time. They may have

moved on in their life. Do they still

have a Steam account? Yeah. Possible

that they do not or that they just are

now on the side of things where they

only play one game for their entire life

or something. Um. Right. Yeah. I used to

I like to use the word rot in this

context where I'll be like you know this

that wish list this game was launched on

I mean that launched it was that the

page existed on Steam four years ago and

it got a bunch of wish list right up

front but then four years have gone by

there's a lot of rat on there. It's the

same for like I don't know Twitter

followers, YouTube subscribers. YouTube

is old. Like you might have subscribers

from 10 years ago and maybe they they're

they don't use YouTube at all anymore,

right? Newsletters are the same way.

like these ancient email addresses that

don't even exist anymore. Um, so that's

definitely a concern, right? Is you you

actually want the wish lists that are

recent and from people who are very

interested and like not at all likely to

delete your wish list, right? Like that

even uh brings me to another thought

where that works the same way for how I

scout for good creators for my games.

Like, okay, sure, you can have 5 million

followers, but if your recent video only

has 5,000, and I'm I realize only 5,000

is it's still high. I would I wish I had

5,000 views on every video I upload.

Same. Uh but I'm I'm just getting to the

point where maybe that person with 5

million followers and 5,000 views, he's

not as important as the one who has

100,000 um followers, but 20,000 views

on every single video. like that one's

gonna sell you more games, that's one

going to be better, right? And the same

is true with wish lists. But yeah, to

get back to the original question of

what's the most important marketing

beat, it really depends. But I for me as

a PR person, but this can be different

as what's good for the game. But the two

most important ones for me

are either announcing the game or

announcing the release date of the game

and then the game is out now because I

really need those two as the starting

point and the end point of I'm sending

out keys. I will still send out keys

after the game comes out. But you'll see

a a steady decline of the amount of

people interested in reviewing the game

shortly after the game comes out. And

then there becomes a natural point in

time where it's just more logical that

the developer handles all of it

themselves. And I just say like here's

the login or here's the account or

here's how to do it or I shift even my

old press releases to contact Robbie for

a key to contact developer for a key or

something so they are the ones first in

line and they don't have to wait for me

as a bottleneck to handle games that are

two or three years old. Um, but yeah, I

for most games these days, probably

announcing

it is a really important one, but that's

really for the games that are like there

at a really high level from the first

moment they announce it versus the ones

that need the player feedback still to

find out where they're going. So, yeah,

sorry, it depends.

No, I mean that that's the answer uh uh

to every gamedev question it feels like,

right? It's like there's there's almost

no cut and dry. Like it's very rarely

black and white. It's a lot of times

it's like it depends on the context.

Plus games are so different from each

other, right? Like every single genre of

game and there are hybrid genres uh they

all have different audiences who expect

different things and want different

things. So it I mean it depends is the

it's not the answer we want but it's the

answer we have most of the time, right?

Yeah, I used the bullets in a chamber uh

example at some point, but it was like

too visceral of like if you're playing

Russian roulette and you want to have a

a chance at success like like just load

more bullets in it. But that's the

opposite because that's not really

success blowing yourself through the

brain. But uh I saw uh I think it was

Ramy Ismael who used it on LinkedIn or

something as an analogy and he said like

it's like flipping a coin. Like every

marketing beat you do is like flipping a

coin, but if you do more of them,

there's more coin flips and more chances

to land heads or tails. And it also work

better as a pirate to flip coin things.

So, let's go with that one. Yeah.

Interesting. I feel like game developers

like me, like solo and indie are finally

getting what's been drilled into us for

a while now, which is that it is, you

know, the more times you release

something, the more chances you have for

success. And so we're starting to be

like instead of oh I've been spending 5

years in this one game I'm so passionate

about. We're instead trying to be more

like I'm going to release five games in

those five years instead of one game.

And that way you get more opportunities

to have something that is successful.

And I guess you can divide that up too

and be like for each game pretty much

the more marketing beats you have the

more chances you have for something to

get picked up and that can increase the

odds of the next marketing beat which

might be bigger and more impactful for

that getting picked up. Yeah, exactly.

Love it. So, uh I saw a lot of posts for

you last year that were very interesting

where you were posting like screenshots

of YouTube pages and Twitch channels and

stuff like that. And um a lot of them

were you were like spot the key

scammers, right? Because this is a

common thing. So, for anyone who doesn't

know, uh Steam, when you sell a game on

Steam, they give you the ability to just

have generate free keys and you can

resell those. A lot of it's common to

put them in a Humble bundle or you could

have if you buy my game on itch, you

also get a Steam key or whatever. But

that creates the situation where that

key can be sold and so that opens up

this market for grifters and scammers.

So, uh, what are key scammers and how do

we avoid them? Yeah. Well, um, if you've

made a game or if you're about to make a

game, um, or if you're about to release

a game, you're going to get lots of

emails. And sadly, it's not to

congratulate congratulate you on a job

well done, but it's basically an

equivalent of, "Give me keys and it will

equal success. Uh, trust me, bro." And

then like really badly written emails

most of the time. and they will always

ask for multiple keys keys luckily

because that's a really good spot of

like why would they need multiple but

yeah you'll get dozens upon dozens and

then towards the release of the game

hundreds upon hundreds of people asking

you uh about keys

99.9% of them are indeed fake but you

still need to go through them because

you want that 0.1% that might just be

like pay gamer saying I want a review

key and if you just bulk delete it's

everything like oops, you don't want to

have that. Um, so yeah, basically what I

try to do is I try to teach people how

to spot them themselves because I can

handle the key requests. Like I can tell

people, um, I'm sending out press

releases, people ask keys from me, I

will handle all of those, but they'll

still get emails themselves because

Steam just lists publicly your email.

Yeah, I say publicly, but I don't even

know where to find that contact

information per game. But apparently

it's really easy to do because the

scammers know where to find it. They

know. They know.

Um, but you'll still need to go through

it. And then people keep asking me like

I I usually open up a line a direct line

of contact with me on Discord where they

can send me screenshots or they can

forward me emails and ask me like, "Is

this legit? Is this legit?" And it

always hurts me like why' you even have

to ask? It's so obvious. But the fact

that it isn't obvious to them, but it is

to me just shows it is a little bit of

worth of getting to know things. Um, but

yeah, it it happens on multiple places

as well. You'll get key scams. Most of

those by email are curators and I'm not

saying the entire curator system of

Steam is broken, but it's close to it.

Um, for people who don't know Steam

curators, uh, on Steam, you can have

reviews by people who buy the game, but

you also have curators who can, for

example, pick a genre that they always

do reviews for a game, and they get this

like four lines of text or 200 280

characters, like the size of a tweet, to

say what they feel about a game. Um, I

don't really believe they have a lot of

extra value, most of them.

And then there is a system on Steam

where you can actually send them not a

key but basically like your account now

has this game in the library. So they

can review the game and write their

review and it's the the curator back end

where they can you you as a create as a

developer you can actually handpick

people and search for them and say like

send the code to this person, send the

code to this person or they can send you

a link to their curator so it's more

easy or they can request a key from you

as well. I think I don't think so. No,

only the other way around where you're

the one sending them a key. But if a

curator is in your inbox asking for a

Steam key, why would they need that?

Because they're a curator, right? They

can use the back end. So if they need a

Steam key, and especially if they're

asking for multiple ones, it's probably

to sell them. I did not know that that

had that natural system. Yeah, I I did

the back ends for a few game releases

myself when I was still working for a

Belgian publisher and there I would just

like for Journey for Alleion, which was

a VR game, I would just handp pick VR

creators and just send them activations

as well. Um, I even have a curator

myself for uh Belgian Game Awards

because I I or co-organized the Belgian

Game Awards every year. And last year I

wanted like I I wanted to have the

awards to have extra value outside of

just like you win and you're

uh a runner up or something but just

didn't make the cut. And I wanted to

every everyone have value from it. So, I

made a Steam sale page for the event and

I put that up and I even got uh two 48

hours of main page but just in Belgium

on Steam. But still was really success

story for us and hopefully like next

time I can broaden that. And by the way,

I think we would have gotten that global

like for the entire world on the front

page if I got Divinity Original Sin 2

and Balders's Gate 3 to participate, but

they were sadly the only ones to uncheck

the box like want to participate in the

event. Like, no. We need you, bro. Oh,

so close. You're literally our night in

shining armor, Sven. Come on. Come on,

man. That Steam homepage is is no joke.

Uh, it's just money. When I go to the

Steam homepage, I'm just I see money

shooting at my eyeballs for every single

every little bit of re real estate on

there is just getting so much traffic.

to get to that point to create an event

page, I had to build a curator as well

because you need the the account

basically and at that point you might as

well. So I built a curator for all

Belgian games on Steam and now whenever

a new Belgian game comes out there's at

least like one location where they can

find them but I don't see it as a like

it's not even a positive or a negative

review. I just put like informational

and then we love Belgian games or

something. But then people have one link

where they can click and see all of the

games from Belgium because it's not like

Steam does that. It's not like you can