Why Is It Important For Game Publishers To Manage Their Social Presence?

The world of technology has rapidly advanced in recent years impacting the strategies used by businesses when marketing. 76% of people think marketing has changed more in the past two years than it did over the previous fifty (Brooks, 2017). The video game industry especially, is a sector which has been influenced by this change in marketing with developers gravitating towards utilizing the likes of YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to engage with its fellow gamers like never before (Morris, 2013). This is due to the huge user base each social media platform has  while also with these platforms being able to compress the variables of distance and time allowing users to instantly communicate with one another in any corner of the world provided there is an internet connection (Moore, 2017).

Benefits of Managing Social Presence

With this, it has now become a requirement for game publishers to own multiple social media platforms. By owning social media platforms publisher have a means in order to provide information to users while also build a community of gamers they can interact with.

Publishers often post their latest updates to social media due to having a fan base which has been established to receive the information that they are posting. This method is also used however as it  costs 62% less than traditional marketing while also generating an estimated three times more leads (Brooks, 2017). These leads can also be new customers as social media platforms such as Twitter allow companies to branch out from its initial fan base through the use of hashtags and images.

The second most important purpose is user interaction. By using social media, publishers have the ability to interact with their fan base whether that be through public responses, a private messaging service or player recognition. By using this service publishers are able to build a relationship with their fan base where they are seen less like a corporation and more like what they truly are – a unified group of people who share a vision (The Content Factory, 2017).

The more a publisher embraces these aspects, the more receptive users will be to the content and posts being put on social media sites and ultimately impacting the performance of that said business. Users want to feel heard, becoming apart of the growth of something they love. There are currently many businesses and gaming publishers who have understood this with recent examples being T-Mobile.

Risks When Failing to Manage Social Presence

However, with this advancement in marketing and users being able to also use these platforms to voice their opinions, businesses have ultimately become vulnerability to criticism which publishers especially have know how to manage.

An example of can be seen with the recent disaster of the November 2017 release, Star Wars Battlefront II, which was later described as a Star Wars themed online casino designed to lure kids into spending money by Hawaii politician Chris Lee (Phillips, 2017). This controversy stemmed from the publishers EA becoming greedy and causing a huge uproar with their in-game pay feature of lootbox’s. In a time where a company’s social presence would need it be utilized to smooth the situation EA simply added fuel to the fire with a response they provided via Reddit. This was responded by players through the Reddit comment system where ripped off fans granted EA the award for most down-voted comment of all time (Schreier, 2017). This post had -341,000 points in less than 24 hours.

EA is not only publisher of 2017 to be in the firing line of social media. Bungie has also been highly criticized due to the lack of transparency in their latest release Destiny 2. This has lead to the developers experiencing a barrage of YouTube videos which have accumulated millions of views.

These are just two examples of publishers/developers who have due to the negative attention directed towards their operations have had to make changes to the development of their games. These changes however could not come soon enough as the damage to their reputation already being done. Star Wars Battlefront II failed to meet its estimated target of 1,720,000 units by only selling 882,000 units (Morris, 2017) and were also being put under pressure from Disney due to the developers damaging the Star Wars brand.

With this, it should also be mentioned that when using social media to put posts out the language used has to be simple as any misunderstanding of the message could again be damaging to the reputation of the organization. This was experienced by the University College London with a post relating to Christmas and having a ‘white Christmas’. This required the University to make a follow-up post apologizing for the use of words and allowing the miss understanding occurring.

Conclusion

Relating back to the question, why is it important to manage a social presence for a game publisher? To stay relevant in a world of increasing competitiveness. By having a social presence businesses such as game publishers are able to market to a target audience which is directly associated to that of the business while also reaching out to new leads. Businesses are able to provide information regarding their products directly to those who matter while also building a community of loyal users. However, it should not be taken lightly how the benefit of social media can quickly turn into a negative and the reputation of a business can be tarnished due to the movement of those online.

 

References

  • Brooks, A. (2013). 20 Digital Marketing Statistics & Charts For 2017 [Online] Venture Harbour. Available at: http://www.ventureharbour.com/digital-marketing-statistics-charts/amp/ [Accessed 2nd January 2018]
  • Moore, W. (2013). Why Strong Social Media Presence Is A Must For Businesses In 2017 [Online] Value Walk. Available at: http://www.valuewalk.com/2017/04/social-media-platforms-business/amp/ [Accessed 2nd January 2018]
  • Morris, A. (2013). How Social Media Helped Shapre The Next Generation of Video Games [Online] Business 2 Community. Available at: http://www.business2community.com/social-media/social-media-helped-shape-next-generation-video-games-0878503/amp [Accessed 2nd January 2018]
  • Morris, C. (2017). The Force Is Weak – Very Weak – With EA’s Star Wars Battlefront II [Online] Time Inc. Available at: https://www.google.co.uk/amp/amp.timeinc.net/fortune/2017/12/08/star-wars-battlefront-ii-sales [Accessed 2nd January 2018]
  • Phillips, T. (2017). This Game Is A Star Wars- Themed Online Casino Designed To Lure Kids Into Spending Money [Online] Euro Gamer. Available at: http://www.eurogamer.net/amp/2017-11-22-star-wars-battlefront-2-loot-crates-belgian-gaming-commission-hawaii-chris-lee [Accessed 2nd January 2018]
  • Schreier, J. (2017). EA Defense of Star Wars Battlefront II Becomes Most Downvoted Reddit Comment Ever [Online] Kotaku. Available at: https://google.co.uk/amp/s/kotaku.com/ea-defense-of-star-wars-battlefront-ii-becomes-most-dow-1820396527/amp [Accessed 2nd January 2018]
  • The Content Factory. (2017). 16 Reasons Why Your Business NEEDS Social Media Marketing [Online] The Content Factory. Available at: http://www.contentfac.com/9-reasons-social-media-marketing-should-top-your-to-do-list/ [Accessed 2nd January 2018]

 

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