GMA Defiance – Invest In Your People

Bit of a messy week for UK games writers wasn’t it? If you’re reading this blog it almost certainly means you’re already clued up on what transpired at and after the Games Media Awards this year so I won’t rehash the timeline (you’ve got Forbes for that. Yeah. Forbes covered it).

There has been an awful lot of finger pointing and side-taking though, that’s what I’ve seen more of than anything else. Writers accusing other writers of being too chummy with PRs, with attending press events to get drunk and get free swag. Then there is the other side, the group saying that those other jerks just need some help dismounting from their high horse.

Not only am I not qualified to pick a side, but I don’t particularly want to. What I will say though as something of an outsider is that clearly there is a problem somewhere with games journalism in the UK and I think I may know where it lies or at least have an idea for how to improve things going forward. Training.

Why Are We Using Digital Media To Send Gamers To Retailers?

Online ad campaigns for video games can certainly be creative. I’ve seen some cool concepts over the years, usually they have a level of engagement that only digital can offer too, whether that’s by adding interactivity to a takeover or by using a clever page destruction effect its fair to say that the boffins at the creative agencies have always been able to find a way to one-up themselves. So while the creativity and the technology behind digital ads is changing and getting more ambitious I’ve noticed that one thing never seems to change and that is the choice of landing page.

When I say landing page what do I mean? I’m referring to the destination the advertiser chooses to send you to when you click on an ad. This is almost always a retailer page. Like this one. Obviously I know why a brand manager might want to send people off to retailers at every possible opportunity – because he or she is hoping Johnny Consumer will pre-order the game (if you’re not aware, pre-orders are absurdly important these days – if a game hasn’t seen enough pre-orders retailers may lose confidence in your game and choose to buy in less stock for day one).

Here’s the thing though.

The Importance of Reader Loyalty

PR companies and media agencies are obsessed with two key statistics when it comes to gaming websites. ‘How many monthly unique users does it have and how many page impressions does it turn over?’ ‘5 million users you say? 20 million page impressions you say? Here have some promo copies and a press trip to Vegas and while we’re at it have some of this advertising budget’. And this is fair – these are very, very important statistics and an obvious indication of a website’s size and influence – but for as long as I’ve been in the business there has been a factor that remains largely overlooked; reader loyalty.

Where are your users coming from and how engaged with your brand are they? Why is this important? Why should a PR company actually care about this? A page view is a page view isn’t it?

Pretend you are a young PR exec looking to get your client’s game covered and SomeBigGamingSite.com with 3 million monthly users are kind enough to cover it. You would be forgiven for thinking that within a month that article will get read by around 3 million people. Or at least 1 million right…? Not even close.