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Knowing what to say is (almost) half the battle.
Hello there,
Today I wanted to share with you one of my favourite work-related things of all time. It’s called “The Quantic Foundry Motivational Model”. I absolutely love this resource to bits as it tells me why certain players play certain games and what these players look for in a game. Although this might be a bit obvious, so bear with my obviousness, but people play games for many different reasons. Some play to master them, some play so that they can be someone else somewhere else for a short while, while others might play to release their creative juices. All reasons are equally valid. And for a marketer, the best part is that once you know those reasons, you’ll know what to say to these players.
Watch out! Here comes the player personas!
So, here it is everyone. The Quantic Foundry Motivational Model in all its glory, or as I like to call it, the player personas (in honour of one of my fave games ever, Persona 5).
The six main player “personas”.
The best part is, if you look around the Quantic Foundry site, you can go even deeper into these players' minds. Here is a nice breakdown of what people in the Immersion persona cluster are looking for:
While here we have the Creativity persona players:
Quantic Foundry has a detailed breakdown of each persona type, giving you some nice meaty behavioural insights.
And here is the trick my dear fellow marketing-minded colleague. Use those personas to tell players what they want to hear. Find the player “talking / love points” and use them as themes in your marketing assets, such as trailers, Steam updates, screenshots, etc.
Here’s an example. We can see that Immersion players who focus on Stories want “elaborate storylines and a cast of multi-dimensional characters”. So if you are working on a narrative-driven game, to me this is a fantastic “talking/love” point. When you’re making a trailer to promote your game, focus on that; show the characters that players will meet in your game and show the relationships they have with you and with each other. A “talking / love” point that could resonate with your potential market.
Perhaps you’re working on a City-builder. If you look at the Creativity persona players, they love building elaborate cities as a way to express themselves. If your game has “expression” mechanics in which gamers can decorate towns, change colours of roofs, etc, show that in your assets! If you do, your “target market” (I hate that term, but that’s another story for another newsletter) will look at your marketing assets and go “ooo, this is interesting. This is something that resonates with me. Let me check this out”. And just like that, you started speaking their language.
So make sure that your marketing assets and comms materials speak those “talking/love” points. Otherwise, you might be missing out on saying the things that matter to your potential player base. After all, a good communicator knows that when you talk, it’s not you that matters, but your audience. You’re doing this for them.
Physical events aren’t just about Wishlists and ROI
I had a fantastic chat with a dev last week about physical events. I know that with events we like to focus a lot on the tangible. Don’t get me wrong, I like the tangibles too. They are measurable, show me progress, and tangibles give me a nice set of numbers that tell me if the whole affair was profitable/worth it or not. Measuring activities is important. However, with events, there are definitely benefits that are very intangible, almost ethereal. One of the greatest benefits of physical events is networking - with other devs, industry peers, media, and other people. You never know who you will meet, and you never know when the connection that you made might help you in the future. I cross paths with people who I might meet once at an event, have a great chat, and then never see them again - until one day I do. It might be then in different circumstances, working on different projects in different positions, with different needs. And who knows, we might even do something together this time around. The power of meeting people is amazing. And who might connect you with whom is a path brimmed with endless possibilities as well. It’s sometimes nuts seeing in action who knows who.
I had a chance to talk a few weeks back at NZGDC and WA Games Week. Physical events are pretty cool.
So don't treat physical events as just a place to show your game, collect Wishlists/sales, and media mentions. Sure, they are important. But if that’s all you'll focus on you might miss out on some awesome opportunities that you won’t know where they’ll lead you - deals, coverages, new employees, co-marketing opportunities, and loads more. They could happen today or years down the line. Speak to people, shake people's hands, give a smile, listen to other people’s stories, and share yours too. Making connections can sometimes be more valuable than collecting Wishlists…
Do you have any stories from events that you would like to share? Or perhaps you have a thought, question, or comments about the Gamer Motivational Model? If you do, hit the reply button and share your thoughts. It’s always a pleasure to receive messages from you in my inbox.
Until next time,
Michal
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