The Social Media Marketing of Video Games – Luke Myslik

Everyone knows that in order for a product or brand to be successful, what else would increase its popularity than its marketing? It’s the one thing that keeps popular games like Fortnite, Call of Duty, and the Pokémon franchise on the map. But it isn’t just the trailers, the advertisements, posters, or behind-the-scenes gameplay that goad the players into purchasing a full-price or a retail game, but mainly it has to do with the internet. Social media as a whole has one of the beneficial, astronomically important factors of how a product can exceed its reputation in the industry.

According to a 2014 article by Kayla Minguez of Social Media Today called “The Merging of Social Media and Gaming,” she states that video game marketing with word of mouth, but especially the handling of social media have been ‘[made] it even easier for opinions to be published quickly and have a global reach’ and online gamers can easily offer their insight on a video game by way of Twitter and Facebook posts. More importantly, ongoing and supportive gaming companies will listen and conversing to their fan bases “by shaping conversations [via] social media content”.

To figure out what goes on behind the scenes of a video game company’s way of spreading the word about and an upcoming release, I’ve been able to fortunately contact with a few supervisors and managers of one of the biggest names in the video game market, Electronic Arts (also known as EA as most people know it as), and interviewed them about their central perspective and process on how social media has created such a dynamic impact to their games and the company altogether.

Chin Pea, the Manager for Social Channels and Influencers of EA, offered some highlight information when asked why video games — such as the new release of Star Wars: Jedi – Fallen Order — rely on social media to advertise themselves for players. “We want to be where our communities are,” Pea said, “and frankly, as gamers, artist and fans ourselves, we enjoy how directly we can interact with everyone by providing up-to-the-minute updates, accurate information and highlights of things to come.”
Pea added that cultivating communities within social media in gaming is “more than promotion.” Pea informs that, “The Community team that handles all the social channels and forums, also support other gaming influencers by helping them grow their channels and more broadly, grow the community so it is a safe, inclusive space to share your passions.”

To unfold on other perspectives of how social media affects the video game industry, I turned over to Global Events Supervisor, Alexander Bowman for extended perspectives and details. When I asked how does marketing with the use of social media help a video game gain attention, he replied that they use different tools to gain attention and usually social media is used to attract the player and not the media in its entirety.

For example, there is a technique called ‘Producer Tours’ in which “[EA] travel throughout key territories (like several countries in Europe, a central location in Asia and then, depending on the game, in South and North America as well) where we have game play or other producers from our games explain the new features or what the game is to the actual video games media”. Bowman says that is also applies to mobile games as those types of games are using the same exact techniques on social media that other publishers use for marketing.

To conclude, I have made this valuable question that is, in fact, quite a difficult one to answer: I asked where would video games and their industries be without social media? In her final answer to the interview, Chia Pea said the following, “Video games did exist before social media — even before MySpace! People are social to some degree — even if we don’t call it “social media,” people will come together in a form or another to hang out and share their opinions. So really, as long as there’s communities of people who love gaming, and they want to hear from video game companies, then there will be video game marketing.”

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