The Experience
Present the experience, tap into the emotions that virtual reality
represents. Virtual reality is what it says on the tin, it’s a virtual reality
– what reality experience can you create that will be unlike anything else.
What emotional responses can you re-create, fear, sadness, happiness, joy,
anger. Create something that taps into complex emotional states but not at the
expense of cheap scares or short lived thrills. People share the great
experiences they’ve had but they just as easily share poor experiences they’ve
had too. Crafting an experience in VR means utilizing VR to break through the
traditional barriers of how players interact with the virtual world. Think
beyond the short sharp jump scares and think about how story and emotion can
immerse your audience into an unforgettable yet entirely believable experience.
The key Feature
What is the key feature?, I’ve spoken before about the need to dial in
your top most important feature (see my post – ‘How a Shark Attack Defined
product Positioning’). The best feature of your game is the one that will draw
your audience in. Go big when you’re talking about your key feature, make it
known, share it, emphasize it and support it across all of your internal and
external communications. Your feature set is the core foundation of your game,
its principles and its appeal. You should further identify the best 5 features
of the game when comparing your product against similar competitor products in
the market. For a selling point, focus on the one core feature of the game as
the beacon for it, the one shining light that will make players adopt your game
over your competitor. (hint, your core feature is the one that none of your
competitors have). Create your positioning from that core feature and have
everyone on your team remember it and promote it.
The Reactions
Don’t be
hesitant to promote the experience you are selling through video reactions - VR
reaction videos are becoming ever more popular
to promote virtual reality content. Reactions videos are basically
footage of people ‘reacting’ to the vr experience they have just had from
wearing a vr headset. In the same way Amazon utilizes the general public to
review and provide insightful feedback on its products, what better accolade is
there than instant first hand reaction to your product by a member of the games
playing public.
One of the
best examples of recent months is Frima Studio’s FATED: The Silent Oath, an
emotional story driven game set in Viking times, at PAX East the developer
rigged up a cart, installed wind machines and used water spray to further enhance
the player experience for the demo of their game, the reaction video they
created from this became an excellent promotional tool – check it out here: https://youtu.be/A00LJ_pFes0.
The Format
Think long and hard about this one, create the product you want to make
but one thing to consider is your audience size. You should ideally be looking at
the format that will reap the investment you are putting into creating it. Short
term profit is not something you’ll find in the current VR market, why? – because
with headsets costing $500+ and a small install base the majority of devs will
need to go the distance before you see any major financial return. That’s not
to say you can’t recoup investment, Unseen
Diplomacy recouped its dev cost in a
single day. Traditionally products aim
towards the format with the biggest audience, and share of the market. Think
long and hard about supply and demand, is the hardware adoption rate strong
enough that you can reap the benefits in profitable sales, is the hardware price-point
for the consumer in line with your products quality? Don’t assume that the most
powerful system is the best one. Technically
it may be superior but if development costs are higher you will need to factor
that in to your long game strategy. For VR right now it’s about durability
while the market grows, how you sustain yourself and the chosen format you are
developing for are important factors to consider.
Raise Awareness
Employ a sharability mentality to your media – This is a tricky one, but
the road to success is to keep people talking about your product. At the moment
we see Virtual Reality tech embraced by a lot of early adopters but it won’t be
until PlayStation VR launches later this year when we see a slightly more level
playing field as accessibility to hardware increases.
High price point and low availability, particularly in Europe are nothing
new for new tech hardware launches but the longevity of your product is not
only measured by the quality of your offering, it’s also measured by the length
of time people will continue to talk about it because of the experience. I’ve
used it as an example many times before but people still talk about the ending
of the 1995 film, Seven, the Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman crime thriller (“what’s
in the box?”). While the brand importance for people continuing to talk about
the film no longer has any impact on the movies financial success success and
it’s buzz is long gone, people still talk about that movie 21 years later. Discussion
and sharability are created for brands and IP when something positive, unexpected
or truly innovative is introduced to the user. ‘Unique’ is
something that your competitor doesn’t have or cannot easily emulate. Above
all, something that users feel the need to share that directly increases its
social presence is marketing dollars you don’t need to find in your budget.
Want to know how to fix your videogame marketing and PR? – My book Front Towards Gamer gives you all the
information you need and is available on Amazon for $9.99
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