Marketing thoughts for RPGs
Posted: Thu May 05, 2016 3:15 pmWhen I was trying to get people to play my games, I tried a bunch or things. Not a lot of them worked. So what if I actually knew something about influencing people? I'm going to go through a bunch of proven methods of influencing people and try to apply them to marketing an RPG. I'll be plagiarizing heavily from online resources.
6 ways to get people to say yes to something.
Scarcity
Authority
Reciprocity
Consistency
Liking
Consensus
Let's look at what doesn't work as they are commonly tried.
Scarcity - Especially with a free game, it becomes very hard to pretend there's a scarce resource here. People want more of the things they can have less of. In order for a scarcity argument to work, you have to explain the benefits of your scarce resource, what's unique about it and what they could lose if they miss out on it. This is really hard to do when it comes to RPGs.
Authority - This is the idea that people follow credible, knowledgeable, experts. This is really hard to establish with RPGs since most players consider themselves experts in RPGs. A lot of times, having someone else vouch for you can help, but that can be really hard to get to work also. There are no RPG design diplomas or official symbols of authority except if you're already successful and have sold a lot of games already.
What could work.
Reciprocity - People feel obligated to give when they have received something. How can this be applied? Waiters that give gifts (a few candies when they bring you the bill) get bigger tips. A waiter that pays a compliment when giving the gift gets an even bigger tip increase. How can we do something similar? Giving is best when the gift is personalized and unexpected. This would seem to be best done in a face to face setting. Maybe some dice would work? If you played a game with a group at a con or a store, or maybe just had a conversation with someone that told a good story.
Consistency - People are more likely to follow through with a difficult request if they have already agreed to an easy request. Maybe asking people to play a game with you, and then asking them to tell their friends to play would be effective.
Liking - People are more likely to do things for people they like. People like others that are similar to them, people who pay them compliments and people who cooperate with them. Identify things you have in common with the people you want to play your game, compliment the things that you like about them and work with them to overcome problems.
Consensus - People will look to others to know what they should do. If you can get 10% of a group to do something, usually the other 90% suddenly flash over and start doing the same. You won't get 10% of all gamers to play your game but you might get 10% of a game store or other small venue to play.
How do you think you could use these tools?
6 ways to get people to say yes to something.
Scarcity
Authority
Reciprocity
Consistency
Liking
Consensus
Let's look at what doesn't work as they are commonly tried.
Scarcity - Especially with a free game, it becomes very hard to pretend there's a scarce resource here. People want more of the things they can have less of. In order for a scarcity argument to work, you have to explain the benefits of your scarce resource, what's unique about it and what they could lose if they miss out on it. This is really hard to do when it comes to RPGs.
Authority - This is the idea that people follow credible, knowledgeable, experts. This is really hard to establish with RPGs since most players consider themselves experts in RPGs. A lot of times, having someone else vouch for you can help, but that can be really hard to get to work also. There are no RPG design diplomas or official symbols of authority except if you're already successful and have sold a lot of games already.
What could work.
Reciprocity - People feel obligated to give when they have received something. How can this be applied? Waiters that give gifts (a few candies when they bring you the bill) get bigger tips. A waiter that pays a compliment when giving the gift gets an even bigger tip increase. How can we do something similar? Giving is best when the gift is personalized and unexpected. This would seem to be best done in a face to face setting. Maybe some dice would work? If you played a game with a group at a con or a store, or maybe just had a conversation with someone that told a good story.
Consistency - People are more likely to follow through with a difficult request if they have already agreed to an easy request. Maybe asking people to play a game with you, and then asking them to tell their friends to play would be effective.
Liking - People are more likely to do things for people they like. People like others that are similar to them, people who pay them compliments and people who cooperate with them. Identify things you have in common with the people you want to play your game, compliment the things that you like about them and work with them to overcome problems.
Consensus - People will look to others to know what they should do. If you can get 10% of a group to do something, usually the other 90% suddenly flash over and start doing the same. You won't get 10% of all gamers to play your game but you might get 10% of a game store or other small venue to play.
How do you think you could use these tools?