Decline How to promote an AAA RPG in 2024

[Tyranicon]

Hello RPG enthusiasts and possible lurkers from AAA studios,

Today I will be giving some advice on how to properly market big-budget games in the modern year. As we all know, gaming consumers are highly intelligent and have only the most impeccable taste, so you need the proper know-how when it comes to attracting these cosmic-brained uber chads.

1. The proper marketing timeline

Having the right timeline for your marketing is very important. The best practice is to market your game 15 years ahead of any possible launch. Just set up a storefront and start collecting pre-orders right away! Promise people that your game will cure cancer and get them laid. What's the worst that can happen, you go through four different developers and get lodged squarely in development hell? Fuck it, no takebacksies on those pre-orders.

Alternatively, start your marketing push just 8 months before launch. Because who needs to sell copies, right?

2. Highlight the fact that you have a superstar development team

You're making an Arr Pee Gee and you want it to be the best, so you need the best on your side. That's right, get the priciest visual novel studio there is, and teach them what a character sheet is.

Now gleefully parade those superstars in front of your audience and force them to talk about how passionate they are, and how they played Starcraft 2 when they were a teenager.

Getting comments like "they're awfully young," and "they're not even RPG devs?" Cancel those racist fans!

3. Produce trailers with 20% gameplay and 200% talking heads

Gamers LOVE 40 minute videos about concept artists talking about their dogs and what their dog's vomit look like. Don't talk about the game at all or show gameplay. What are you, a nerd?

4. Have it your way

Repeat this in all your promotional material until you get sued by Burger King.


4. Use marketing jargon nonstop

Gamers love it when you use words and phrases that don't even mean anything anymore, like "visceral" and "immersive" and "Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines 2."

6. Be bad at math

7. Showcase all your ugly characters

Nobody likes actual attractive characters. Also, beauty is offensive.

This was the standard that the industry set in 2006 and we haven't moved on because we didn't need to.

Just upgrade with zoomer hair!

8. Chat GPT writes better than you, so let it write your devblogs instead!

Hey ChatGPT, write me a devblog for a fictional RPG of your choosing!

We're thrilled to share the latest on 'Mystic Realms: Journey Through Eldoria'! This week, we've focused on enhancing our dynamic weather system, bringing Eldoria's diverse landscapes to life. From the sun-drenched hills of Solara to the rain-soaked forests of Nighthaven, the world reacts and evolves, offering unique challenges and opportunities for players. We've also fine-tuned our NPC interaction, ensuring every character you meet has a story to tell. Stay tuned for a sneak peek at our upcoming night quests, where the world of Eldoria shows its hidden, mystical side under the moonlight! #MysticRealmsRPG

Haha, this thing is going to put us all out of work because it's better than us! #notalent

9. Only use concept art and alpha footage despite being months away from launch

Nothing gives the consumer more confidence then seeing only concept art, or even better, gifs of concept art, when launch is just a few short months away. Normally you think this would lead to a dumpster fire, but in reality, this is just the agile working environments of modern devs. Our programmers are hard at work and totally not just furiously masturbating because they're bored to shit. Our creatives are veterans of the industry and not just nepotistic pity hires who spend most of their time on Twitter.

Remember, never show gameplay. People hate that!

10. Pre-release apology or blame

Somebody's got to take the blame for this fiasco, and it's certainly not going to be the marketing guys. Blame toxic gamers, blame covid, blame whoever you can think of. If that doesn't work, put out an apology. In fact, do it ahead of launch because you're honest and not because you're a greedy little shit who wants to trick people out of money any way they can.

That's it! Enjoy RPGdev'ing!

Also, buy my porn games instead. God, I can't wait to bend this entire useless industry over as soon as I get some money.

 

[Eisen]

Gameplay must include level scaling

 

[Modron]

11. Consult with Sweet Baby to make sure your game really appeals to current year gamers.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

You forgot the viral bear marketing.

 

[Dorateen]

Mystic Realms is gonna be gud...

Oh wait, that's Mystic Lands: Search for Malphado.

 

[luj1]

How to promote an AAA RPG in 2024

By not calling it AAA

 

[Suger]

Don't forget to include an empty open world where nothing ever happens and a 40GB day one patch.

 

[Rhobar121]

11. Create a type of game that you have no idea about, preferably let it be a game on the scale of other popular games of this type, no matter that it was created by a well with twice as many employees and years of experience in this type of games.
12. Follow every trend that appears within a few month of before starting the production and pray that it doesn't miraculously change in the 5 years it takes to create the game.
13. If it changes, don't forget to redo half of your game, wasting thousands of hours of work of the entire team (repeat several times if necessary).
14. If you created a game that no one cares about (and does not belong to a large brand) or you sold a game based on a lie, remember to make a sequel, people will definitely buy it and in larger numbers than the original.
15. The marketing campaign is for idiots who don't make good games.
16. You are a developer, which means you know better than the peasants who buy games. So who cares about their opinion?
You can guess which studio I described.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Tug at the strings of gamer nostalgia by name-dropping all sorts of great games from the past, claim to be making a spiritual successor to them, while developing a game that has nothing to do with them.

 

[HoboForEternity]

Dont forget to flush million dollars into the toilet called "celebrity voice actors/endorsements"

 

[Konjad]

Spend 5 times more on marketing than development

 

[grimer]

either that or its "deckbuilding roguelike metroidvania with an open world and survival elements inspired by classics such as wizardry and ultima!"

 

[Falksi]

12. Follow every trend that appears within a few month of before starting the production and pray that it doesn't miraculously change in the 5 years it takes to create the game.

Square Enix likes this post.

 

[VonMiskov]

Buy a studio that made one or two good rpgs 20+ years ago. Ride that renown till you close the studio because you release only shit.

 

[Shaja]

This is Gold

 

[Tyranicon]

The more I read about what other devs are doing the more I

There's a thing that's popular in gamedev circles where people try to convince newcomers to avoid going into the AAA industry because of you'll get paid more doing anything else (especially if you're a programmer). Maybe it finally worked.

 

[Roguey]

There's a thing that's popular in gamedev circles where people try to convince newcomers to avoid going into the AAA industry because of you'll get paid more doing anything else (especially if you're a programmer). Maybe it finally worked.

Yet the industry is bigger than ever. 5000 employees at Riot. 19,000 at Ubisoft. 17,000 at Activision. 13,000 at EA. 11,000 at Take-Two.

Ah here's a handy US-only graph https://www.statista.com/statistics/1175322/video-game-employment/

 

[Grampy_Bone]

The chatgpt ad copy really got me

 

[Tyranicon]

There's a thing that's popular in gamedev circles where people try to convince newcomers to avoid going into the AAA industry because of you'll get paid more doing anything else (especially if you're a programmer). Maybe it finally worked.

Yet the industry is bigger than ever. 5000 employees at Riot. 19,000 at Ubisoft. 17,000 at Activision. 13,000 at EA. 11,000 at Take-Two.

Ah here's a handy US-only graph https://www.statista.com/statistics/1175322/video-game-employment/

Cheap labor and non-development personnel. Corporate bloat.

17,000 at Activision, basically a town full of people, and they still get dumped on by randos with Unity and the open world crafting game du jour.

Palworld apparently has less than 50 employees. Top kek. Yes I know it's Unreal 5.

 

[Cheesedragon117]

Who am I to question a seasoned game developer such as yourself? I'll put these tenants into practice right away on my Hatfield-McCoy Feud-themed action RPG!

Also, I'll have a look at your porn games, seeing as how your particular variety of spank-bait seems to be to my liking...

 

[Cpt. Dallas]

Dont forget to flush million dollars into the toilet called "celebrity voice actors/endorsements"

Expend x% of budget on overdone character customization. On a FPS. Include a dick slider. Delay game for years to rush female voice acting with a 95% male audience. Can't even look down at your own tits.

 

[Rhobar121]

Dont forget to flush million dollars into the toilet called "celebrity voice actors/endorsements"

Expend x% of budget on overdone character customization. On a FPS. Include a dick slider. Delay game for years to rush female voice acting with a 95% male audience. Can't even look down at your own tits.

Contrary to what it might seem, character customization sells even in the case of FPS. Why? I have no idea.
Just like in the case of voice acting, this is definitely not a waste of money.
Prime example: Cyberpunk 2077 and Keanu Reeves. You can't tell me unless his presence didn't cause a huge amount of hype.
If you can afford it, hiring one very famous (and well-liked) actor is a good marketing idea.
Of all the things you can waste your money on, these two things are probably your best bet.

 

[OSK]

Develop your game in some shithole nation with no real achievements. Not only does this allow you to underpay your employees and treat them like shit, it gives you the extra benefit of dumbfucks, who primarily judge games based upon how close they live to your development studio, will shill your game online for free like their nation's GDP depends on it (it likely does).

 

[man-erg]

Tug at the strings of gamer nostalgia by name-dropping all sorts of great games from the past, claim to be making a spiritual successor to them, while developing a game that has nothing to do with them.

That's not just the AAA devs. These days they are all doing it. There's one right there from an indie dev on the front page here today. "Retro inspired <insert genre here> that recreates the classics of days gone by". "Pixel art like it's 1985 again". (though what looked fine on a CRT screen looks shite on an LCD screen). If you're going to rip off some old classic, at least make it look better than the original.

 

[Alienman]

17. Use cartoon graphics.