Welcome to the world of Video Game Public Relations (PR)! Whether you’re just starting your journey in PR or you’re here out of curiosity to understand what makes this industry tick, you’ve come to the right place for an overview of the basics. This blog series is designed to serve as an overview of PR essentials, tailored specifically for professionals taking their first steps in the PR arena or those who are eager to understand what PR entails in the world of gaming.
This is Part 3 of a 4-part series. You can navigate to other entries below:
- Part 1 – Video Game PR Essentials
- Part 2 – The Sales Funnel
- Part 3 – Building a PR & Marketing Campaign – You are here!
- Part 4 – The Life Cycle of a PR Campaign
The 5 Stages of Building a PR & Marketing Campaign
As a PR and marketing professional, one of your main responsibilities is to craft a PR and marketing plan that not only promotes your game effectively but also integrates seamlessly with its development cycle. This is important, a PR plan is not a static monolith but a flexible roadmap that evolves as the game develops and market conditions change. Your objectives are to maximize the game’s visibility, time the distribution of news beats, and maintain player engagement throughout the game’s development.
Creating the outline for your PR plan early is critical, ideally as soon as the core concepts of the game—the game pillars—are established. This early planning allows for the PR and marketing strategies to not only reflect the game’s design, but also help guide or enhance it. Coordination between the marketing team and design teams is essential to ensuring the game is not only entertaining, but also marketable.
Avoid falling into what we call the “hopeless artist trap“. That is when you believe your game’s uniqueness alone will attract an audience. You’d be surprised at how often you come across sentiments like this from teams around the world during the conceptual phase of development:
“I design just for myself. If the game concept is good enough for me, it must be good enough for someone else out there.”
99% of the time, this is the wrong approach. While it’s essential to be innovative and feel confident in your design, remember that even the most out-of-the-box ideas need to find their audience—and this overlap is what your early marketing efforts should target. Never skip your early market research. Discovering too late that there’s no audience for your game is heartbreaking, and a sad reality many teams face. Early PR and marketing planning act as a safety net to prevent this.
Now, let’s dive into the main phases of building a comprehensive PR and Marketing plan:
1. Setup / Marketing Essentials
The setup phase is critical for leveraging the marketing fundamentals effectively as your game begins to take shape. Here’s what you need to keep in mind:
Elevator Pitch
Start with crafting the smallest, most concise description of the game. This pitch should encapsulate what makes your project unique in one or two sentences at most, providing a clear snapshot of the game’s appeal.
As the name suggests, you should be able to deliver this pitch in the time it takes for you to take an elevator ride —Especially, if you are sharing the elevator with Gabe Newell, Phil Spencer, Hideaki Nishino, and Doug Bowser, what are the odds!
To illustrate, if I were to say: “Arcade soccer, but using vehicles as players!” In as short as seven words, you may be able to picture what our friends at Psyonix did with Rocket League. An elevator pitch should be short, sweet, and a great spark for your imagination.
Genre
Determine the genre or genres that best fit your game. Identifying fitting genres early is critical when building store pages, as they influence how platform algorithms categorize and filter titles. It also provides initial guidance for game mechanics and other design choices, as fans often have specific expectations based on genre.
Examples of game genres: Action, Adventure, RPG, Strategy, Horror, Sports, MOBA, Card-Builder, to name but a few.
Target Audience
Figure out who your game is for. Begin from broader demographics (gender, age, nationality, etc.) and work your way down to more specific preferences (games for relaxation, for overcoming challenges, for social interaction) or you can even break it down by player preference for specific games (fans of Zelda, Dark Souls, Rock Band, etc.—ahem, my age is showing isn’t it? ). This step is essential for assessing market viability and should be paired with a competitive analysis to determine if there is enough market space for your game or if it is entering a saturated niche.
Once you’re comfortable setting up target groups for your game, you can begin to implement more advanced techniques, such as building up Buyer Personas, in order to account for consumer habits and ideologies, or plotting your game against competitors in different areas of analysis (within the given criteria, is my game more like competitor A or competitor B?). Here’s a quick example from my game, Aztech Forgotten Gods, generated to contrast it to competitive titles in the space.
Unique Selling Propositions
Pinpoint what sets your game apart from others, especially within its genre. Unique Selling Propositions (USPs) should NOT be generic, but rather a concise set of distinctive features that highlight the game’s uniqueness and appeal. These are the make-or-break for your game, don’t focus on common mechanics and general descriptors. Make sure to highlight what makes the game special. If you can’t find any USPs, then perhaps it’s time to go back to the drawing board.
Let’s use our friends at Naughty Dog as an example. If you were describing The Last of Us, you probably wouldn’t focus on the game’s third-person cover mechanics or the shooting mechanics. Instead, you’d probably focus on the raw, gripping story, the scavenge system of limited resources, and the superb voice acting and motion capturing. These are things that truly set the game apart.
Game Descriptions
Begin crafting both short and long descriptions of your game using your elevator pitch as a basis. You can methodically add more and more detail that revolves around other differentiators your game may have —usually these can be your game’s setting, distinctive tone, or original twist on an otherwise known formula.
These game descriptions will be used extensively throughout the game’s development cycle and PR campaign for store listings and promotional materials. Allow these descriptions to evolve as the game develops; there is no reason not to continue refining your descriptions to better reflect the game’s progression and standout features.
Let’s go back to our friends at Psyonix to illustrate how an elevator pitch can be morphed into a game description (taken directly from their store listing):
“Rocket League is a high-powered hybrid of arcade-style soccer and vehicular mayhem with easy-to-understand controls and fluid, physics-driven competition.“
You can still see the elevator pitch in there, “Arcade soccer, but using vehicles as players!” But it’s been expanded to highlight other differentiators such as accessibility and physics-driven gameplay.
Push PR vs. Pull PR
Choose the right promotional strategy based on initial interest in your game. If your game’s appeal is not immediately obvious, you may need to employ push PR tactics, which involve proactive efforts to get your game noticed by the media, creators, and your community at large. This approach aims to achieve coverage by convincing key targets that the game is worth the time investment it’ll take to produce coverage for it. Conversely, if the game naturally attracts media and creator interest, pull PR tactics will be more appropriate. This strategy allows you to selectively engage with targets, focusing on showcasing specific game’s strengths to secure positive coverage. Push PR is all about building up interest, while Pull PR is all about managing expectations.
Do note, we’re oversimplifying for clarity’s sake, most campaigns will employ a mix of push and pull PR tactics to achieve different goals.
2. Planning News Beats
News beats are pivotal marketing milestones that shape your game’s outreach and market penetration. These selected moments should be newsworthy to create significant impact, and not all potential news beats carry the same weight or effectiveness. Overloading your campaign with too many news beats can dilute the impact of each. Here’s a guide to prioritizing them.
High-Impact News Beats:
- Game Announcement: Introducing the game to the public.
- Game Reveal: The first visual presentation of your game.
- First Gameplay Showcase: Offering a first look at gameplay.
- PR Stunts: Engaging events designed to draw widespread attention.
- Ports: Announcing versions for additional platforms.
- Feature Videos: Highlighting special mechanics or unique aspects of the game.
- Release Date: Revealing when the game will be available on target platforms.
- Launch: The official release of the game.
Lower-Impact News Beats (context-dependent):
- Demo Releases: When a short playable version of the game is made publicly available.
- Kickstarter Campaigns: Crowdfunding for additional resources.
- Subsequent Gameplay Videos: Additional gameplay-centric videos following the first showcase.
- Awards: Recognition received from the industry.
- Localization Announcements: Expanding the game’s language options.
- Minor Updates: Small changes or patches.
- Discounts: Price reductions or participation in seasonal or thematic sales.
- Out of Early Access: Official full release from beta or early access. However, depending on the campaign and strategy, this could be treated as a high-impact news beat.
For a focused and effective PR campaign, prioritize the following three beats if resources are limited:
- Game Reveal: Often the first in-depth look at the game, usually this is a combination of the game announcement and first gameplay footage.
- Release Date Announcement: Typically accompanied by a strong video asset, the release date announcement is one of your most important beats. The highest concentration of news coverage is likely to happen at this point in the campaign.
- Launch: The culmination of your PR efforts, marking the game’s official release. Influencer campaigns and reviews should be peaking at this time.
Quick Note on Announcement Assets
While it might seem intuitive to allocate substantial resources to launch assets, oftentimes it’s better to prioritize assets for the game reveal and release date announcements. These early assets set the stage and build anticipation, whereas by launch, the game itself becomes the primary asset. A launch trailer is still valuable but it’s likely less impactful PR-wise than, say, the release date trailer.
3. Choosing the Right Communication Channels
Selecting the most effective communication channels is crucial for targeting the right audience and maximizing the impact of your PR and marketing efforts. The choice of platform should align with the specific group you intend to reach:
Press / Media
This one’s easy, you should establish formal press relations predominantly through email communications. Ensure that your email account is professional-looking and uses a domain that reflects the company’s name. This should help enhance your credibility and brand consistency. There is nothing technically wrong with a Gmail or an Outlook account. However, media will be much more likely to take your pitch seriously if your address looks something like this: name@company_you_work_for.com.
As we’ve discussed before, also consider attending industry events whenever you can to increase visibility among journalists and media outlets.
Content Creators
While email is also standard for initial contacts with content creators and their agents, once a connection is established, more informal channels of communication can be employed. Communicating through something like X (Twitter) DMs or more direct forms of messaging is perfectly valid. It will really depend on the kind of relationship you build with each specific target.
Community
Traditional social media platforms like X (Twitter), Facebook, and Instagram remain staples for community engagement. X (Twitter), in particular, is highly influential within the gaming space. However, exploring other channels as needed can be really beneficial:
- Newsletters: Keep your most engaged users informed with regular updates, behind-the-scenes content, and exclusive opportunities.
- Reddit and Imgur: These platforms cater to niches and can help in reaching specific gamer demographics who frequent these sites for community discussions and content sharing. We’ve found notable correlation between Reddit engagement and early wishlisting.
- Emerging Platforms: TikTok has become a powerhouse for reaching younger audiences with short video content. Utilizing this platform can tap into a community of gamers looking for quick entertainment and information. However, it’s worth keeping in mind the current state of the platform in the US, with a recent ban and immediate un-ban, the future of the platform is still a bit of a question mark. Additionally, Bluesky is an up and coming competitor to X (Twitter) that has gained traction in the gaming space since the second half of 2024, and continues to grow at an accelerated rate in 2025.
- Discord: This is increasingly becoming a vital channel for real-time, direct interaction with a dedicated community. It allows for a more segmented approach to community management, with different channels for various topics, fostering a closer community feeling.
Owned Channels
There are a number of other channels that are important as well and that will likely reach a combination of the target groups above. These channels include: official game or studio websites, store listings, YouTube channels, etc. Ultimately these are additional avenues through which relevant assets can be shared, such as trailers, updates, press kits, and more!
Each communication channel serves a distinct purpose and reaches different segments of your audience. Tailoring your message to fit the specific platform and audience will likely up your engagement and help build stronger relationships with both the media and the larger gaming community.
4. Designing a Proper PR Plan
A good PR plan functions much like a timeline, following a series of strategically timed milestones that guide all marketing efforts. This includes: establishing when and how marketing assets should be prepared and distributed, when the PR team should prepare announcements, pitch feature stories, distribute review copies, engage with content creators; how the community team should schedule social posts and what content to focus on, among other things.
Think of an effective PR plan as a three-layer cake:
Bottom / Base Layer: Strategic News Beats
This layer sets the overall direction with key PR beats such as the game reveal, release date announcement, and launch. Initially, you might map these out on a monthly breakdown—for example, revealing the game in January, announcing the release date in June, and launching the game in August. This layer helps allocate preparation time for each major milestone. However, this basic setup should be expanded based on how your campaign evolves and any opportunities that may arise as you progress further, such as partnering with platform-holders for announcements or integrating additional promotional beats.
Middle Layer: Marketing Themes
Guided by the overarching PR beats breakdown, this level breaks down into a weekly or bi-weekly marketing plan with each time division focusing on different aspects or themes of the game. These themes could be unique mechanics, a character, the soundtrack, or anything else that is worth highlighting throughout the campaign. It’s important to plan which elements to highlight well in advance and ensure they build momentum towards upcoming news beats. This layer also involves scheduling the creation of important assets like trailers, and deciding the distribution channels and timing for each piece.
Top Layer (Surface Level): Community Engagement
The most granular level of the plan focuses on daily interactions with the community. It involves scheduling specific posts, like social media updates, screenshots, and GIFs, which should all tie back to the weekly marketing themes. This level requires careful management to ensure that audiences remain engaged without feeling overwhelmed. Balance is key; too much content can be as bad as too little content.
Each layer of your PR plan must be meticulously prepared and actively managed to ensure that all elements—from major announcements to daily posts—work in harmony. This structured approach not only helps in keeping the campaign organized but also ensures that each marketing effort has a purpose and it’s well timed.
5. Establishing Effective Monitoring
Effective monitoring can help you understand the impact of your PR efforts and, in turn, help you refine your strategies throughout the campaign. By setting up monitoring tools, you can track coverage, assess audience engagement, and optimize your outreach efforts based on data-driven insights.
- Alerts and Trends: Utilize tools like Google Alerts to keep tabs on mentions of your game across the web. Set alerts for your game’s name and other relevant keywords to receive real-time updates on media coverage and public discussions. Additionally, Google Trends can provide valuable insights into the search interest levels related to your game, helping you gauge community interest and react to shifts in attention.
- Website Traffic Analytics: Integrating analytics tools such as Google Analytics on your official website(s) can be very valuable. These tools allow you to track visitor behavior, including how users interact with your site during different phases of your marketing campaign. Analyzing this data helps you understand what attracts visitors to your site, where they are coming from, and which aspects of your game are garnering the most attention.
Additionally, platforms like SimilarWeb offer insights into website traffic not only for your own site but also for potential partners, competitive titles’ sites, and media outlets. This information can, for instance, be used to determine the reach and potential impact of press outlets when deciding whether to share review copies with them or not. Understanding the traffic and engagement levels of these outlets can help you prioritize your media outreach efforts. - Creator Reach Analytics: Similarly, you will want to make a similar analysis of content creators like streamers and YouTubers, in an effort to gauge their estimated reach and whether or not their audiences are relevant to your game. Tools like SullyGnome, TwitchTracker, and Social Blade are great for this.
- Social Media Monitoring: Tools like Meltwater, Hootsuite, or Sprout Social can track mentions, manage posts, and analyze engagement across various social media platforms. These tools are useful for measuring the impact of social media campaigns and understanding audience sentiment, enabling you to tailor your content and interactions more effectively.
By establishing a monitoring framework, you can ensure that every aspect of your PR campaign is not only measurable but also adaptable based on real-time data and analytics. This will enable you to refine your approach and maximize impact for your PR efforts and help you achieve your objectives more effectively.
Phew, that was a long one! Now that we’ve established what you will need to build your PR and marketing plan, let’s now finalize this series with what you can expect from your PR campaign, starting with the pre-release window of your game, all the way to post-launch.