Thread by @squidlord

Game devs: You need to stop this. You need to stop it right now. If you ever feel the urge to do this, punch yourself in a very sensitive location. #gamedev #gamemarketing #newsletter #marketing

https://twitter.com/Derek_Lieu/status/1546536092173836290

1/20

To be fair, this applies to any kind of public facing media liaison. Community managers, devs, designers, artists, brands… Every single one of you. 2/20

- Do not make an announcement of an announcement.

- Do not make an announcement that that announcement will be in your newsletter.

- Do you know what most rationally minded people will think of this mechanism? 3/20

(I would call it a "dark pattern" but it's not competent enough to register as such.) 4/20

We come away knowing, not believing, that you don't have enough trust in whatever it is to be interesting enough, novel enough, or useful enough to just tell us what it is upfront! It tells us that you distrust the product. 5/20

It tells us that you are not selling whatever it is to us. You're selling your newsletter. And frankly – we probably don't want your newsletter. If we did, we'd subscribe to your Twitter feed. 6/20

In fact, if you still are putting together a "newsletter" in the era where you have Twitter, Facebook, and blogging is trivial – we need to talk about that mental retardation problem you've got. 7/20

If you want people to be interested in your "YEARS of work," you're going to have to show, don't tell.

I'm going to chalk this one up to the tendency for marketing to be an infectious mental virus which causes breakdown in synaptic connection. 8/20

Folks, designing a good game trailer isn't hard. Designing a great game trailer is hard, but doing anything well actually means you need to understand what you're doing and the tools you're doing it with.

It's work, but you want it to be work. 9/20

You want the results of your trailer to sell the thing that you've invested sweat and blood in to look like somebody invested effort. 10/20

At the bare minimum, you should be able to sit down with four or five hours of footage of your gameplay, flip through it and have moments where you say, "hey, that was cool!"

Cut out those moments, stick them on a second timeline. 11/20

It will probably be too long for a one minute trailer.

Go through the new timeline. Tighten up the bits on the end and really look at what's on screen and say, "does this really make me say this game looks really freaking cool to play?" 12/20

Games don't have to be visually flashy to look freaking cool to play. You know what you made. You know what you intended to make.

If there's nothing about your game that is cool enough or interesting enough to turn to someone in an elevator and say... 13/20

"Look at this! I made this! You're going to have so much fun with this!" 14/20

... Maybe you don't need to be making a trailer. Maybe you need to trash it and do something better. 15/20

And when someone comes around offering you a new flavor of snake oil in a brand-new bottle, offering to make that process "easier," you should start with skepticism and expect to see the product. 16/20

And if the answer is "no, you need to subscribe to my newsletter," then maybe you don't need to subscribe to that newsletter.

Maybe it's not all that good.

Maybe you let some other poor schmuck go first into the viper pit. 17/20

If he comes out with a smile and handshakes for everyone and feels very enthusiastic, check him for shill marks and cautiously be interested. 18/20

This is just exactly the same advice that we've been giving to consumers of games regarding the hype for things which turned out to be complete crap. Don't preorder. Let someone else take the first risk. Be cautious. 19/20

It wouldn't be the first time that we saw predatory practices when it came to targeting developers, particularly new indie developers who aren't sure of their skill on the marketing side.

Short version: trust no one, keep your laser handy.

And keep your stick on the ice. 20/20