身处游戏行业 营销比质量重要

　　这么说是绝对具有现实意义的。人们要买的并不是真实，而是感觉。所以比起自己的判断，人们对同龄人压力要在意得多。

　　有种牌子的车很出名，但质量明显很一般。事实上有些中小型车的质量并不怎么样，但即使售价高也能卖得很好。因为人们把它的牌子当作一种身份象征。他们愿意多花几千美金去买一块价值几美金的上了搪瓷釉的铬合金商标牌。多数人买银灰色的车，就因为大家都买银灰色。这些都是营销的力量。一个牌子以家庭主妇接送孩子上下学的代步车的概念推出，消费者就意识不到自己落入了营销者的圈套。

　　作为游戏开发者，如果你告诉你妈妈你在做什么样的游戏，那就是营销。任何形式的交流都可以成为营销。所以，游戏的零营销必定导致零销售。

　　多年来，我从未见过哪一款游戏的因为质量好而卖得好，却多次见到一款游戏因为营销做得好而获得了远远超出它本身价值的销售业绩，也见过很多好游戏因为营销不好而失败。

　　看看我在昨天的文章中提到的5款游戏就知道了。它们其实都差不多，但是玩家的数量却有天壤之别。其区别就在于营销。营销比游戏本身更重要，这是不证自明的。

　　然而，仍然有很多的游戏开发者不明白这一点，比如iPhone应用商店上很多的个人开发者和小型开发商。从那里你就能看到，营销做得好的游戏销售也好，没有进行营销的游戏销售情况就很糟。这跟游戏的质量几乎没有关系（除非那款游戏真的烂透了）。

　　近来，电子娱乐设计研究院（EEDAR）对游戏市场做了调查，得出结论“营销对游戏收益的影响是游戏质量评分的三倍”。而事实上，营销的影响甚至更大，因为质量评分也是营销的一部分！

　　译文：

　　This makes absolute complete and utter sense. People buy perceptions, not reality. And people are far more concerned about peer pressure than they are concerned about their own judgement.

　　There is a make of car that is distinctly average. In fact some of the smaller models are not very good at all. Yet it manages to sell extremely well despite selling at a premium price. Because people want to be seen behind the badge. They will pay thousands of dollars in premium to buy just a few dollars worth of chrome and enamel badge. And most people buy silver and grey ones, because that is what everyone else does. All due to the power of marketing. The brand is presented as sporty which is just the image every housewife wants when she does the school run. Customers just don’t realise when they are victims.

　　If you are a game developer and you tell your mum about the game you are working on then that is marketing. Marketing is any communication. So it is a fact that a game with zero marketing will have zero sales.

　　Over the years I have never seen a game get the sales that it deserved just for its quality. Yet I have many times seen a game get far more sales than it deserves because of its marketing. And I have also seen many good games fail because of bad marketing.

　　Just look at the five games I was writing about yesterday. They are virtually identical yet they have massively different numbers of players. The difference is just the marketing. Marketing is more important than the game, this is a self evident truth.

　　Yet still there are very many game publishers who do not understand this. Many self and small publishers on the iPhone App Store, for instance. There you can see that marketed games sell well, non marketed games sell badly. It has precious little to do with the quality of the game. （Unless it is a total dog）。

　　Now EEDAR has done research in the game marketplace from which they say “Marketing influences game revenue three times more than quality scores”。 And actually the difference is even bigger than that, because the scores form part of the marketing!

　　So there you have it. If you want to sell more games and make more money then send me an email and I will come and sort it out for you!