Tales From GameDiscoveryLand

Simon Carless
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Conversations with smart people in the video game industry on how games get discovered and played. newsletter.gamediscover.co

Episodes

  1. 05/18/2022

    Podcast: Mod.io's Scott Reismanis on the impact of UGC in games

    Welcome to the fourth Tales From GameDiscoveryLand podcast in Season 1. In this episode - recorded a few weeks back - we talk to Scott Reismanis, founder of platform-agnostic game mod host/platform Mod.io about the evolution of UGC (user-generated content), the impact of this content in games, and the future of the space. Presented by Simon Carless, founder of GameDiscoverCo, this bi-weekly, limited series podcast features conversations with smart people in the video game industry on how games get discovered and played. Below is a lightly edited full transcript of the entire podcast. Reminder: you can get hold of episodes via our official podcast page, and also via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and Pocket Casts. If you need it, here’s our podcast RSS feed. And thanks in advance for listening. Podcast transcript: Scott Reismanis and Mod.io Simon: Have you heard all the fuss about user-generated content for games in recent years? If your game supports UGC or mods, it can significantly boost its virality and discovery. Which is why we were so excited to catch up with Mod.io founder Scott Reismanis for our latest podcast.  Scott was also the founder of ModDB and IndieDB, and has been involved in the mod scene for more than 20 years. His new VC-backed company, which helps run cross-platform mods for games like Snowrunner, Totally Accurate Battle Simulator, Deep Rock Galactic & Skater XL - is doing some interesting work to make mods available multi-platform.  So let's hear all about the benefits and pitfalls of making modding a discovery engine for your games. I'm Simon Carless, founder of GameDiscoverCo, and this is the Tales From Game Discoveryland podcast.  [music] Simon: Okay, so I'm here with Scott - How's it going, Scott? Are you having a good day? Scott: It’s going well, thank you. Just wrapped up a successful trip to GDC, and it's great to be talking today. Simon: Awesome - we've certainly known each other for a while. We did some work together back in the day on things like the Indie Royale bundles but obviously I'm very interested to hear about your latest project Mod.io.  I was looking at the progression, and you noted on your blog that you had 12 million mods downloaded in 2019, 70 million in 2020, and 208 million in 2021. So clearly, the service - which provides mod support and a kind of centralized [hub] for a bunch of different games - is going quite well. Can you talk about what particular games your growth has been led by? I'm interested to hear like the three or four games that you feel that people are really, really getting going on Mod.io. Scott: So Mod.io and modding in general has typically spanned many genres of games, whether it's open world RPGs, like your Skyrims and your Cyberpunks, through to simulation games - we always said if it has a bus, trains, cars or planes in it, it's suitable. Right through to the multiplayer first person shooters and competitive games - where just customizing your avatar or changing the level can have a big impact on gameplay.  For us, our growth has been driven by, probably, all of those genres. But in particular simulation titles, for whatever reason. We've got a lot of truck and bus and car related games on the service. And they're just extremely popular with the players because once you've tried the 5 to 10 vehicles available to you, naturally you want something that's faster, bigger and got more wheels - whatever it might be. So they've really driven it . But it's definitely a diverse bunch, because we've got games like Totally Accurate Battle Simulator that kind of break the mold. It’s in physics simulators that people are dropping-in characters, and they've submitted 1.5 million pieces of content - and driven a lot of downloads. Simon: Can you talk about the broad type of mods that you're seeing? I think people have different opinions of mods based on what they think ‘mods’ means - and it's everything from cosmetics to kind of total conversions. Can you talk about the different classes of mod that you often see? Scott: The lines have really been blurred the last few years. Historically, when I got started in modding with ModDB back in 2002, mods were all total conversions. There really was no such thing as cosmetic mods back then. And so that's where you got your Counter-Strikes & your DOTAs. That type of content emerged from that scene, because the only way to really ship a game as a amateur or indie developer was to modify existing titles and create something new out of it.  Fast forward to the last… 10 years. Modding's become, I would say, much more accessible, somewhat more cosmetic. And that's been driven by a few factors. The first has been that digital distribution makes these smaller mods easily accessible for players. Jumping through hoops to download Counter-Strike was something that players did and justified. But jumping through hoops just to download a new skin for your character didn't necessarily make as much sense. So the rise of [Steam] Workshop made [that content] available to the players at the press of a button - which we're also doing a Mod.io. That has really opened up the door to sort of cosmetic and sort of more simplified mod types - and people often call them UGCs [User Generated Content]. For us, it's all the same, whether that content is drag and drop in-game and UGC and something that's made just through a few clicks of the mouse. Or it’s content [that’s] made in a level editor, or requires 3D modeling knowledge and skills…. The games that generally perform the best… recognize that too. And they try to make modding approachable, but also allow for a really deep dynamic range of creation. So if you want to go deep and really want to go advanced, that's available to you today. It's a bit of a mixed bag - and there’s just so much more content that players can make, and games can enable them to make. Simon: Yeah, I was looking at some of your top titles. And I did notice they had total conversions in them, but they also had skins as well. So I could see that there was quite a lot of difference there. The popularity of mods depends on how [devs] display it [in-game] and how integral it is to gameplay. Do you think there's just some types of games where mods are more integral to gameplay than others?  Scott: There definitely is. We generally say that games that have a very strong story-line or narrative or very strong art style, it's difficult to work mods into that. Because first, the mod creators are going to impact that stylized approach that you've created for your title. Whereas games that are multiplayer - naturally, people really want to try new levels. Once you've played the first five gameplay modes in the game, you want new levels for it, that you can experience multiplayer on. Or you want cosmetic skins, new weapons and items in the world. That's what allows you to personalize your player experience and… stand out relative to other players. So that genre really goes well. And then it's the really open-world RPG or simulation games that also skew in a single player direction where people want to change a skybox. They want to make new graphics and HD pack updates or just change the objects in the world. It's definitely more imagination driven creation. And because the scope is so large at those games, mods tend to lend themselves really well to it. Simon: I was quite impressed with the range of titles you've got on there. I guess one question I had is: how much maintenance is there in order to set this up [as a developer]? Obviously, one thing devs are always thinking about is “How complicated is this going to be?” Maybe you can talk about the most complicated that you've seen and the least complicated.  Scott: There's a few things that you need to consider here from the perspective of a game developer. One is the actual implementation of mod support (ie: what content are you going to allow your players to create in your game?) And so for some titles, that might mean they're just sharing save files and it's just drag and drop gameplay. And then whatever they remix and create, they save and… submit and share as a piece of content. So that's sort of more like your Space Engineers and your Totally Accurate Battle Simulator type titles where the game is almost the creation. You build your own spaceship, you share it - Besiege is in the same [category], where you build your own machine and you share it. Or TABS, where build your own little characters in the character editor and share it. In those titles, the focus for the studio is how they build those editors and make them work. Because it's core of the gameplay there's a lot of effort that has gone into that.  Then you have the opposite end of the spectrum. And that's sort of more like your Insurgency or Snowrunner that we've worked with. The creation happens outside of the gaming experience, and as a result of that the knowledge and skills that the creators require is a lot different.  In the case of Snowrunner, I think there's like a 40 to 50 page PDF document on how to make levels and vehicles. That’s what the community started with, a deeply technical guide that involves a lot of different skill sets. And at first glance for someone, it is daunting - there's a lot to it. And yet there's been, I think at this point, over 1500 vehicles submitted. So that's a classic example of ‘never underestimate the power and talent and the resourcefulness of your creative community’, because with very little they can figure out a lot.  In some ways, that actually leads to the most emergent and interesting creations. Because you've given them that scope and that flexibility. You haven't necessarily defined what they can and can't do. And they'll figure out ways to push boundaries and do really interesting things. So that definition is really up to the game studio to decide and then to put that policy into motion. But the advic

    41 min

  2. 05/04/2022

    Podcast: Devolver's Clara Sia on the streamer-led discovery process for games

    Welcome to the third Tales From GameDiscoveryLand podcast in Season 1. In this episode, we talk to Clara Sia. She’s currently the ‘influencer strategist’ at noted indie publishing label Devolver Digital, but has previously worked in streamer relations for a number of years, and streams on Twitch herself. Our subject? The vitally important - and very complex - YouTube and Twitch ecosystem, one of the primary ways that PC and console players discover games in the 2020s. Below is a lightly edited full transcript of the entire podcast. Reminder: you can get hold of episodes via our official podcast page, and also via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and Pocket Casts. If you need it, here’s our podcast RSS feed. And thanks in advance for listening. Simon: Streamers - they're kind of important to people discovering your game, in 2022. Incredibly important, in fact. Which is why we were so excited to get veteran influencer manager and strategist Clara Sia to the podcast. Clara is currently working at Devolver, and previously had a long-time stint at a third-party agency. She even streams herself on Twitch, and we had a lot to talk about, given the complex nature of the streamer ecosystem. So let's dive straight into what I like to call streamer anthropology with Clara.  I'm Simon Carless, founder of GameDiscoverCo, and this is the Tales From Game Discoveryland podcast. Simon: Hey everyone, and welcome to The Tales from GameDiscoveryLand Podcast. I'm Simon, and I'm here with Clara. How's it going? Clara: It's going swimmingly. Yourself, Simon? Simon: I am doing great, thank you. I'm very excited to talk to you because we're talking about streamers, and… something that I think is very important and honestly still not discussed enough in game discovery. This is how you deal with streamers, and how you interact with them, and how they think.  I wanted to start by asking you - you've been a longtime Twitch partner yourself focusing on indie titles, I wanted to ask how you personally pick games to feature. Is it the outreach from the dev? The game being great? All of the above? Clara: Typically, all the above, I've always been a casual streamer. So just because I have a little purple check mark it doesn't mean I'm serious or like, a career streamer. I originally started playing Guild Wars 2 and then I moved on to other MMO. I originally did it because… people were giving me in-game gold towards a legendary [weapon] to stream. I… grew to love it and I moved on to triple A titles and retro games.  Then I got [Twitch] partnered later that year, and I discovered indie games for the first time. Actually, I just decided I didn't care about numbers, I cared more about just having fun and finding new things. So the discovery is now my favorite aspect of picking and streaming games. I used to do these themed weeks like, you know, paper-themed indie games, dark-themed games, farming… Or if a game or dev at a booth made an impression on me at PAX and then follow up after, I’d play their game. But now I'm super casual. I used to stream five days a week. Now I'm just two nights a week. So I pick something that's come out recently… that fits my current moods. It’s oftentimes more chill these days… I think they're called cozy streams now. And because I'm not a career streamer, I have the luxury to play what I want, and I don't bother with this strategic game choice.  That being said, if I ever did want to put serious focus into my stream, there'd be a number of things I'd have to change about it to be commercially successful. And that would include game choice, I would definitely have to be more strategic about it. Simon: That's the nice thing about Twitch. You can have people from all areas, people doing it for fun, and you can have people doing it more strategically for income. And I did wonder about indie titles in particular. It seems like maybe indie titles have a tougher time breaking through on Twitch sometimes than YouTube - have you seen that? And why do you think there might be? Clara: I actually think it's the opposite, personally. It depends on the genre. Some genres and games will do better on Twitch than on YouTube and vice versa. They're completely different platforms & different mediums of content. I'd say though, generally, it's probably easier to break through on Twitch than on YouTube. But YouTube has more lasting power for all genres, due to its evergreen nature. So [YouTube’s] not just for games as a service, or highly replayable games or open world games, which just typically generate more content innately. But if you have your game [featured] on YouTube, that will last forever, because they very rarely take those videos down. Whereas on Twitch, it's fleeting.  I'm not saying that [Twitch] streaming is easy. But it's definitely an easier choice for a streamer to take a chance on a game for some number of hours until they get bored than on YouTube - to commit to pre-recording, editing and then publishing it permanently… on their channel. So for YouTubers, that content is worthless until it's published and they won't know how it will do until it is published. A streamer [Twitch] streaming a game - all of that content is usable, it's monetizable content right away because it's live. And they get live feedback as to whether or not it's working for their audience. So for me, it's been easier to break into [pitching games to] streamers that way. And then you get the hybrid influencers who are somehow able to do both live and VOD content successfully. I'm not talking about just uploading their live streams, just raw streams to YouTube. I mean, they made YouTube-specific content, and they made Twitch-specific content. I'm saying Twitch specifically instead of streaming because Twitch is still - by far - the king of all live streaming. So that's where you want your content to live. And in a live-stream fashion, Twitch is where you're going to be looking, mostly.  Simon: As you say, it's like if you want to put together a video for a new game on YouTube, then you are going to have to spend time learning it. And I'm always impressed with folks like Splattercat. They seem to be able to learn games enough to do pre-recorded content on them, and then edit it down. And they can only spend a day on that, and that seems really crazy to me.  So I think what you're saying is, if you want someone to try a game for two or three hours and see if they like it, then Twitch is sort of a good place for them to get started. And then maybe if you get the hang of that, then folks who are on YouTube would be also be interested in your game. Clara: Yeah, one typically kind of follows the other. Again - it depends on the game, the launch, the story beat as well. Oftentimes you'll give YouTubers earlier access because then they can pre-record, they'll adhere to an embargo. And then they publish the content a certain day - and then live-streamers just go live.  [Twitch streamers] don't have that pre-setup time that's required. And then, as I say, oftentimes if something's a hit on YouTube, then Twitch streamers will follow and vice versa. It really depends on what the strategy is for that particular beat. Simon: One thing that devs often ask me or I've seen them say: they feel like Let's Players or streamers are playing the same game over and over again. And in some way they feel like that's ‘unfair’, or something. Do you think that's like a fair criticism and why do you think that happens? Clara: Well, sure, there are definitely a lot of single game or single genre streamers, It's the path of least resistance. There's often still value in targeting both variety and non-variety streamers, though. So I wouldn't necessarily rule them out. I definitely still shoot for anyone who plays in the same genre as your game, even if they stick with mostly… one or two titles. Variety is always harder to gain traction than sticking to one game or genre. There are a number of strategies and metas that come and go in order to maximize viewership.. But they do it for a reason, for the same reason that sitcoms have formulaic structures.  You set the expectation and then you meet the expectation. It's very tempting for streamers, especially new streamers, who want to be unique to have specially themed days, regularly scheduled events like talk shows, interview segments, things like that but. But by and large it alienates their viewers… it segments them. Viewers typically want a consistent experience, with very little barrier to entry.  And talking about streamers specifically. YouTube again, you can have the preamble it's all pre-recorded. It’s edited - you can skip back and forth. But unlike YouTube, you can't really easily rewind [on Twitch]. It's not designed that way as a live-stream - [you can’t] catch up on any pertinent information, find out what's going on. The majority of [Twitch] stream [viewers] will join midstream. Some will ask what's going on - at which point the streamer or moderator needs to interrupt things, answer them, fill them in. Most viewers on Twitch, though they don't talk at all. They just don't chat. They're just what we call lurkers. They take in, maybe a minute or two of content… and then they silently decide to go elsewhere, if they aren't immediately caught on to what's happening. So for me it's understandable why a streamer would choose to stick to one genre or one game, because it is the path of least resistance. That is where… the easiest revenue lies for most. Simon: So for example, for Northernlion, if you come onto one of his streams as a viewer, you're expecting him to be playing some kind of randomized game where he's making slightly sarcastic comments to the audience. And it's kind of different every time, right? That's how it works. Clara: Yes, and then if he finds a game - and it's not just limited to Northenlion. But if he finds a game, he typically sticks

    48 min

  3. 04/19/2022

    Podcast: Dread Hunger's James Tan talks the hit social deduction game.

    Welcome to the second Tales From GameDiscoveryLand podcast in Season 1. In this episode, recorded a few weeks back, we talk to James Tan of Digital Confectioners, one of the key creators of smash hit social deduction game Dread Hunger. He talks about the project’s ‘hook’, its surprise Chinese success, and post-1.0 path to 1 million units sold (!). Presented by Simon Carless, founder of GameDiscoverCo, this bi-weekly, limited series podcast features conversations with smart people in the video game industry on how games get discovered and played. Below is a lightly edited full transcript of the entire podcast. Reminder: you can get hold of episodes via our official podcast page, and also via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and Pocket Casts. If you need it, here’s our podcast RSS feed. And thanks in advance for listening. Podcast transcript: Dread Hunger’s James Tan! SIMON: Imagine you're an explorer, trapped on a ship in the Arctic tundra, with your crewmates. Some of them may not be entirely who they seem. How do you survive, find the traitors, and win the game? This is the conundrum in the Digital Confectioners-published social deduction game Dread Hunger. It's one of the top titles on Steam right now, thanks to its massive viral success in China. For our latest podcast, we had a chance to explore these wild viral discovery moments for the game with James Tan, one of the main creators of Dread Hunger. How did the team approach development? Why did the game take off shortly after its 1.0 launch? And what can we all learn from his success? I'm Simon Carless, founder of GameDiscoverCo, and this is the Tales From Game Discoveryland podcast. [Music] SIMON: Great, so here I am and I'm here with James Tan, how's it going, James? JAMES: Hey Simon, this guy really well, thank you. SIMON: Cool, yeah, I'm excited about this because you're one of my first guests on the podcast, and I get to talk to you about Dread Hunger. And Dread Hunger is a game that's doing pretty well recently. So firstly, congratulations on that - are you happy with how it's being received right now? JAMES: Thank you. Likewise, this my first podcast so I'm very excited to do this as well. Yes, I would say we're extremely happy with the results, and extremely happy about the success of the game.  SIMON: What I wanted to start with was talking about the background of the creation of the game. I know that social deduction games have been around for a while - even before Among Us. And Among Us is obviously a well-known one. But there's also games in VR - like Ubisoft had Werewolves Within that I think was social deduction as well. So I wanted to ask - what made your team want to make a game like this? What's the genesis of the project? JAMES: So this project started around late 2019, when we got together with a good friend of ours, [Killing Floor creator] Alex Quick. We had made games together in the past - we made Depth together way back. 2012 was when we started that project together with him. And essentially, I gave Alex and my lead product designer Neil free rein to do whatever they felt like doing. And given that Depth was an almost hardcore, PvP, asymmetric style shooter, they wanted to do something a little different. They explored around all these different genres and all these different themes - and they settled upon social deduction. It wasn't very popular right at that moment, and they've been playing some really popular board games surrounding social deduction, things like The Resistance, card games like that. I think that sort of sparked this initial idea of: “Oh, what happens if we try asymmetric from a different angle of hidden information, rather than one side is sharks and one side is divers.” They are obviously very different. But in this case, it was more about “Oh, what if the asymmetry was about information, and how asymmetrical that that can be?” And it sort of evolved from that idea, rather than looking at: “Is social deduction a really popular genre within the gaming space at that time?” In terms of the theming, a lot of it was very much based on on the TV series The Terror. At the time we didn't think many people were looking at that - so that's why we decided to go with that theme. SIMON: And that's pretty interesting from a discovery point of view. You were accidentally early to a genre that, at least from Among Us perspective, suddenly became quite popular… Probably from a discovery point of view it's better to go into a genre that has some people familiar with it, than one where you have to blaze your own trail, right? JAMES: So when we first started looking at these genres, social deduction and survival, we started by picking out the stronger genre, which was actually survival at the time. We wanted to have that asymmetrical gameplay using some of the misinformation [concepts]. But the game initially was more focused on the survival elements and sprinkles of misinformation, where one player would say “Oh, you know, I just went and did this” when they actually didn't do that - or “I just saw somebody do this”, when that actually didn't quite happen.  We really liked those kinds of betrayal moments. They gave players more room for player-generated stories about funny things that would happen. I think it's fair to say that when Among Us really started gaining a lot of traction… [we] pivoted a little bit in the marketing message. So we focused a bit more on: “You’re all trying to survive in the cold scenery, you don't know what is… in the wilderness out there and there’s these animals trying to hunt you down.” And on top of that” “the worst enemy is potentially your crewmate.” And I think that made for a really compelling theme. SIMON: When I was talking to you ahead of this podcast, you wanted to make sure that you’d answer who would say “isn't it just Among Us in 3D?” To your point… there's quite a lot more gameplay in it, right? There's a lot of survival elements, there’s action. So you would describe it much more as a hybrid, genre-wise than simply a pure social deduction game, right? JAMES: Yeah. I think the best way of putting it is that Among Us really focuses just purely on the social deduction - that’s the pure focus. Because we throw in more survival elements, we get to the point of feelings, like, desperation of ‘how do I survive?’ And maybe in order to survive, there are things that I'm going to need to do that I otherwise normally wouldn't. And so trying to put players in that kind of situation. I think it's very similar to maybe how you would actually feel if you were stuck in the Arctic, and you had a very small crewmate size. And you're trying to go out and look for resources, food… and there probably are things you're going to have to do in that situation. I think the strongest element in Among Us: when you are the impostor, it's very clear that you know what you're supposed to do. You're just supposed to eliminate everybody else in the most stealthy way as you possibly can. And when somebody gets eliminated, they go into that discussion room to figure out who is or who isn't the impostor. And then they throw whoever [they think] that is into space. In Dread Hunger, it’s a lot more about subtlety. There's a lot more arguing in terms of “yeah, but he did this” or “he also did this” or “she did this, but she also did that”. You know, “why would, in our case, an impostor have been a troll?”, “why would a troll go and get all this coal for us that we actually need - like, why would they do that?” And possibly the troll is playing a long game, so he tricks them or tries to gain their trust.  There's a lot more of those elements coming in when you can do actions where you're trying to gain somebody's trust,. So during our play tests… when we were playing, often we would play the long game, where we would gain everybody's trust. And just constantly say things like: “if I was a troll, I wouldn't be bringing back all this wood” or “I wouldn't be bringing back all this coal”. Only for… halfway through the game or near the end of the game, we’d be saying: “Haha, actually, I was the troll and I've just stolen all your food”, or “I've just poisoned all your food”. There's a lot of these kinds of subtle elements which feed into the social deduction. We feel rather than just accusing somebody just outright: “Oh, you're the impostor”? There's really not a lot you can do about that situation, once the group has decided that. Even if somebody identifies you as a troll [in Dread Hunger] and says, like, “I actually saw this player do this thing” which… positively identifies him as a troll? Because it's still a survival game, trolls can still fight back. So yes, they might be discovered. But that's not the end of the world for them. So they can still gather resources to craft weapons… and just go on the offensive. SIMON: That's pretty cool… it's pretty complex. It's interesting to me in terms of how you developed this - there's obviously quite a lot of complexity of tactics. How did you work with earlier development? Did you announce the game early? Did you have a lot of further alphas and betas to get people interested, and then tuned the gameplay? Or were you a bit more private earlier? JAMES: We were definitely a lot more private early on, I would say. There was just a lot more experimentation. And I think it's fair to say that this is where a lot of the experience comes in. With Alex and Neil having played a lot of these social deduction board games, [they considered] what are the kinds of emotions or feelings, or the kind of situations we want to recreate within this game. And then thinking about the game design from a point of view of - rather than just the straight mechanics of  “Okay, so we add this weapon that will allow players to do X or Y or Z?”, it's more thinking “Well, w

    43 min

  4. 04/04/2022

    Podcast: Kate Gray on how media discover your games

    Welcome to the first Tales From GameDiscoveryLand podcast in Season 1. In this episode, we talk to Kate Gray - a veteran writer for sites like NintendoLife, Kotaku, and RockPaperShotgun - about what the media expects from game creators, how to attract media attention, and most importantly, the things NOT to do. Presented by Simon Carless, founder of GameDiscoverCo, this bi-weekly, limited series podcast features conversations with smart people in the video game industry on how games get discovered and played. Reminder: you can get hold of episodes via our official podcast page, and also via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and Pocket Casts. If you need it, here’s our podcast RSS feed. And thanks in advance for listening. Podcast transcript: Kate Gray on how media find your games SIMON: Picture the scene. You're trekking through the dense jungle of video game discovery, without a map. You're looking for a familiar face, a helping hand, a useful conversation about how people find and play your games. And perhaps you've found it in the form of long-time journalist and writer Kate Gray.She's worked with NintendoLife, Kotaku, RockPaperShotgun and many more outlets besides, across her career to date. Our conversation is centered around what the media expects from game creators, how to attract their attention, and most importantly, the things NOT to do.I'm Simon Carless, founder of GameDiscoverCo, and this is first ever episode of the Tales From Game Discoveryland podcast. SIMON:  Hey there - I'm here with Kate. How's it going, Kate?  KATE: Hi. It's going well. SIMON: Excellent. I was super excited to talk to you because of your experience both on the dev side of the business - community management and writing - and as media. Firstly, I wanted to chat a little bit about the concept of game hook, because I wondered - what's your definition of game hook? Like, how do you see it when you get shown games? KATE: That's interesting, because I see tons of Steam pages every week and a lot of them are very formulaic, which is not in itself a bad thing. If there's a formula, I know what to expect from you. But I think it's really honing in on what your game can offer that other games don't. That's where you're going to find your hook. You can cover things like the genre. If it's a really interesting genre or a particularly popular genre, you can talk about that. You can have a really good tagline - that's less common, but I'd love to see more sexy taglines. You can imagine what your demographic is and try to laser target them. But the hook is very much similar to the elevator pitch, where you want to summarize your game in just one - maybe two - sentences with enough attention-grabbing keywords..  It makes the press pay attention and, it makes people's ears perk up. That's going to be doing a lot of the selling of your game, and the press will pick that up and run with it as well. So have a good hook. SIMON: From my perspective, I'm always interested in the visual hook as well. I know that a lot of us are browsing Steam pages all the time. Do you think there's something visually in games where you look at them, when you get a little bit more interested? Have you noticed particular facets to games that help you with that?  KATE: I mean, games have this sort of interesting visual art aspect that maybe movies don't really have in the same way. You can have people who really love pixel art games, they're going to pretty much snap up any pixel art game, or like a voxel game or low poly game - an art style can be a hook. So, lean into that if that's an aspect that you have. The screenshots can do a lot of the work there, obviously, and the trailer as well. But if somebody is browsing Steam, generally what you want is to have something eye-catching as your thumbnail. You have such a little amount of time to grab somebody's attention, and you have so little space to do it in. Because on Steam, you are basically just a picture and maybe a title. And that's going to have to communicate a lot of information, so to have it brightly colored, if that fits with your game. It might not stand out a great deal because everyone's doing that. But it really capture the feeling of the game in that one header image - put some thought into it.  Of course, this also applies to the Switch eShop and other storefronts as well. Actually, I think on Switch’s eShop, people tend to use different images. I can't say why, but that's something to bear in mind. You know, tailor your images to each platform, each storefront and pick your screenshots well.  This is something that I covered in my recent presentation. A lot of people are just taking really boring, really random screenshots. And I'll usually only use one to two of them, because the rest of them are just unusable for one reason or another. So really put some thought into the screenshots that you're putting up? SIMON: Yeah, I'd like to drill down on screenshots because I've noticed that as well. And one thing I've noticed with people is people are not very keen to put their UI in screenshots sometimes. Sometimes, it's because the game is early and they don't feel like they have a good UI. But certainly when you're picking screenshots because you want to talk about a game, are you looking for a mix of ones that look good, and ones that look like what the real game is like? KATE: I would say, if you're putting together a press kit of 10 screenshots - which is what I would advise? You're the one who can sell your game by how it looks, you might as well include 10, it's a nice number. I would pick a mixture of “this is what the game actually looks like” so UI and all that kind of thing, and then a lot of more posed screenshots with really nice composition, nice lighting, nice color balance, things like that.  Think about the prettiest moments in your game and stand there, record a video, and then you can take screenshots from that. And just go with one of each moment, you want to have a range across the 10 screenshots. But what you need to think of, in regards to the press covering your game and using those screenshots, is that they will need a lead image. And this one cannot be the same as the one that you have on Steam, because that has a logo on it.  We can't use lead images that have logos because it won't translate well when that piece is much smaller. The logo will be small and it'll be kind of muddy. So you want something that's really big, vibrant, easy to read, even at small resolution. So have at least one that is like that. It can be the key art, the key art is usually the most appropriate - just make sure that it doesn't have a logo, please. SIMON: That's a really good point - I think sometimes people will use the same screenshots everywhere. But clearly on Steam you don't, and maybe in some cases you can't put key art as one of your screenshots. So it's a good example of where you should be changing up the kind of stuff that you're sending or making available in your press kit, compared to what you put on Steam. I think it's good to have good posed [screenshots] on your Steam page but also sometimes I find people will abstract their game away entirely. There was this tycoon game I was checking out on Steam a few months ago, and it didn't show any interface. And I just couldn't really tell on the screenshots  what it played like. I think if it's early on and you want to get people a little bit excited, that's great. But for people making buying decisions on the Steam page, I think you do need to have a little bit more information. KATE: I think that's a really good point, people do that with trailers as well. I've seen so many trailers that are more a tonal idea of the game, which is useful. But it can't be the only trailer you have, because I don't know if you're offering me a visual novel, a point and click… it could be anything. I know that it's like steampunk, let's say, but I don't know how I'm actually going to be interacting with the game.  So yeah, I think you make a good point that you really need to pay attention to the audiences you're catering to. On Steam, having screenshots that show you what the game is like is really good. With the press kit you maybe want to err more on the side of “this looks gorgeous”, even if it's not necessarily representative of the game. Because those are the images that are going to come to represent your game within the press, so make them good. SIMON: Yeah, it's an interesting point even from a streamer point of view, I know that I've spoken to some streamers before like Splattercat, and they've said that key art is very important for streamers as well because of the YouTube thumbnails. So again, maybe your Steam page doesn't have key art minus the logo. But, for streamers as well I think you do really need nice key art or nice posed stuff, right? KATE: Because if you give me the key art and you include the logo, what is going to happen is that I will crop it. I don't have enough time to Photoshop out a logo and it probably wouldn't be that easy. So I'm then cropping, you know, a good, maybe, half of what's in that key art just to get the logo out of the way. And why would you want someone to do that to your beautiful key art? SIMON: Exactly... we've just gone granular on screenshots - there's so many little things that you can find that will improve your outreach. From a press perspective, actually something I wanted to talk about, it’s less streamer and player centric is the human story. There are some hooks in games that I think are less about the game and more about, say, the team that put it together.  So, when you see people who you’ve picked in the past for some of your outlets - do you think pitching with a human story is a good idea? Do you think people do it enough? KATE: I think it is a tricky one to get right. The example that I think of a lot of the time is That Dragon Cancer which was very much a human s

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