Having a fantastic game doesn’t always mean it’ll be a hit; ensuring that the game is in the hands of the right players can be the difference between success and failure. At last week's Develop Brighton, freelance marketer for gaming and tech Federica Nocerino shared some insight into marketing your game.

The title of the talk, ‘Mastering discoverability: How to attract and nurture your game’s audience’, clearly struck a chord with the attendees at Develop as the conference room didn’t have an empty seat in sight.

“Building a community is important. It really shifts the framework from being just sales driven to being connection driven and user-centric. Community can be your best and worst co-worker. Try to understand how to talk to them, put them front and centre in your marketing efforts.”

Making connections

Nocerino points out the importance of understanding your audience, who are they? What age are they, and what languages do they speak? “Use your impression points to create hooks”, Nocerino advises, explaining that active engagement is on the rise for younger generations, and therefore identifying the trends and spaces they engage with can play an important part in your marketing. It’s here where the presentation shows that 69% of Gen Z consumers create digital content, game related or otherwise, compared to that of 59% of millennials and 46% of Gen X consumers.

It’s not just social media channels that are pointed out as key ways to engage with your audience, Nocerino comments that “Influencers and content creators are the true breach to your audience. Especially early on because people may not be following you if you’re in development, but your audience is likely attached to content creators and will follow where they go, so you can try collaborating with influencers during your development process.”

Speaking of building communities and engaging with fans across social media channels, there is still a buzz around the recently launched Threads platform.