Feature: Gaming PR, The Breakout Hits

Anyone who knows about The Sims, knows about Spore. Or so the theory goes. They were made by the same imaginative mind that is Will Wright. He takes ideas, concepts and imagination and turns them inside out. No one thought that The Sims would sell back in 2000. However, it has become the best selling PC game of all time, selling in excess of 50 million units worldwide, including 7 expansion sets, while becoming a cultural phenomenon at the same time.

That brings me to today’s post. A feature I wanted to start working on is gaming PR and how it relates to the product, but also what made that game and the PR campaign behind that game so successful or not in the case of each game. Gaming PR is interesting in retrospect because what looks good on paper may not work out in reality. Plus there are those PR shops who follow the cookie cutter method.

Like many other entertainment products, gaming provides unique campaigns that you couldn’t try or get away with in other industries. Sometimes they work and other times they don’t. But this feature is something I hope we can all learn something from and even borrow a page form their play book. I know I’ve learned a lot from looking at campaigns in other industries and this could provide useful food for thought. So the goal of this feature is to exam the games but more importantly the PR campaigns behind each game and if it’s working, especially if the publisher is using a strong online/social component.