Team Members
Heidi Mäenpää
Essi Ruuska
Juho Ryhänen
Research Questions
- Company details.
- What social media sites does the company use? Is there a difference in the amounts of time the companies use on each?
- Are there specific social media sites dedicated to their games? Do these differ from the company sites? Pick one specific game example.
- How many followers does the company have on each site? And the game?
- How does the company promote itself in the social media?
- How does it promote the game?
- Does the company engage with the players via social media? How?
- Does the company promote their best players/guilds/teams? If so, how? What effect does it have for the game experience or the community?
- Are the companies encouraging players to stream gameplay videos (YouTube or Twitch)?
- What purpose do gameplay videos and trailers serve? Who are those aimed for? Does the promotion of these videos differ from the normal promotion of the company?
- How does the company build their community?
Methodology
Our objective was to find out how video game companies promote the company and their games on social media and how do they engage with the players. We wanted to take a look at what social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube etc.) do they use and how do they use them to promote the company and their games and we wanted to find out how the promotion of the company and their games differ from one another. We also wanted to know how active they are on social media and how big of a following do they have.
We split up into single person groups and each of us chose one video game company and one game of theirs to research. Heidi Mäenpää chose Supercell - Clash of Clans, Juho Ryhänen chose Square Enix - Final Fantasy XIV and Essi Ruuska decided to research Valve - Left4Dead2.
During the process of collecting data, we used our Google group and Gmail to keep in touch with each other and to find out how each of was doing with their research. We collected our data on our chosen companies/games and gathered the findings into a single report file in our shared Google Drive.
Findings
We based our research on three companies: Supercell, Valve and Square Enix, which all produce their own kind of games and vary in sizes as well as in promotion.
Established in 2010, Supercell is one of Finland’s leading mobile game development companies. From their games in this research we focused on Clash of Clans.
Valve Corporation (formerly Valve Software, commonly referred to as Valve) is an American video game development and digital distribution company based in Bellevue, Washington, United States. Founded in 1996 by former Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington, Valve created the critically acclaimed Half-Life(released in 1998) and Portal series (released in 2007), as well as the software distribution platform Steam (released in 2002) and the Source engine (released in 2004).
Their title Left2Dead2 was chosen under observation.
"SQUARE ENIX HOLDINGS CO., LTD. with headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, is a holding company leading the Square Enix Group with a diverse range of content and service businesses founded in 1975.
The Square Enix Group publishes, distributes and licenses entertainment content around the world under its internationally renowned brands including SQUARE ENIX®, EIDOS® and TAITO®.
The Square Enix Group includes a global network of leading development studios located in North America, Europe and Japan. The Group boasts a valuable portfolio of intellectual property including: FINAL FANTASY®, which has sold over 100 million units worldwide, DRAGON QUEST®, which has sold over 62 million units worldwide and TOMB RAIDER®, which has sold over 35 million units worldwide, and the legendary SPACE INVADERS®." - Square Enix Holdings CO., LTD website.In this research we focused on their game Final Fantasy XIV.
Social Media Usage
We looked into the companies social media behaviours and platforms they use for promotion. Following numbers are interactions on a weekly basis in various social media sites.
Activities
Company/Game
|
Facebook
|
Twitter
|
LinkedIn
|
YouTube
|
Blog
|
Forum
|
Supercell /
Clash of Clans
|
<1 / 7
|
2 / 13,6
|
<1 / -
|
0 / 3
|
<1 / -
|
5 / -
|
Valve / Left4Dead2
|
<1 / -
|
70/-
|
- / -
|
7 / -
|
-/ -
|
-/ -
|
Square Enix / Final Fantasy XIV
|
5 / 4
|
40 / 45
|
- / -
|
25 / 1
|
4 / 100<
|
- / -
|
Additionally Valve has created Steam, which is an online store for video games, but also a social media service for gamers. On Steam one can search for users, add them as friends, play online with them and chat.
Steam differs from the Valve company site as it is more a social messaging and online gaming app instead of a company website. Currently Steam has over 65 million users.
Followers
Company/Game
|
Facebook
|
Twitter
|
LinkedIn
|
YouTube
|
Blog
|
Forum
|
Supercell /
Clash of Clans
|
33882 / 1701000
|
37400 / 132000
|
6954 / -
|
919 / 392365
|
- / -
|
382792 / -
|
Valve / Left4Dead2
|
1000000/ 2200000
|
1150000/-
|
-/-
|
486 833/-
|
-/-
|
-/-
|
Square Enix / Final Fantasy XIV
|
425640 / 410983
|
199600 / 94700
|
- / -
|
227385 / 115815
|
? / ?
|
- / -
|
Game company promotion
Supercell: Reports from attended events, shares won awards and company news, shares job openings, gives interviews. (Seem to rely more on others promoting them.)
Valve: Using FB, Twitter, Youtube and especially the Steam community. Special discounts, trailers about upcoming releases / updates, polls on how the players have liked a certain game so far etc.
Square Enix: It promotes its games, discounts, events, competitions. There aren't many direct promotions to the company itself. There is really not much need to promote such a big company.
Game promotion
Clash of Clans: Shares game news, shares game trailers and gameplay videos, holds events and competitions, promotes fan-made productions about the game.
Left4Dead2: Since L4D2 is already a pretty old game (released in 2009) its reputation speaks for itself. However there are special offers, discounts, updates etc that are promoted through the social media.
Final Fantasy XIV: Trailers and pictures about the upcoming content, news about the game and its updates. Special discounts.
User engagement
Supercell: It promotes their videos and comments about the game, answers to player problems, retweets their tweets, likes and comments on videos.
Valve: Due to having Steam Valve does not really have to engage itself in the social media but rather lets the players do the work by discussing on the Steam forums. Of course there are discussions on their FB and Twitter pages too.
Square Enix: They answer the players questions, asks for their comments on the new content. Listens to players requests for new content.
Player promotion
Supercell: Clash of Clans YouTube page promotes the most creative players, best strategy videos and the most epic Clash of Clans players. They also use Twitter for player promotion. It gets the community, or at least those players who crave for acknowledgement, to thrive for better results and requires them to be more dedicated towards the game.
Valve: It is possible to see who has earned which achievements, how many hours a user has played the game etc. I have not come across any specific kind of behaviour towards ‘who-has-the-most-and-what’.
Square Enix: The company doesn't really promote the best players/guilds/teams.
Encouraging gameplay streaming
Supercell: Yes, by actively promoting player videos on social media websites. https://twitter.com/ClashofClans/status/447495191784476672
Valve: It is possible to upload videos, artwork etc on the Steam community but I have not noticed Valve to specially encourage this.
Square Enix: They do not really encourage the players, but they do allow it. There has been some controversy concerning Square Enix and gameplay content. Previously they were completely against monetization, but now allow it to some extent:
“You may not use the Materials for any sales or commercial use, meaning you cannot receive license fees or advertising revenue, except as part of the partner programs operated by YouTube.com, Twitch.tv, Ustream.tv, or similar programs. If the operator of a partner program seeks to confirm our policy, please point them to this page as we do not have the resources to respond to all requests.”
- FINAL FANTASY® XIV Materials Usage License
The use of trailers as a promotional tool
Supercell: The debut advertising trailer for Clash of Clans was made by Barton F. Graf 9000 agency, and it reached six million views within three days of being published. These trailers are aimed for old and new players alike, and as they are easily shared across all social media platforms it means more visibility for the game and also the company. Gameplay and strategy videos are mainly for those who are already playing the game but want more out of the experience. Supercell doesn’t put much effort into promoting their company but rather lets the success of its products create their worldwide reputation.
Valve: Many of the gameplays I have seen are aimed for either new players / for helping to complete a difficult task or simply for fun i.e. when the game has bugged or does something peculiar. For sure they differ as these are often made by amateurs just for fooling around.
Square Enix:Debut Trailers are there to give an idea what the games is about and what there is to expect from the game, these Trailers are for everybody. Patch Trailers are there to give players a glance on what's going to be new in the game, these trailers are mainly meant for the old players.
Community building
Supercell: They have an active forum where players can share their works (e.g. art) and ideas about features they’d like to see in the game. Supercell also actively promotes the most talented and active of players, and seems to use word-of-mouth a lot to get more players involved in their games.
Valve: Steam is so popular that it does not really need to be promoted anymore. However Valve has made Steam in order to build their gamer community: they have created a fantastic gaming hub where people can easily find, try and buy new games (there are others than Valve made games available and for various platforms, even for Linux), discuss, find new gaming friends, chat in-game and much more.
Square Enix: There is a great Blog for the players. This Blog is a great way for the company and the players to communicate with each other and for players to share their thoughts and ideas for the game.
Conclusions and suggestions
It seems that the bigger the company is, the more they use their resources in social media marketing. Their marketing is mainly based on their games, and the companies themselves tend to lack in promotion. This could be intentional, since their games are the main attraction and source of income. Valve’s Steam is a complete different matter, since it is a platform for thousands of games. The number of followers match the massive amount of content.
More companies seem to aim their promotional campaigns to YouTube and use e.g. Twitter for player engagement. There has been a trend in publishing more and more content also on Google+ and Vine, the latter being maybe the less used. Our suggestion to the game companies would be to use their resources on more efficient user engagement, especially in services like Twitter. Players like getting noticed, and their satisfaction with the interaction relates straight to their higher engagement level when they play the company’s games.
