Brief
Having developed a real time strategy (RTS) game Under Siege™, exclusively for Playstation 3® and the Playstation Network, Portuguese developer Seed Studios briefed Say to launch the game in the lead up to Christmas to the UK male gaming fraternity.
Solution
The strategy was to emphasise Under Siege’s user-generated content and innovative use of the new Playstation Move controller. Due to their often complex control systems, real time strategy games are usually associated with the PC, but Say needed to demonstrate what was achievable on a console.
- Teasers. To warm up the media community and create an early buzz, Say distributed pre-launch, high production trailers.
- Early game previews. Two major press tours were conducted. One in London attended by key men’s lifestyle and gaming titles, nationals, freelancers, bloggers and broadcast. The second at the offices of Future Publishing in Bath, the nucleus for UK gaming titles. Previews were important to build a community of Under Siege fans and to communicate specific game play messages.
- Online groundswell. A social media news release incorporating all assets for the game was published online and propagated to boost the game’s SEO.
Result
The successful launch generated over 60 pieces of coverage across all prominent gaming blogs, websites, online and print publications. 490 posts were generated across 30 countries in under two weeks, leading to an increase in traffic to the game’s website of 170% and the amount of time users spent on the site increased by 77%. Boosting the game’s SEO raised online brand awareness, drove interest and increased website traffic.
Client verdict
“It was imperative to engage with the right agency – one with the gaming contacts, insight and know-how to leverage the gaming community as fast and aggressively as possible. With limited time and budget, Say worked tirelessly to achieve our objective – they succeeded." - Antonio Goncalves, CEO, Seed Studios