VGPR #012: I've Been Good This Year

Steam wishlist fever, AOC is Among Us, and holiday gift guides

Oct 27, 2020

[Hi, I'm Lizzie Killian, founder at FIFTYcc PR. You're reading VGPR, a newsletter featuring interesting developments and topics impacting public relations in the video games industry. If you’re enjoying this newsletter, please consider subscribing or sharing with a friend or colleague. Send feedback, questions, and ideas to vgpr.insider@gmail.com, or drop me a note on Twitter.]

In this issue: Steam wishlist fever, AOC is Among Us, holiday gift guides, and more!

When You Wishlist Upon a Steam

Anyone working with indie devs on PR for their Steam game can tell you that these days they’re often hyper-focused on one metric: Steam wishlists. Why?

Essentially, wishlists have a high correlation with sales. When you wishlist a game on Steam, you get a direct notification from the platform when the game is out. From that notification, you can purchase the game in just a few clicks. Even if you don’t purchase right away, you’ll get new notifications whenever the wishlisted game goes on sale. Wishlists provide one of the most effective calls to action because they come at ideal times (at launch, on sale), and provide a short and simple path to purchase.

On top of these basic features, it appears that when a game gets a lot of wishlists, it increases the chances of Steam feature placement. This can provide a huge bump in visibility and awareness for the game.

So if you are suddenly getting inquiries from indie devs asking for PR help, and their main metric is “I hope to get x-thousand wishlists on Steam,” that’s why. More than social engagement or trailer views, wishlists can help predict future sales. GamesIndustry.biz has a whole guide about Steam wishlists. It’s a great overview and pairs well with the juicy details provided by The Riftbreaker team in Simon Carless’s GameDiscoverCo newsletter.

AOC goes to Twitch

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was on Twitch (alongside Ilhan Omar), and the internet went wild. The stream featured a bunch of A-list streamers co-hosting, drew 439,000 peak concurrent viewers, and topped out as one of the biggest individual streams of all time. The authentic fun of the stream connected with the Twitch audience and generated a lot of interesting takes.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @AOC

Anyone want to play Among Us with me on Twitch to get out the vote? (I’ve never played but it looks like a lot of fun)

AOC was there to deliver a political message—a simple push to vote. Why did this work here? Why now? Does it mean we can start pitching AOC to play our games?

From a PR perspective, as always, successful messaging depends on being authentic to the platform and its audience. While a lot of the conversation centered on the personalities (congresswomen) and the platform (Twitch), it was the choice of game that really made it work. Among Us has minimal mechanical challenges, uses a skill set common to all humans (“who here is lying??”), and the gameplay is loose enough to let you discuss other things without getting in the way of winning. Can you imagine how the stream would have gone if they’d tried CS:GO instead? That could easily have fallen flat, or worse—been taken over by “she’s not a real gamer” contempt—and probably offered fewer chances for discussion outside of the game. Instead, Among Us let everyone able to jump in quickly and start showing sides of themselves we don’t get to see outside of this playful context.

A screenshot of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez playing Among Us on Twitch.

Expanding to a new platform means speaking authentically to the people there. On Twitch, authenticity often means playing games. So more than Twitch as a platform, or interest in the upcoming US election, or even AOC’s winning smile, it was finding the right game at the right time that opened the door to a fun and genuine connection with a new audience.

Holiday Gift Guides: Get Down On It

The holidays are upon us and holiday gift guides have already begun to surface. But are holiday gift guides really that important? In short, yes!

Beyond gaming outlets’ own guides, mainstream consumer and entertainment outlets like BuzzFeed, Entertainment Weekly, and TODAY are also in the gift guide game. They might not be the prestige coverage that clients love, but they can make a big impact and really broaden your audience. As a Cool Person in Video Games you don’t need to Google the holiday’s hottest games, but millions will, and even with the pandemic US video game spending this holiday is projected to reach more than $13.4 billion.

Above: I legit received this puzzle as a Christmas gift last year from my in-laws after they Googled “video game holiday gifts”! (Also I give this puzzle a solid 9 out of 10)

To take advantage of this coverage opportunity, the key is to plan ahead. Every outlet has different deadlines, with some as early as August or even July (!!). Pitching can start with a task as simple as researching which outlets have published gift guides in years past, and of course providing high-quality image and video assets.