How to do marketing for a game: a lesson from Crimson Dessert Will Powers
I have been listening to Will Powers from Pearl Abyss do the rounds speaking about Crimson Dessert, their upcoming single player (and let me choose my words carefully) action fighting game that is not an RPG but has some RPG elements. And although I jest it is exactly the thing that struck me about the marketing he has been doing. Now I don’t know if this is just Will himself or Pearl Abyss who dictate this, but the way the marketing around this game is being done has left me feeling they have done it right.
Will has seemed to be everywhere at the moment and I recently saw a graph showing the level of hype being generated for Crimson Dessert via comments on posts, google searches, videos on different platforms, social media interactions and so and the line indicating hype has been steady since the announcement of the game with a small but significant number of people giving it regular attention. But recently that line has shot up as the interest in the game has increased. This has been in part a response to the release of informational videos detailing the game, the world, graphics and mechanics in the game, but also in part to Will and his attitude to answering questions.
Every interview I have seen or heard him do starts with the following:
Interviewer: I realise you will have things you won’t want to speak about but we will go through some questions and we see how we get on. Is that OK?
Will: No feel free to ask me anything. Obviously there are a few surprises we would like to keep secret and some things we haven’t releases as yet but I will try to answer any questions you have.
He then proceeds to answer every question, even ones that the interviewer, whoever they are, feel he won’t answer or at the very least will answer in the vaguest way possible. He is precise in his answers. He is clear and concise in his answers. But he is never vague in his answers. When asked about performance, a huge issue in gaming at the moment where almost every game released in the last few years has suffered from some issue or another, especially recently with UE5, he states that they have got performance out of the engine that surprised them. He speaks about how they were not happy with the performance and the things they had to give up when using the old engine that led to them deciding to create a new engine from scratch that afforded them the ability to do the things they wanted to do. That way they could create an engine that did what they wanted it to do rather than manhandling someone else’s engine (I am paraphrasing but this was the general point). Will was direct in his responses but often said he was choosing his words carefully in order to ensure they were not taken out of context.
Case in point he stated that there were no microtransaction or other monetisation in the game at launch. The game was a premium product and when you buy it you get the whole game. He was quick to point out that there were pre-order bonuses that were cosmetics, but there would not be microtransactions that are designed to continue to extract money out of they player. There was an investor call where they stated that dependant on how the game does there may be additional things added later that may cost additional money but that it would be cosmetics and or DLC for the game. Multiplayer was one of these things that was mentioned. The game is explicitly single player but dependant on the game’s success and players feedback and requests, they have thought about it, but it is not the focus of the game. This is why the ‘at launch’ as so implicit. There may be other things added later that will cost money, but the game is designed as a total package not a piecemeal game with content removed to be added later for an extra cash boost.
I think the biggest indicator of how Crimson Dessert’s marketing is how information should be released is to compare crimson dessert’s marketing to Cyberpunk 2077 and No Man’s Sky. I use these two examples specifically as they have each, in their own way, had a redemption arc. There are other examples of games that have promised the world and delivered something that does not bear a resemblance to the final product, I can name games like Mind’s Eye and most games but Peter Molyneux (who I love by the way), but these games I feel did not mislead through malice but rather out of unclear marketing. Well maybe Cyberpunk did with the console performance.
When Hello Games showcased No Man’s Sky, they wowed with the level of detail the universe would have the diversity and endless randomness of the worlds. They promised all sorts of amazing things you would be able to do in their game and yet when the game arrived many were disappointed and, quite frankly, justifiably frustrated and angry with Sean Murray personally as he sold the game to people and his enthusiasm was infectious. Now obviously No Man’s Sky has become an incredible example of how a development studio and the people responsible for the overreach in the marketing take responsibility, knuckle down and deliberately work hard to bring the vision they promised to life with free updates. It has reached a point where the customers initially incensed by the betrayal are frequently seen bemoaning that the studio won’t take their money.
Cyberpunk 2077 was, in and of itself, a different kettle of fish. They came hot off the heels of a game that was incredibly successful and that is still regarded as one of the best RPGs every made. When people heard the Witcher 3 studio was making a game in the futuristic, incredibly detailed and nuanced world of Cyberpunk they were immediately glued to every little bit of information that was released, officially or unofficially. The hype for this game reached fever pitch long before the release date for the game was announced or the developers had really detailed what the game would entail. Then the developers described a game that sounded too good to be true which as it turned out it was. Aside from the features that were initially described that didn’t exist or at the very least were not as marketed, the performance of the game was not up to any standard that was expected from a AAA studio with many developers working on it. Now I would like to stipulate that I played and loved Cyberpunk 2077 at launch. The performance wasn’t great but was acceptable on my 1080ti (2 generations before the current cards at the time) and the game ran well enough. There were issues as you left your flat for the first time and went and spoke to Jakie at the noodle stand in the open world, but the performance evened out after that and was bearable from then on, but my experience was not the general experience. Having said all that, when they released 2.0 and Phantom Liberty (the best bit about Cyberpunk I think many agree), the game went from a good game to a classic and proved what the game should have been from launch and what CDPR as developers are capable of.
Fast forward to Crimson Dessert and although the marketing drive is boasting some things, that if true, will change development purely through showing what is possible, there is a quite reservedness to the way Will speaks about the game and a cautious clarity in the way he describes the game. The game looks amazing and the minimum specs needed for the game seem to be from fantasy (no pun intended). Steam Deck compatibility isn’t guaranteed but it is on their minds and based off the minimum specs it should work, but again this has not been explicitly tested so he wouldn’t commit to whether it will or won’t work.
The thing that reassures me about Crimson Dessert is that when Will answering questions, he answers all questions and even if he can’t give a direct answer, he is open about EXACTLY why. The openness and frankness of the interactions I have seen leads to cautious optimism that the game will be as they say it will be. He makes it clear that he is excited about the game. These interactions smacks less of a corporation trying to sell you a product but rather gives the feeling of a trusted friend suggesting a game they are excited about. They tell you why they think you will like it in a clear way that makes sure you understand what you are getting into all the while trying not to spoil the game and story for you.
Hopefully the game is good. Hopefully the time they are taking to polish and optimise the game will ensure that people on all sorts of systems are able to play it. Hopefully all the things that have been described by Will in these interviews are true and play out as people are expecting. The concern I have is that the game will be a MMO type game with a lot of stuff to do but not much substance. I am not an MMO person and many times these types of games are ocean wide, puddle deep and suffer from just trying do too much but not doing much very well. I am quietly, confidently excited about this as the first really exciting game this year. Last year was a phenomenal year for gaming (game wise not developer wise) and hopefully this is first of another year of great gaming experiences.