Vicarious PR
A Data-Driven Approach to Video Game PR and Marketing

In terms of grandeur and economic growth, today’s video game industry has become comparable to its entertainment industry counterparts like movies and TV series. Where Spider-Man: No Way Home grossed $297 million in the global box office, PUBG earned $254 million in November 2021. There is no doubt that such growth has opened up myriads of avenues for video game creators. But it has become a real challenge for them to ensure that their games get the right attention—given that almost 20 games are being released on a daily basis. The situation necessitates players across this sector to better understand the target audience, find effective ways to reach them, and use the right influencers.

This is where Vicarious PR steps in. The award-winning video game PR and marketing agency understands all the nuances of the gaming industry and undertakes a data-driven approach to offer superior PR and marketing solutions for game developers, publishers, and tech companies.

Vicarious PR comprises former game journalists and influencers. The team helps clients in establishing and maintaining better communication with its publics by tailoring its services according to clients’ requirements. “We don’t believe in coming up with a template of a campaign and then fitting clients into that.

Instead, we prefer to go and start from the ground up and look at what the game is, who the target audience is, or what they are trying to achieve with a specific campaign. This enables us to provide the services that clients need to achieve the desired outcomes,” says Michael Brown, CEO of Vicarious PR. Additionally, Vicarious PR follows specific criteria while selecting the journalist/influencer to promote a game. It evaluates various game journalists and influencers to determine and select those who can surely bring in the right audience for a specific game.

The company also takes a holistic approach to attracting influencers and journalists. Instead of sending out a hundred emails a day to see who will respond to them, it sends out carefully targeted emails that ensure a much higher engagement rate. “Journalists and influencers appreciate it because they know that we conduct our research and won’t waste their time,” Brown remarks.

To ensure the success of a campaign, Vicarious PR’s team plays the game first to understand it from every aspect. They then conduct competitive and market analysis to develop different messaging documents to test how to pitch the game to journalists/influencers. Following this, the company takes feedback to the client and learns their thoughts on it, discussing both the positive and negative comments. After creating the final messaging based on the research and market analysis, the team builds a target list of people who can match the project and map out the complete campaign.

Most of Vicarious PR’s projects come either at the early stages of game development or after a client spends some time with another agency and wants to see if they can improve their sales. For example, Behaviour Interactive—the company behind the popular multiplayer survival horror game Dead by Daylight—was getting 900 articles written about it annually. The number is relatively small, considering the size and success of a game with over 15 million players. Working in liaison with the client Vicarious PR changed the situation. Today, the game has an average of 4500 articles written about it annually.

Continuing the success, Vicarious PR is now en route to developing software that can help clients connect more directly to the content creators. That way, they can have a more active role in generating publicity for their game. Moreover, Vicarious PR is working on new tracking software that adds additional metrics and data points to PR campaigns to make them quantifiable. “We’re trying to put a system in place where we can accurately forecast how certain campaigns are going to go based on different variables, giving more ROI, quantifiable metrics and stronger transparency” Brown concludes.