SEO on game platforms: why don't we talk about it?Also: a look at big game biz survey & lots of discovery news...[The GameDiscoverCo game discovery newsletter is written by ‘how people find your game’ expert & company founder Simon Carless, and is a regular look at how people discover and buy video games in the 2020s.] G’day, hello, and welcome to our second GameDiscoverCo newsletter of the week. (Don’t worry, we won’t be upset if you wait ‘til you get back from GDC to read it. And heck, did you finish your GDC bingo card yet?) Anyhow, today’s newsletter deals with something we don’t see talked about much. Sure, SEO (search engine optimization) is a whole, often ‘Google x webpage’-centric profession. But PC and console game platforms have their own UIs and search algorithms. How do you improve your ranking there? Let’s explore… [HEADS UP: support GameDiscoverCo’s goodness by subscribing to GDCo Plus now. You get full access to a super-detailed Steam data suite for unreleased & released games, weekly PC/console sales research, Discord access, seven detailed game discovery eBooks & lots more.] SEO on game platforms: why so underdiscussed?Let’s start this off right: search engines within PC and console platforms - whether it be Steam, which we’ll mainly focus on, the Switch eShop, the Xbox and PlayStation stores - are used many millions of times a week to find games. But we’d like to note: the majority of the time, people searching on these stores are typing in the name of a particular game. Looking for Lethal Company? Type in Lethal Company, first result is… Lethal Company. Job done. In fact, when games consistently sell well on stores that are bad for discoverability, like the Switch eShop, it’s often because people saw the game on YouTube or Twitch, and typed in its name. That’s a discovery ‘win’, but nothing to do with store SEO. Yet.. store SEO is still important, folks! (And underdiscussed.) So we pondered, and also enlisted the help of Steve Stopps and James Clements from Excalibur Games, clients who have two SEO-friendly Steam games (Ranch Simulator & Flashing Lights). So here’s some tangible takeaways for Steam in-store SEO:
Yes, these are the basics, and there’s s a lot more detail. For example, you should look carefully at what happens when people gradually type in a keyword on Steam’s search autocomplete. (The games change for each character added.) An interesting metapoint here: "Which more ‘abstract’ keywords are people searching for that they might find your game? If nothing, you won’t get much upside!" So: is search a real discovery mechanism that could help someone find your game for the first time? It works for search results like ‘truck driving game’ - broader themes that casual players might be exploring. More people should consider making ‘on-platform SEO-friendly’ games? (See: Supermarket Simulator, currently #1 for ‘simulator’ on Steam.) And in asking Excalibur’s Steve Stopps on this subject, he came up with the following extra comments. His meta-point: “The question all developers should be asking is:
To some extent, this search results optimization only works if you have a game that is at least ‘medium popular’ in the first place. (If you don’t have that, you’re fighting hard to even appear a long way down an even longer list, unless your title 100% matches the search.) But if you do have interest, you can get some good boosts, especially when people are looking for ‘a type of game’, rather than a specific title. Finding ‘games that appeal to a similar audience’ and deconstructing their tags and keywords is vital. (We have some Steam client tools for ‘affinity’ which we’re looking to roll out wider, later this year.) Finally, we’ve concentrated this article almost entirely on Steam, but similar rules apply to console UI search, too. For example, on Xbox, it looks like some devs are using Zelda as behind-the-scenes search keywords. That’s clearly for a reason. (Ping us if you have tips on console SEO that don’t get the console makers mad at us?) Launch in-game & cross-platform UGC with our sponsor: mod.iomod.io offers a complete solution for user-generated content distribution; on any platform from PC, to consoles, mobile and VR. Plugins for Unreal and Unity, and a SDK for custom engines make implementation easy for all games. Built as a white label solution, mod.io services allow you to create a fully tailored experience for your UGC creator community (in-game & web custom UI, SSO, moderation rules, real-time metrics); keeping your players engaged in your own ecosystem. Reach out to discuss UGC implementation, or sign up to our newsletter covering our latest product updates, and industry trends. The state of the game biz: UGC, retention & moreTimed for the start of GDC, game engine & monetization services behemoth Unity has released its ‘2024 gaming report’ (free reg. req!), talking all kinds of hot trends (like AI, which we’re casually stepping over for now), as well as other game biz evolutions. The survey and its results are somewhat aimed towards mobile games, which are where Unity monetizes on the ads side (and a large chunk of the overall game market.) But trying to extract the relevant parts for PC/console noobs like us:
Another notable tidbit in favor of user-generated that we picked out, chosen by Unity from a 2023 Harris poll: “52% of U.S. gamers say that the ability to generate content gets them to play longer, while 34% would make content. 31% say they would spend more money on downloadable content on a game with UGC.” Interesting. We recommend checking out the full survey - hosted on an incredibly long webpage, rather than the customary .PDF, but we are trying to be OK with it - if you’d like more on production bottlenecks and toolsets. (And plenty about AI, of course!) The game platform & discovery news round-up…Finishing up the free newsletters for this busy GDC week, let’s take a final look at some of the platform & discovery news that’s ongoing:
Finally, have you heard about Is Super Mario Maker Beaten Yet? Basically, in order to create public Super Mario Maker levels on Wii U, the creator had to play through it, to prove they could be beaten. But that doesn’t mean that everyone else could beat it… And there’s now a race against time: can the community beat every single level ever created in SMM 1, before the Wii U servers shut down on April 8th? There’s just one to go (!), and YouTuber Grand POOBear explains. (UPDATE: here’s more on that level.) [We’re GameDiscoverCo, an agency based around one simple issue: how do players find, buy and enjoy your PC or console game? We run the newsletter you’re reading, and provide consulting services for publishers, funds, and other smart game industry folks.] You're currently a free subscriber to The GameDiscoverCo newsletter. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription. |
- Blogger Comment
- Facebook Comment
Subscribe to:
Post Comments
(
Atom
)
0 comments:
Post a Comment