Dan E Gray Designer & Community Manager

Gaming Social Networks [Part 2]

A few days ago I ranted about games companies using sketchy tactics to gain exposure on social networks. Today I want to revisit that, but with two more recent and mainstream examples.

The first I came across was an Assassin's Creed Facebook promotion. You are invited to 'Like' their Facebook page in return for an exclusive sneak peak of the next title in the series. Turns out this 'sneak peak' is just a short, blurry and inconclusive looping video clip. Feeling a little cheated? Don't worry! Just use the buttons provided below to share the page, and by doing so you contribute to speeding up the full reveal!

Ignore the totally bogus activity monitor and progress bar, just hit a couple of those buttons and share it with your friends! It's so easy, and it's not like it costs you anything, right? It sure would be a shame if you never got to see that... whatever it is they're going to show you.

Example number two is a very similar story, but this time coming from Star Wars, and their May the 4th (be with you) promotion:

Despite a rather more sophisticated set-up, they actually get you straight to the content you came to see, though it will only play up to the 'unlocked' point. Again, this timeline (supposedly) progresses as the page is shared on various social networks. Out of the two, this is certainly far less obnoxious. There's no bait and switch with the reward, you know what you are getting from the start, and you can enjoy the content as it progresses without having to share it at all.

Neither is great, though. The more my Facebook or Twitter feeds get full of this kind of viral marketing crap, the less I'm going to pay attention to them. When I see a link to a news story about a new game (or movie, TV series, etc) I'm not going to assume it's an honest recommendation from a friend unless they explicitly say so. As I covered in the previous post, this is seriously diluting the power of social networks to bring in people who are genuinely interested and wont just give the page a cursory glance before closing the tab.

At the very least, if you are going to run promotions like these, do it the Star Wars way. Be honest and up-front about what your audience is getting, don't ask them to share something on the promise of some unspecified future event. Certainly don't bait them into sharing your page only to then require that they do something else to get what they came for, without even showing them what that is.

Related posts:

1. Gaming Social Networks
2. Being Lazy with Social Media
3. The Gaming Industries Retreat from their Fans
4. Reference Card for Gaming Community Managers
5. What I’ve Been Up To