So recently a little game called Hollow Knight was releaed, and if you take a gander at the game's OT, you will see almost nothing but huge praise for it, with many calling it the best in its genre since Symphony of the Night for example. And yet, there are still no known reviews of it anyware, no media, nothing. No giantbomb quicklook either for example.
Many of us in the thread were perplexed at that fact (or also in the steam thread for example, where some people are saying things like "why isnt anyone talking about Hollow Knight, its amazing"), so I decided to tweet at one Austin Walker of Waypoint and Giantbomb fame why the game is seemingly being ignored by the press. This was his reply:
so it seems he hasnt even heard of the game. The game, according to steamspy, isnt doing very well, I believe it has sold around 10k copies or so, and this got me to think of games like Stardew Valley for example, another small project, but one that WAS picked up by the majority of the gaming media and it blew up like we know it did. Team Cherry is a very small studio and apparently they have no real marketing budget so they are relying on word of mouth, as posted by a gaffer on the thread:
I guess the fact that it came out during Horrizon / Switch-Zelda season doesnt help, but its strange that its going THIS bellow the radar, and also scary to think how much marketing actually makes or breaks games, and I guess its no wonder big companies spend so much on marketing. Hopefully some big influencial Youtuber picks up on it and it can spread that way, or it gets a big push on a site like Giantbomb, because it's a damn shame if this game doesnt suceed, Team Cherry did an amzing acomplishment with it, and if this is their first atempt, I cant imagine what they would do if this was a success.
Many of us in the thread were perplexed at that fact (or also in the steam thread for example, where some people are saying things like "why isnt anyone talking about Hollow Knight, its amazing"), so I decided to tweet at one Austin Walker of Waypoint and Giantbomb fame why the game is seemingly being ignored by the press. This was his reply:
austin walker‏Verified account @austin_walker 1h1 hour ago
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@Rhaknar This is the first I'm hearing of it, so my suspicion is lack of PR push
so it seems he hasnt even heard of the game. The game, according to steamspy, isnt doing very well, I believe it has sold around 10k copies or so, and this got me to think of games like Stardew Valley for example, another small project, but one that WAS picked up by the majority of the gaming media and it blew up like we know it did. Team Cherry is a very small studio and apparently they have no real marketing budget so they are relying on word of mouth, as posted by a gaffer on the thread:
I was in a stream with the PR director from Team Cherry and he said they're focusing completely on word of mouth and Twitch/Youtube because of no real marketing budget (understandable) but he also wasn't even trying to reach out to media outlets. I told him he has to at least make the attempt and to get noticed one has to stand out and expend some effort but he didn't believe they'd write about it until it got popular enough from streaming.
Is what it is.
I could write an eye-catching pitch piece.
I guess the fact that it came out during Horrizon / Switch-Zelda season doesnt help, but its strange that its going THIS bellow the radar, and also scary to think how much marketing actually makes or breaks games, and I guess its no wonder big companies spend so much on marketing. Hopefully some big influencial Youtuber picks up on it and it can spread that way, or it gets a big push on a site like Giantbomb, because it's a damn shame if this game doesnt suceed, Team Cherry did an amzing acomplishment with it, and if this is their first atempt, I cant imagine what they would do if this was a success.