TriplePoint PR

By now, you’ve most likely heard the news, but it is never too late to send congratulations over to our client, Jambool, whose virtual economy platform Social Gold has received plenty of attention over the past year – most recently after Jambool’s acquisition by Google.  As the social gaming and virtual goods industries continue to grow,  we look forward to seeing what our talented friends at Jambool can come up with next at Google.

I had the opportunity to give an updated version of my ‘PR for iPhone Games‘ talk to the New York Gaming Meetup on Tuesday. Focusing on indie development publicity for multiple platforms, the presentation walks viewers through the What, Why and How of doing PR – whether budgets are shoestring and you’re running the show yourself, or whether you seek outside help from a company like TriplePoint.

We took a video of the talk – view it below! View it in HD and full-screen if you’d like to have a look at the the slides from the updated presentation.

Chris Heintz, TriplePoint, PR 101 For Indie Game Developers from Ed Zitron on Vimeo.

View the notes-oriented version of the presentation on SlideShare below:

Last week, the TriplePoint New York office hosted the First Annual Holiday Showcase – the two day event had a wide variety of clients on display, with everything from video games to comics to wearable tech.  Journalists were invited to stop by, have a snack and check out the latest offerings from many of our clients, including SEGA, Nyko, Gunnar, PlayOn, NextSport, Livio and more.

The showcase was a big success with great turnout. People came through the office from a variety of outlets including Good Housekeeping, PC Magazine, CBS News, Joystiq, Men’s Health, Worth Magazine, The Street, CNET, MTV Networks, and more. Many of the journalists came by with specific items in mind to see, but stuck around and checked other things outside of their beat.

Most of us non-Miley Cyrus fans are tired of hearing the song “Party in the USA.”   From the clichéd opening rift to the seemingly simple lyrics, I hope that it is a fad that will soon die out.  But still, people young and old scream at the sound of those opening notes and belt the lyrics at a crowd of confused faces.  I wonder, “How can a song with such an uninspiring melody and lyrics be so catchy?”  Maybe I am too old, but no, I have friends my age and older who simply adore that song.  Perhaps it is only my disillusionment with mainstream pop.

Instead, I fill my iTunes playlist with songs that few would recognize, songs that only players of certain video games could appreciate.  Songs, though many wordless or in a language I do not understand, still mean so much to me after being on my playlist for many years.  I can dream to the sound of my inexperienced fingers playing “To Zanarkand” on the piano.  I know every word to “Suteki Da Ne” even though my abilities in Japanese are limited at best.

“How many pop-ups is too many pop-ups?” asks the Frisky Mongoose. Shouldn’t there be a more reasonable cap on pop-up notifications, so players can get busy playing (and spending money, for that matter)? Log-in interruptions are particularly bothersome in my opinion, but some games are offering smoother entry these days, so I’ll just assume that’s been noted and move along…

Beyond logging in, when you finally do get to tend to your social game goings-on, it seems like there’s a pop-up every 3-4 clicks. I have hundreds of trees on my farm, and if I want to harvest them all one-by-one, I should be able to without having an annoying pop-up in my face after every 4 trees!

No – I don’t want to send free gifts to my neighbors right now. If I did, I’d click on that enormous Gifts tab staring me in the upper eye. No – I don’t want to check out the new virtual items. If I do, I’ll go to the store.