Visual Novel Games and Marketing for VN Game Developers! (full guide)

Visual Novel Games are becoming very popular in most of the countries where the entire game industry succed!

Well, the game industry is always the entertainment industry leader everywhere, but some countries spend more money for games, and now Visual Novel Games are stocked in the electronic devices of many peoples out of Japan, where basically VN games genre born and of course where it is still big. A wide range of people find enjoyment in the distinctive fusion of interactive gaming, narrative storytelling, and visual components.

What are Visual Novel Games?

By definition Visual novel (VNs) video games are text-based adventure games that combine interactive fiction and traditional anime or manga art styles to give the gamer the experience of reading a novel in a visual format.

The main device for this type of games still remain the PC, although some are ported to popular consoles, including the Playstation lineup and Nintendo Switch, as well as online platforms like Steam and also other devices like mobile devices.

At K Storm Studio we love 3D games and this because we are 3D artists and game developers since long time or probably because of the sense of reality or the freedom offered by 3D games. But at K Storm Studio we’ve been also captured by several adventures and visual novel games since ever and this because of the k factor of these games. Which is not the graphic design that is absolutely cool. We love visual novels because of the stories they tell us!

From romance to horror, from thriller to fantasy, drama, adventure and sex. This is the world of visual novels and aside of action games, we love them!

Better then reading a book, more interactive than a movie, catchy like a TV series… these are some of the reason why are coming out around 100 novel games a month!

So do you want to create Visual novel Games?

You are game developers and you want to make your visual novel games. First question you have to answer is in common for every other products. Where and how could you start promoting your VN games? Of course you dont have to tell them what your game’s plot is about at least without spoiling the story, that’s obvious. Strike a balance between revealing enough to generate interest and holding back enough to tease your potential audience. Try to inform the Visual Novel Games communities out there why your game is worth playing and here is the fact, there is a good new about Visual Novel Games.

Visual Novel Games have a specific market segment of the game industry with his own sub-niches as well. The visual novels players have built specific communities of loyal and passionate fans all around the web.

Marketing: the “wedding moment”

As you already probably know, even posting on a specific community means to shoot at the clouds! Why? Because you don’t exactly know who will read your post. This means that everyone can potentially interact with your post, especially people who are not specifically targeted for your game even if you post on a Visual Novel Games community. Also a community on social media doesn’t means that subscribers are there to looking for products to buy! A social media community is more like a place where the people tends to spend their spare time just to be there. However it’s free so why dont?

So How can you achieve your real potential buyer? Of course the better way still remain using ads. With ads you can really find out your potential customer in the moment when he’s looking to buy a product like yours, in the moment when he’s hot and ready to tap the credit card, because that is the moment where he needs to buy a new game. Further with ads if you do your research you can exactly achieve the perfect candidate for your product and build the “wedding moment“!

What about “Influencers”?

Influencer marketing can be another good way to promote your game however there are several aspects to consider before start thinking about “influencers”.

Influencers are not professional figures in some cases. I mean, many of them want to work as influencers also building a career, but many others just started in talking about something on social media consistently and thanks to the opportunities offered by the new world of social media they got many followers around the world.

This is important but not enough to put them as key factor in your company marketing plan.

Often they use rude language, they are boaring and unprofessional. Also ask yourself, how can I effectively make sure that if I spend money with them I can get money in return? Because this is what every entrerpreneur has to consider while is spending money on ads if not… he’s gonna lose money and close his company and his dreams! Is that what you want?

What is the future of influencer marketing?

Who knows…. however there are some bad recent episodes that can make us carefully think about this Have you heard about one of the most famous influencers world wide? Chiara Ferragni is one of the most known influencer in the world but recently many frauds came out from his business.

In this article on PS Newswire is reported how many consumers doubt about of social media influencers because of some sort of negative experience with the product. Another article from the Derby magazine reports few researches conducted by the BBC, CCO and Cosmopolitan where the consumers explain many concerns about the way influencers “promote” the products they get paid for.

In conclusion if you want to plan to contact influencers to promote your games please consider these aspect:

Pros

• Many influencers are honest and respectable and they like work even with you
• At the present time several customers still trust in them
• This type of marketing is often cheap than traditional marketing

Cons

• Your campaign results are not measurables
• You spend money without receiving instant visit to your store page
• You cant control the traffic they send it to you

The power of the “Search Engines”

And here is the fact. Search engines are the best marketing tools ever, why? Because you can come across people who is exactly looking for your product. On search engines people tells the engine what he needs and the engine gives them the best content for them. So what question comes up? How can I inform the engine I’m the best content for them? There are basically two ways at least: advertising as mentioned above but also content marketing. Content marketing doesn’t only means to run a blog or a writing and creating content on other platforms. Content marketing also means to create any type of content that can create links to top the rankings of search engines.

Just a little note. If you are game developers and you want to create visual novel games you have to have the same approach that moves any major company to his success. So think in terms of numbers because search engines do that.

Publising your games on different store platforms for instance is a great way to let your title top the rankings. Running a blog (yes it is) is also an amazing and effective way to have content (links) to give to the search engines. Having a website is also the best way to show yourself as a solid concrete in the web ocean and this is also a must have asset, especially for a small company but also for any solo developer.