Valentin’s Kickass marketing hooks #1

Marketing Hooks. Hooks might make you think about fishing, Peter Pan, or dating. To me, it’s synonym of success. Or at least, on a marketing level.

Marketing hooks are not everything. You won’t catch big fishes, or fishes altogether, with only a hook. You need a fishing rod to do that. In our case, the fishing rod is your game. But without a hook, it’s extremely harder to catch our lovely sea animals. So when developing your game, think about your hook at the same time you think about game design in pre production, to make marketing an easy task rather than a fastidious chore (read this bit from Ryan K Rigney on the subject, very insightful read).

But who am I to give lessons right? Just a fellow trying to make his way in the indie industry. Saying that isn’t enough. I have to give you proof. And I will my boys and gals, oh I will.

What are marketing hooks, exactly?

A hook is a statement, usually summarizable in one or two sentences, that encompasses a strong selling point or baseline for your game. It might be similar to an Unique Selling Proposition, even though it’s not exactly the same thing. USP is about the product, hooks are about marketing.

Example USP: The fastest FPS of the market

Example Hook: Even Shroud is lost in our game

See the difference ?

Note: an USP can be a hook, but a hook is not necessarily an USP.

You’ll see sometimes the line between an USP and a hook is thin, and I’m playing with that in this article. Some of the hooks presented might be USPs but honestly it’s not a big deal to me since I’m here to make a point: you need a solid idea, whatever the type or term, to promote your game. Then the sentences to present it will flow.

Proven successful marketing hooks

Once again, hooks aren’t everything and hooks of the following games only worked because the game itself is awesome. But let’s take a look at some hooks that made some developers rich and happy (probably):

Boyfriend dungeon by Kitfox games. Hook: Dungeon crawler meets dating sim (conceptual)

Cuphead by Studio MDHR. Hook: Hardcore hand drawn coop shoot them up in the visual and audio style of vintage cartoons (visual, audio)

The wandering village by Stray Fawn studio. Hook: City building on the back of a giant monster (visual, conceptual)

Assassin’s Creed Shadows by Ubisoft. Hook: Assassin’s creed in medieval Japan (visual, reference)

Valorant by Riot games. Hook: Counterstrike with MOBA powers, made by Riot games (conceptual, reference)

Overwatch by Activision Blizzard. Hook: Team Fortress 2 with MOBA powers, brought to you by Blizzard. (conceptual, reference)

You see in these examples that there are different kind of hooks. And these are not official hooks, but some I see in games above.

Here we see 4 types : conceptual, visual, audio and reference. I won’t dive into details but there are other kind of hooks. These examples are here to prove several things:

• • Your hook should be unique. It doesn’t mean your game has to reinvent the wheel. But again, your hook should be unique.

• • Marketing hooks might seem easier to find for AAA known studios, since their brand is a hook in itself. But remember most of the hook is the game, and boy these games are not easy to replicate.

• • Your hook should be surprising. Either in a visual, audio, conceptual or in terms of game design mechanics.

• • Marketing hooks from these games are a big part of the game. Not some detail. Even though it’s not revolutionary, it has something exciting and new. Assassin’s Creed Shadows is still Assassin’s Creed, but with medieval Japan it’s gone to another dimension.

Valentin’s kickass marketing hooks selection #1

Now that this introduction has been made, here are some marketing hooks I noticed over the last weeks that should either be easy to market or when they’re not, I’ll give my opinion on how they could be so. Now, some of these games have gone unnoticed, and if so I’ll explain my theory about why too. If I find a marketing angle that could present things differently through a baseline, I’ll give my version. And if the original is perfect, I’ll keep my mouth shut. You have the rules, so welcome to Valentin’s kickass marketing hooks selection #1 !

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