By Edward Nawotka
As discussed in our lead article today, gamification is a growing trend among marketers. In one current example from the book world, Kirkus Reviews — the venerable American book review magazine — will launch beta version of a new social network trivia game with game developer Qrank at tomorrow’s PubCamp@SXSW in Austin. The trivia game will focus on literary history, from Gutenberg to the present, and will reside ultimately on the Kirkus Reviews Web site. While the game may be a fun diversion, the intent is less to entertain than to serve as a marketing device to attract readers to their site and keep them there.
Of course, this game assumes the gamer will have a certain level of interest in and knowledge of literature. What of the non-avid readers . . . like, say, hard-core gamers?
There have been several video games that have attempted to combine the two platforms. Dante’s Inferno, for example, turned the classic into a hack-and-slash adventure game. But were the gamers who picked up the title — few, apparently, as the game was considered a commercial failure — inclined to later buy a copy of the book? Highly doubtful. The game, ultimately, did little for Dante’s “brand,” I think. Granted, this is an extreme example.
But say your promoting a new book, several questions arise. If, for example, you use book content to develop a game to market the book, does the reader have to be familiar with the content before hand to enjoy the game? Ideally, no. But the key is making a game based on a book enjoyable enough without familiarity with the material. Or, if you’re looking to promote an author and their backlist, do you cater to the fans or the newbies? Or perhaps you do both?
Obviously, the situation is tricky and still evolving. Let us what you think in the comments.
And for more on the intersection between gaming, publishing, social networking and even a few things you might not have thought of next, follow Publishing Perspectives throughout the next week while we bring you all the news, buzz, and hype from SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas.
5 Comments
Obviously games to promote the backlist of a well-known author should cater to both the fans and the newbies.
Games to promote an unknown author with an unread book should equally obviously “work” for the game players without any previous knowledge of either.
Both my statements are no brainers. What I think is a whole lot harder is to figure out an attractive game based on a novel. If you’ve got a “chase” plot (the bad guys against the good guys, angels vs. demons variety) you’re all set: it’s easy to translate into a game – most video games seem to be nothing but a variant of the “chase” plot.
But what about other types of plots? Particularly the literary ones where suspense is often kept at a minimum and so much is based on subtle psychological observation and stellar writing? Well, I don’t know but I suspect that appropriate games are going to be hard to invent!
At Sophisticated Games this is just what we have been doing for the last decade- specifically with the book based Lord of the Rings franchise. The trick is to create a game which will be as appealing to those who are familiar with the literary work underlying the game as to those who have never read the book. With Shakespeare, Beowulf, and Golden Compass alongside LOTR and The Hobbit, we hope we have achieved that balance. But there are of course many bestselling books that don’t necessarily turn into good games subjects.
When we launched Clubponypals, based on Jeanne Betancourt’s 44 volume Scholastic series “Pony Pals”, 80% of our traffic knew about the books. Now that ratio has reversed. By word of mouth alone, we have members in 165+ countries and have hundreds of thousands of signups. By revitalizing a brand, our game experience has used a solid dramatic core around which to build satisfying gameplay events. And as we develop our transmedia rights out into mobile versions, animation, film, etc. our adaptations of a proven evergreen can build on the story’s central values.
Right now, less than 5% of games are made by women, yet all surveys show that girls and women are the ‘net’s majority users. We are introducing an entire new generation to the values that tens of millions of readers embraced in the original book series — that by being kind, independent and smart, most of life’s challenges can be successfully handled. So far, we have been able to attract members who don’t know the books as well as those who read them over the last decade.
In the same way that films based on books aren’t always a sure fire hit, perhaps one way to improve the odds of success is to look for literary works with themes and genres that games have not yet saturated, then expand on those ideas with storytelling tools that only games can offer.
In our opinion, the “enhanced” book in the form of an app is going to emerge as a major new form. Games will be an integral part of them.
And how are we supposed to do something like this when you’re an unknown author and your publisher won’t shell out a nickle for advertising??
Gamification is going to build up your buzz and your brand?? You people are on Drugs!! This is just a fricken shuck. If this is the kind of overblown, high-concept crap coming out of SXSW, then Gawd help us all!
On the other hand, if you want to read a kick-ass literary thriller set during the last days of Nazi Germany, during the surreal three-week Flensburg Reich of Grand Admiral Doenitz, then check out GERMANIA, my debut novel, that Simon&Schuster paid six figs for and then promptly forgot about.
You wanna know how you sell books?? You go out and buttonhole people and make a general pest of yourself, because for every fifty people you annoy, one of two do go out and buy your fricken book. And if they like it, they’ll tell people.
Flensburg was kind of like Casablanca, only with Nazis instead of valiant central european refugees. Much stranger possibilities
I think it’s a great idea. Any positive promotion for a book, including using video games, will attract new people to the book. The new book Lady Lawbreaker by G.J. Fuller is one good example. I hear that a video game about the book will soon be released. Promotionally speaking, the use of video games could be very helpful to newer authors especially.