News
Less is More
Cordova, TN; August 25, in the year of our Lord 2014--Family
Friendly Gaming, the industry leader in covering the family
friendly video games is recognizing that in some cases less is
more. You probably heard the phrase before right? Someone
explains how less of something can be better. In some cases less
of something can make you desire it more. Too bad the person who
came up with the PR Piecemeal strategy had never heard of it. It
is also too bad that all of those people in PR that follow the
PR Piecemeal strategy never bring up: “Less is More.” If they
had heard of it, they would make the entire entertainment
industry so much better. There would be less greed, and less
selfishness. There would be more patience, kindness and
consideration. Okay, so maybe I am a bit of an optimistic
dreamer. Would you prefer all the gunk happening, or make the
industry a better place for everyone?
Too often the people in the PR industry treat the media outlets
as slave labor. Do all of this work for a free game. I started
running down the costs. Family Friendly Gaming publishes press
release after press release. There are videos, screenshots, and
more. The price tag gets pretty high for some games. We are
talking four digits of cost on our side. What do we get in
return? A one dollar game up to as high as a sixty dollar game
(when they actually provide a game). The scales are tipped way
out of balance. Where are all those Star Wars people who want
balance eh? Part of the problem is the PR piecemeal strategy.
They throw us a few crumbs at regular intervals. That way the
client paying them is always in the news. There isn’t any set
amount so too many in the PR industry are abusing the media.
What is the downside? Isn’t it a big upside for these companies,
and the PR firms? I mean after all the companies get more
exposure, and the PR firms keep getting paid. Again even though
we in the media are helping these companies make money, we are
not given any of the profits. So we are making these companies
and PR firms wealthy with our work, and not getting any of the
financial benefits. The gaming media being abused is one
problem. Another is comments we have read from readers. Here is
a great one: “thank you for publishing all of those videos for
{GAME NAME REMOVED}, I don’t need to buy it since I have seen
most of the game in your videos.” Guess who gave Family Friendly
Gaming all those videos? The PR firm. They got it from the
company making the game. So they can lose sales thanks to
sending out too much content. These readers have a valid point.
Why spend their hard earned money on something they have already
seen the majority of?
It brought me to a realization recently. Less content released
for these games is more. People do not want to see a few new
pictures every single week. People do not want to read the same
press release every two weeks. What does that reference? Some PR
firms send out a press release about a game coming out in two
weeks. The press release has the exact release date on it. Then
two weeks later they send out the exact same press release. The
only difference is they changed it from it comes out on August
25th (for example), to it comes out today. All of the rest of
the paragraphs are exactly the same. We caught on to this
recently and stopped doubling our effort for the same content.
We have found this in screenshots, videos, and press releases.
Places are trying to get us to do double the work on the same
content over and over again.
What many in the PR industry forget is their job is to sell us
on the story, screenshots, videos, etc. Too many of them make
little to no effort in their job. Family Friendly Gaming has
been crystal clear this last decade on what we cover, and why.
We have explained our motivations. We have been transparent on
what are interests are. The only way anyone in PR could be
clueless about this is if they have not read what we have
published over the last decade. We say the same things on
videos, in public that we say behind closed doors. Less PR
Piecemeal, and more of the things we have asked for is what we
want. The thing is the PR firms need to first care about us in
the media as people. The PR firms need to think of others before
they think of themselves - at least once a week. For that to
happen there needs to be a major renovation/reform within the PR
industry. The relationship between media and PR needs to
modernize.
God bless,
Paul Bury
Family Friendly Gaming