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Lets Talk Marketing Strategy!
Lets Talk Marketing Strategy!
I love marketing and one of my goals this year is to broaden my marketing experience and knowledge. Aside from learning from online resources, looking into local college classes, and reading, I decided a good way to dive deeper into this would be to talk about the most successful marketing strategy I’ve learned so far. And what better way to do that than in the form of a blog post?
So let’s talk about what I call the Viewer to Player Model, or VTP for short.
Well Elliot, what is a viewer to player marketing strategy?
Well Elliot, what is a viewer to player marketing strategy?
I didn’t invent this idea, and I’m sure it was subconsciously inspired by marketing work I’ve seen before, but back in college I started thinking about avenues I could take to get the prospective player to imagine playing the game. Originally, I thought about boot up sequences and main menus. They’re great first visuals players see, and I did implement that thinking to some degree across my work. But I ultimately landed on the store page as the best way to successfully get the prospective player imagining they are already playing the game. Not when they click install. Not when they boot it up. The moment they land on the page.
The goal was simple. Make the viewer become the player immediately.
But why? What does this actually achieve? If they are already playing the game in their head, that final step of clicking install becomes that much easier. It grabs attention more effectively than passive description. It activates imagination. It pulls them in before they even have to make a decision. Of course, this benefits the creator monetarily, but for me, what mattered more was the immersive element. At the end of the day, I am still a young artist trying to create something meaningful, and this is just one part of that process.
I first explored the VTP strategy during my senior project, Limb From Limb, where I had already gathered the research and content I needed for a strong store page. Derek Lieu’s work and my marketing coursework shaped much of that early thought process. From there, I kept asking myself: How do I connect the viewer to the player in a way that achieves my artistic goal? How do I make someone look at the page and already feel like they are inside the experience?
The short answer is that, for me, VTP is the art of bringing the product’s world into the viewer’s mind through the first visuals and text they see. It’s about creating the start of the game within moments of them seeing the product, not when booting it up or playing the tutorial. It allows them to imagine themselves within the world you are offering.
When and why you should use player framing!
When and why you should use player framing!
So why should you use this? Why does it actually work for your game?
The short answer is that it depends on your genre and structure. You wouldn’t want to utilize it in something more systemic where the gameplay itself is the star and there is little narrative to hook the player. In those cases, it’s harder to pull the viewer in because there’s no story scaffolding to help them inhabit the experience.
You would want to use this in more narrative driven experiences. Games that establish a clear setting you can pull from are great for this. Think of Space Marine: Warhammer 40,000. Most players understand the Space Marine chapter they are joining, or at least understand enough of the world from a brief look at screenshots to see a group of blue armored warriors slaying monsters, which, let’s be real, is already pretty dope. From there, you have a strong base to twist into VTP framing: “THE ULTRAMARINES DEMAND YOUR LIFE!” It may be a bit blunt, but I think you understand what I’m getting at.
The reason I find this approach so interesting is that it lets you move beyond the usual store page or marketing limits. Think of the Mad Men scene featuring “Pass the Heinz,” where the bottle itself wasn’t shown, but the idea of the product was made vivid in the viewer’s mind. It didn’t just show ketchup. It evoked the experience of ketchup on a burger or fries and forced the audience to fill in the rest. By stepping outside the standard presentation, you occupy the viewer’s mind and make the marketing itself part of the experience.
Helldivers 2 store page using this exact framework!
Breaking those constraints drives curiosity. People notice because they have little experience with games presented this way. That novelty is what can make a store page, trailer, or campaign stand out beyond typical branding tactics. It’s also why indie games with strong narratives are particularly well suited to this approach. They already have risk and stakes built into their stories, which you can use to draw the viewer into the player’s perspective, achieving that artistic goal I find so compelling in game development.
So to answer the why and how, it ultimately comes down to your goals as a developer and the product you are creating. Does your game have the subjective elements needed to support a VTP model? Is this framing something that interests you or would benefit your team? Can you execute it well?
In my experience, VTP takes a high level of precision to pull off, but explore it. It’s an incredible way to dive into marketing and forces you to think outside the box during every part of the campaign process. If you’re looking for a unique, challenging, and rewarding way to market your game, you now have the why. The how is just a matter of iteration.
Is there pyschology behind viewer to player framing?
Is there pyschology behind viewer to player framing?
What interests me most about this framework is that there is a clear psychological reason it works. When marketing content is written or voiced in the second person, it encourages mental simulation, where the brain constructs an internal representation of the scenario rather than simply processing words. That is exactly what happens when a viewer reads or hears the VTP framework successfully implemented on a product.
While researching this post, I stumbled across Narrative Transportation Theory, which strongly supports the VTP framework. It suggests that when people become mentally absorbed in a story, they experience focused attention, vivid imagery, and stronger emotional engagement. This immersion reduces psychological distance and makes the viewer more likely to respond to the experience as if it were happening to them. I am sure there is far more psychology behind it, but I do not have a degree in the subject, nor the time in this post to unpack it all.
What matters for us is this: when we write a description, craft a voiceover, or design the early visuals for a store page or trailer, we are not just explaining the game. We are inviting the viewer to inhabit the game world. That is what turns curiosity into participation and makes the marketing itself part of the experience.
And honestly, what an incredible form of art that can be.
A viewer to player example
A viewer to player example
Let’s take one of my projects and walk through a simple example of how I used this framework.
One of our core pillars for Limb From Limb was immersion. So when we began developing the marketing materials, I asked a simple question: What happens if we let the viewer assume the role of the player from the very beginning? That meant shaping everything on the store page around that perspective. The trailer. The screenshots. The text. Instead of explaining what the game is, we framed the experience as something the viewer was already stepping into.
Simple in theory. Delicate in execution.
Steamworks, along with other storefronts, requires you to include specific information. Balancing those requirements while maintaining immersion took many iterations and a lot of back and forth. Finding the right wording was not immediate.
After a couple of weeks of refining, we landed on this header text for the Limb From Limb Steam store page:
“The Raymond Mitchell Association personally invites you to join our new limb regrowth program. Engage in a game of chance against another patient, risking the loss of your fingers. We have provided items to aid in your success, waiting to be uncovered as you traverse the game board.”
This is not just a feature description to satisfy Steamworks requirements. It positions the reader inside the fiction, already enrolled in the program, already inhabiting the risk and consequence. Simply put, the viewer has quietly become the player.
At first, I thought it might have been luck. But later, I started noticing other games using small pieces of the same technique. Brief shifts in trailers that pull the viewer into the player’s position, even if only for a moment. And that moment becomes the hook. Like many artistic methods, once you understand it, you begin to see it everywhere, used in unique and innovative ways.
I see many store pages rely on loose taglines or generic descriptions. Not to disrespect those developers, because marketing takes time and it is difficult. But often, whether the systems are explained clumsily or seamlessly, the result can feel the same. I feel disconnected, like an outsider looking into a world being pitched to me.
I find it far more engaging to present those systems through narrative framing that makes the reader feel as though they are already playing. I encourage you to browse the Steam store, pick a few games within a genre, and notice which ones grab your interest the most. I would bet that the ones pulling you into their world, whether through VTP or striking artistic framing, are the ones that hold your attention longest.
Conclusion
Conclusion
The reason I chose game development as my career path all those years ago was not because I played arguably too many games, nor because it was my social outlet. It was because I saw it as an artistic platform where I could share ideas and create unique experiences for my friends.
Discovering the VTP framework reinforced that belief and gave me tools to better share what I had made. It helped me see marketing not as a separate obligation, but as an extension of the art itself.
I want others to be able to do the same. If nothing else, I hope this post has sparked some interest in putting real intention into your store pages, marketing, and branding, whether you use the VTP framework or not.
Until next time!
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