As a company that’s very consumer-facing, you may feel the urge to join in on a trend or topic that’s going viral on any social media platform. Make sure you think long and hard about this decision and how it could impact your game’s popularity and its audience.

We’d caution you not to become part of it, but there are instances where this kind of marketing could work, and your reach could expand tenfold. You have to approach it carefully, or else you might wind up having to issue an apology the next day.

How bad could things get, you ask?

Just ask the team behind Farm Folks, an otherwise innocuous open-world multiplayer farming simulator that became the center of its own little scandal. The catalyst? An ill-planned post that was making fun of the dissension surrounding a completely unrelated title—Stellar Blade. 

When Staying Quiet is Sexiest

If you’ve been out of the loop, developer Shift Up and Sony Interactive Entertainment came under fire for alleged censorship of Stellar Blade, a game that’s 75% sex appeal and gore. A camp of concerned players felt that Shift Up censored an in-game outfit worn by the game’s femme fatale, Eve. 

Whether they did or not isn’t important. What is important, though, is that the community surrounding Stellar Blade split over this. One side sought to fight censorship, while the other felt what was being posed as censorship—a slightly less revealing outfit—was merely an artistic decision and the oversexualization of gaming characters is concerning.

Enter Farm Folks, who saw this as an opportunity to put its own female lead in the spotlight. Riffing on the notion that Shift Up censored Eve’s outfits, Farm Folks’ team shared three animations of the female character, each depicting differing percentages of chest jiggling. The intent, per Shift Up, was to receive community feedback about the game’s character design. 

Which they may have been able to get away with if they didn’t follow the post up with a joke of turning the dial all the way up on the jiggle physics, thus aping the ongoing debate over Stellar Blade.

Maybe in a different climate, it would have been widely laughed at. The contention between the two sides of the argument over Stellar Blade, though, led to an alienation of some of Farm Folks’ audience. 

What went wrong?

If you’re going to try and get in on a hot-button topic or provide commentary on an ongoing discussion, be sure that said commentary or jokes wouldn’t make a mockery of the viral conversation. As a business, you have a duty to relate to your audience. Making jokes about something they are uncomfortable with or passionate about is, in a way, disrespecting your audience. 

Shift Up failed to read the room. For those questioning the players who have called for an even more sexualized lead in Stellar Blade, trying to make a viral post using the topic will be deemed in poor taste. 

It’s not even something that happens only in gaming, either. You’ve likely seen real-world examples of companies putting their foot in their mouth, like when Duolingo cracked a joke about the ongoing Depp v. Amber Heard trial. The company came under fire for making light of a hearing that involved domestic violence. 

As we noted before, just read the room. If everyone’s tense and not collectively having fun with a subject matter, there’s no need to try and get viral off it. Even if you do achieve virality, you’ll have angered part of your audience and maybe attracted a less desirable core group more interested in your ideals than the game itself.

Read the Room

It’s so important to do it before you hit the “Post” button that we’re stressing it more. Putting in that extra moment of care can be the difference between creating an “LGBT” burger meant to celebrate LGBTQ pride and engaging the community with something that’s respectful and potentially entertaining. 

Worried that you may say the wrong thing at the wrong time? It’s one of the great stressors of running social media, so why not enlist us to help? With extensive experience in building the image of indie developers, we’re here to keep you out of the community dog house.

Before you send that Tweet, send us a message first, and let’s talk about keeping your image clean. Or, at the very least, in line with your audience. Loopr can handle all your brand reputations, communications, and games marketing needs.