Why we appreciate QR-codes in mobile game marketing

While some might think that QR-codes were cool for a short while few years ago and are now pretty much dead, we at Halkologic Games think that QR-codes have (still) true value in mobile game marketing. The main reason is our assumption that large part of our potential customers are (with all respect) reasonably lazy when it comes to browsing internet and social media. QR-code is one tool for enabling our users to find our games more smoothly.

Let’s dig a little deeper. When you share a store-link of your mobile game, it’s quite convenient channel for the customer to find and download your game. But this is of course true only if the customer is using a mobile device when she clicks the link.

Today roughly half of the internet browsing is done with mobile devices (source). That’s a lot and mobile gamers are likely more into mobile browsing than average internet users. Still, potentially almost half the time when the potential customer finds your link, she is browsing with non-mobile device and can’t conveniently click your store link and so download your game. She would have to take her phone or tablet and actively search your game from store or type the link with virtual keyboard on her device. I dare to claim that most of people don’t bother to do that.

QR-code is some sort of solution to this. It’s a link that mobile user can read from their computer screen simply by pointing their device camera to it. Convenient isn’t it? Oddly it seems that quite few mobile game developers use QR-codes in their marketing.

How to use QR-codes in marketing

Most obvious use of QR-code is to place QR store-link to your game’s landing page. While many people will intuitively know that the QR-code is a link that they can read with their phones to find your game, there are many who don’t. Therefore don’t forget to mention what the QR-code is for. Below is an example from the landing page of our recently released Android game Hannu the Hunter.

Other good place for QR-code store-links are forum posts about your game release. You can even put QR-code to the corner of the promo pics that you post to social media.

Besides web, QR-codes can be used in physical marketing materials too. As a smallish indie studio we utilize all affordable marketing methods available. For example flyers are part of our marketing, and they are a great format for QR-codes, since the code decreases the trouble of actually downloading our game after seeing our flyer.

If you feel super creative, options are countless. QR-codes can be printed to all kinds of merchandises such as coffee cups, t-shirts, beer glasses etc. Don’t be afraid to be innovative.

Conclusion

Our suggestion is that you give QR-codes a try in your marketing if you already haven’t. They are easy to create and in our opinion give positive impression about your company and product.

EXTRA: QR-codes for dummies

If you are new to QR-codes, here’s a super short guide how to get started.

QR-code is two dimensional machine readable code. It can store almost any data, but web links are probably most common content.

There are plenty of websites that can generate any QR-code you want. Our favourite is http://goqr.me/ since it does not require registeration. Paste web link to the site, generate QR-code picture and place it to where ever you want.