Is public relations in the gaming industry more challenging?

Recently, a series of public relations incidents have erupted both within and outside the gaming industry. Some have damaged the brand reputation of developers, others have tarnished the reputation of development teams, and still others have dealt a direct blow to the products themselves.

When public sentiment emerges, the public relations department is generally the first to step in and take charge of triggering the response mechanism.

As the intervals between public opinion incidents grow shorter and their intensity continues to rise, an industry-wide question has come to the forefront: What role should public relations actually play within game companies?

The book *Effective Public Relations*, co-authored by Scott Cartliffe and Alan Sante, was once hailed by the industry as the “PR Bible.” It offers a definition of public relations that is still widely cited today: Public relations is a management function whose core lies in identifying, establishing, and maintaining mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and its various publics.

In other words, public relations is evolving away from one-sided, self-serving persuasion and toward reciprocity and equality.

Based on this definition, Cartliffe and Sente proposed a “two-way symmetry” model, which places equal emphasis on the interests of both the organization and the public in terms of objectives, and adheres to two-way communication and interaction in terms of methods.

At the same time, drawing on systems theory, the book distinguishes between two approaches to public relations practice: the “open system” and the passive “closed system.” It emphasizes that organizations must continuously adjust and adapt to changes in the external environment, and that public relations plays a key role in driving this process of adaptation.

In other words, the value of public relations lies not only in crisis response but should also be integrated into an organization’s day-to-day decision-making and environmental awareness. The book summarizes this comprehensive process as a four-step methodology: “research, planning, implementation, and evaluation.”

In the consumer goods and technology sectors, this logic generally holds true, as brands in these industries have relatively stable messaging frameworks, consumer reactions are largely predictable, and there are well-established response protocols in place for when crises arise.

But can the same framework be applied to the gaming industry? When it comes to gaming products, user relationships, community ecosystems, and the pace of public discourse all have their own unique characteristics. Does this mean that public relations naturally faces greater challenges in this industry? If so, what kinds of issues does it help address for developers? And what role does it play in the industry’s healthy development?

With these questions in mind, this edition of “Teahouse” invited several professionals and observers from various sectors of the gaming industry to share their insights on this line of work based on their personal experiences.

▍Bro G from Caoxi

Let’s start by talking about the public relations industry itself.

In traditional industries, particularly B2B companies, public relations primarily focuses on traditional areas such as branding, corporate culture, and market capitalization management, with relatively little public sentiment to manage. However, consumer-facing industries—such as mobile phones, electric vehicles, and large restaurant and retail chains—face a similar situation, albeit with a higher frequency of public sentiment issues.

Public relations related to online reputation management is becoming increasingly important for consumer-facing companies. Just look at OPPO—a company that hadn’t faced any major issues for years—which has recently run into trouble, and companies like Xibei, which are constantly dealing with similar issues. This shows that PR is indeed an essential need. The gaming industry is undoubtedly consumer-facing, so the same applies here.

That said, 90% of non-professionals think of public relations as nothing more than “taking down posts,” and in most companies, the PR department’s influence is indeed quite limited; while it does play an important role, its impact is not particularly significant.

Based on my observations, one clear trend in game PR over the past few years is a noticeable decline in professionalism. However, with the rise of AI and marketing, the importance of PR has once again come to the fore. As a result, many companies and project teams with an integrated development and operations background are building their own in-house PR capabilities.

However, due to a lack of expertise, the results are often half-baked, and the focus tends to be on retracting statements or diverting attention. On the other hand, professional PR talent is also moving into project teams, and so far, no one has been able to avoid being assimilated: when faced with a project, professionals are forced to compromise, prioritizing profit above all else—this is a common problem.

In my view, the significance of game PR to the gaming industry lies in three key areas: First, it serves as a bridge for communication between the industry, companies, regulatory authorities, and players—for example, addressing industry-related issues such as explaining the social value of games to regulators or providing authentic market insights for projects.

Second, we need to promote compliance across our industries and operations. Effective public relations is inherently about internal controls—it’s about preventing crises from erupting in the first place, rather than having to clean up the mess afterward.

Third, we will establish a timely response mechanism for our products, improve communication with users, and enhance the product’s reputation and reliability.

To be honest, “professionalism” is often just a buzzword we throw around to make ourselves feel good. Job roles exist to serve specific needs, and it’s the needs of the clients that should guide the direction of professional development—in a sense, that’s not wrong.

▍Xiao Mao (Reconciliation Version)

The anime and manga genre has one fundamental characteristic: the relationship between users and the product is not simply that of “consumer and product.” Players develop genuine emotional attachments to the characters and have high expectations for the development team; sometimes, those expectations even carry an underlying sentiment of “don’t let me down.” As a result, public relations efforts for anime and manga games feel a lot like dating the players.

For example, if you change a character portrait or include a plot point that makes players feel something is off, the community can go from discussing it to condemning it within two hours. And you’ll find that these reactions aren’t just unreasonable complaints—they genuinely care about the character and the game’s world.

What’s more, mobile games are a highly community-driven category, so a lot of the criticism comes out of nowhere. Sometimes it really feels like trouble just falls out of the blue—there’s simply no way to predict when it will strike. Even if your PR team had 10,000 people monitoring the situation 24/7, they still wouldn’t be able to stop it.

What are you going to do? It’s really blue.

However, the lifecycle of anime and manga products is heavily dependent on word-of-mouth and community trust. Therefore, my ideal role in public relations is to act as a “translator” between the project and the players—translating the development team’s intentions into language that players can relate to, while also conveying the community’s genuine feedback to internal decision-makers.

Often, whether a product can survive the market cycle doesn’t depend solely on the quality of its content; it also depends on whether you’ve built the kind of trust with your users where they’re willing to give you another chance even if they’re occasionally disappointed.

▍Vulpix using Flamethrower

In my opinion, public relations in the gaming industry is actually a bit more challenging than in other industries.

This can be discussed from two perspectives.

The first dimension is the day-to-day work itself. Public relations roles in all companies tend to serve as a “safety net” to some extent; a significant portion of their responsibilities involves managing public sentiment, or crisis PR. However, in traditional industries or tech companies, the frequency of crisis PR situations is relatively manageable and does not occur particularly often.

The gaming industry is different—public relations crises are frequent, even routine, for most products. In the projects I’ve managed in the past, there was almost always a PR issue that needed to be addressed every week, which created a significant difference in workload.

On the other hand, in addition to crisis management, public relations roles typically involve proactive communication. In both tech companies and traditional enterprises, there is significant room for investment in proactive communication, and such efforts are rarely strictly measured by KPIs; overall, this approach tends to be more brand-oriented and relatively “soft.”

However, in the gaming industry, management often demands a return on investment (ROI) for these efforts. Content that cannot be backed by concrete data is easily axed, which severely limits the scope for creating truly valuable content and maximizing the potential for positive outreach.

The second factor is career mobility. PR professionals in the gaming industry have limited options when changing jobs, and switching careers is relatively difficult. The barriers to moving from a gaming company to a tech or consumer goods company are significantly higher; conversely, moving from a tech company to a gaming company is often not as difficult.

There is also a high degree of career mobility between PR roles in tech companies and traditional industries; for example, the path from a major internet company to a FMCG, maternal and infant, or even new consumer brand is relatively smooth. However, if your resume consists solely of experience in the gaming industry, this path becomes much narrower.

As for the actual value this role brings, to be honest, I think it’s fairly limited at this stage. A few years ago, when we were focusing on positive outreach, it did help build the product’s brand image and made a tangible difference. But now, the core work of game PR has increasingly shifted toward managing user sentiment.

From the company’s perspective, this certainly has its value; but for individual professionals, the opportunities for growth and professional fulfillment in this role are no longer what they used to be.

▍Master Shot

The complexity of public relations in the gaming industry ranks among the highest in the entire internet sector.

Why do I say that? Because we are not dealing with a single public sphere.

If a product is large enough, it must engage with the gaming community, industry media, regulators, investors, and even public opinion—all of which have entirely different frameworks and priorities.

Players care about whether the experience is good and whether they’re being taken advantage of; the industry cares about your business model and market strategy; regulators focus on issues like the protection of minors and content compliance; and public opinion may single out games as a scapegoat over a single social incident.

As a PR professional, you have to switch back and forth between these different sets of talking points, and often the demands of these different contexts are at odds with one another.

Take monetization, for example. Players might feel you’re making too much money and aren’t being fair, but investors and management are focused on revenue figures.When communicating externally, how do you ensure players feel you’re balancing the gaming experience without compromising on business logic? This requires a high degree of precision in how you express yourself—you can’t tell lies, because users in this industry are highly discerning. So for things we can’t say directly, we’ll have the media convey them instead.

That’s why I’ve always believed that the value of PR in the gaming industry cannot be measured solely by brand exposure or crisis management. In a highly sensitive environment involving multiple stakeholders, the core value of gaming PR lies in maintaining a public discourse that allows the product to operate smoothly.

▍Level 36 Naturally Evolved Pikachu

“Why are you asking me? I’m not going,” I said, puzzled.

But PR folks have their own fun too. I’ve talked with my friends in the gaming industry, and when it comes to work, I can only say that everyone has their own set of challenges.

The core logic of public relations in traditional industries is relatively stable. For the most part, the relationship between consumers and brands is a rational transactional one: if your product offers good quality at a reasonable price and is distributed through the right channels, a positive reputation will naturally follow. When issues arise, we have a well-established set of response mechanisms in place, and consumer reactions generally fall within a predictable range.

To put it another way, very few people would spend three days ranting online just because you changed the design of a shampoo bottle.

I believe that in the gaming industry, user sentiment is highly volatile, and the triggers for these fluctuations are sometimes almost incomprehensible to those of us in traditional industries.Furthermore, gaming communities are highly organized and eager to express themselves. They generate a vast amount of content—such as fan-created works—which inherently shapes the public discourse surrounding the product, something that PR teams cannot fully control.

That said, public relations in traditional industries also has its own challenges. When a public relations crisis erupts, it is often linked to tangible issues affecting people’s daily lives, such as food safety and product quality. As a result, public scrutiny and regulatory intervention tend to be intense, leaving very little room for error.

Public relations crises in the gaming industry tend to occur primarily at the community and industry levels, and rarely spill over into the broader society.

When it comes to the value of public relations in the gaming industry, my personal experience has taught me one thing very clearly: user loyalty and emotional engagement are exceptionally high in this sector. If PR is done well, it can yield enormous long-term returns for a brand, because you’re cultivating a community of users who are genuinely willing to speak up for you and spread the word.

Your players are your influencers.