10 Lessons The Gaming Industry Must Learn From 2014

7. Social Media Is Powerful

As our own Jordan Ephraim highlighted in his piece discussing the #GamerGate fiasco, every consumer - anyone with Internet access, really - has a louder voice than ever thanks to social media. This power flows both ways, of course. Anyone with a camera phone can try their hand at photojournalism, sure, but put gaming under the microscope and you'll see that every developer can just as easily become a spokesperson. Interestingly, the general gaming audience has caught onto this power far more quickly than developers, who too often make the mistake of letting press releases do all the talking. This is an interconnected age, and although PR firms will always have a place, individual designers have long been able to interact directly with fans and drop tasty morsels of information into the web. We can't have devs leaking information all over the place, certainly, but there's no harm in the occasional screenshot or Vine showing how combat mechanics, UI design, or character art are coming along. Rather, it's a good thing - an easy way to call attention to a project and connect with the people who want to know about it. For the record, social media does include such nonsense as Skyrim's now infamous "arrow to the knee" trend and Mario Kart 8's beloved Luigi death stare. You can't find a gamer who doesn't know about those two. That's word-of-mouth marketing at its finest, and a lot easier to put out than another pre-rendered trailer.