At a Game Developers Conference panel yesterday titled "Theory and Practice of Gamer-Centric Brand Development," CD Projekt RED co-founder Marcin Iwinski talked through the branding, marketing and public relations process for last year’s juggernaut role-playing game The Witcher 3.

Iwinski said he feels The Witcher 3 had three pillars that made it a success. First, being a good game. Second, having a "gamer-centric value proposition." And third, the team talking about the game directly to fans, something Iwinski thinks many large publisher teams fail at.

To the second point, Iwinski mentioned that CD Projekt RED came up with a straightforward sentence to describe the game clearly to hardcore fans, settling on. But he said the team also came up with simpler phrases to use when talking to mainstream media or players, such as, "The world doesn’t need a hero. It needs a professional." And the goofier, "Skyrim in a Game of Thrones sauce."

To the issue of talking directly to fans, he pointed to a problem Electronic Arts had with Star Wars Battlefront, and showed a video of angry fan reaction to expensive DLC content for the game. Iwinski made it clear that his issue wasn’t with the DLC itself, but with how EA failed to properly explain its approach to players.

"The worst thing is silence," he said.

Using an example from The Witcher 3, Iwinski noted a time when players accused CD Projekt RED of downgrading the game’s visuals, following comparisons with an impressive-looking trailer released earlier in the game’s development cycle. He said the management team made a decision to explain what happened in-depth rather than to avoid the issue or give a light response, as part of the team’s strategy of talking directly to players whenever possible. Doing so, he said, "just killed the whole story" instead of letting it linger on.

"If the story would have exploded, I was actually ready to issue a statement that I would refund all the copies of the people [who wanted them] out of my own pocket," he said. "Then we had a management discussion about it and [others said], ‘If you send this message out there it could be a real problem, so let’s not do this.’" [Laughs]

Ultimately, Iwinski said that this strategy worked well for CD Projekt RED, but may not work for every team on every game. The Witcher 3 is available now, and just this week won game of the year at the Game Developers Choice Awards.