Collective insights
Publisher Collective ?? GDC
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Happy Black Friday! ??
Whether you’re out browsing the Black Friday deals, or still sleeping off the turkey and pumpkin pie from yesterday we’ve got your gaming industry digest ready to read. Kick up your feet and check out the best news in gaming from November.
Events ?
Can you feel that chill in the air? It’s that time of year again. And no, we don’t mean the holidays. We mean award season!
November marked the kickoff of the accolade acquisition opportunities with the 42nd Annual Golden Joystick Awards on the 21st. Check out some of the winners below.
December is when the awards events really start to stack up, so be sure to come back for our final Collective newsletter of the year, where we reveal 2024’s Game Awards winners.
News ??
Netflix is no stranger to the gaming world: just look at how they’ve integrated story-based games right into the interface of their apps. But since May of this year, Netflix has been working on another video game venture. A Roblox world called “Nextworld” brings different Netflix IP together in one chaotic culmination of immersive marketing.
While “Nextworld” initially drew players by offering items and wearables from their favorite franchises (Stranger Things, One Piece, and Rebel Moon), they’ve introduced playable scenarios with the release of their new film Spellbound and a new season premiere of Cobra Kai.
Roblox players will also be treated to some timely advertising within the platform, some of which even provide portals that take players straight to Nextworld. It’s an ingenious move by Netflix to bring the worlds and characters from some of their most beloved shows to a brand new audience.
Read Digiday’s recap of the news here, including some insightful quotes from The Marketing Arm.
Sky News has just dubbed GaaS (they refer to them as “forever games”) the future of gaming for Gen Z, based on a study conducted by MIDiA Research. Whatever you call them, GaaS, live-service, or ‘forever’ games, it’s clear that Gen Z gamers are shelling out for subscriptions and skins as opposed to picking up one-time purchase titles.
MIDiA’s study also looked at the ‘why’ behind Gen Z play. Gamers aged 16-30 prefer to game to connect with friends and compete against other players, while older gamers often pick up a game as an ‘escape’ or to indulge in some ‘me time.’
What does this mean for the industry? Studios are starting to invest in GaaS titles over single-purchase stories. The longevity and continued revenue from a GaaS can provide more stability for a studio as opposed to relying on sales from a single release. Now studios can spend on promoting multiple ‘seasons’ of a game, selling over and over to an already invested audience.
Read the full report from Sky News here.
领英推荐
With the holiday shopping season fully upon us, retailers are pulling out all the stops to attract consumers. EE has their sights set on the gaming demographic, with their latest ad spot featuring social media stars setting up for a serious gaming session.
“This campaign captures the diversity of playstyles and the variety of kits used by real gamers in their real-life settings,” says Pete Jeavons, EE’s Marketing Communications Director. “Our range of kit bundles have been curated to guarantee that any player, on any network can find what they need at the EE Game Store.”
The advert is titled ‘Battle Stations’ and showcases all the different gaming personas we’ve come to identify with, set against a thumping soundtrack. EE appeals to all the subsets: “Racers, slayers, ballers, side-questers.” Or so says brand voice Kevin Bacon.
Check out the spot below.
If you haven’t seen Xbox’s new marketing campaign, you might be living under a rock. Although they’d probably put said rock on a poster and dub it ‘not an Xbox.’ Or is it?
Xbox’s big Black Friday campaign features a series of posters and graphics with simple, definitive text: ‘This is an Xbox.’ Sounds simple, except the tagline is paired with images of things that are not Xbox’s as we know them. Images of mobile phones, PC’s, TVs.
No, Microsoft hasn’t lost the plot. They’re promoting Xbox’s functionality across devices, beyond the well-loved console.
“We believe that gaming should be easy to access and available for everyone, so whether you have an Xbox console, play on PC, [smart TV]s, handhelds, mobile phones…you can play with Xbox,” says Craig McNary, Xbox’s Senior Director of Marketing.
Read the full press release around the new campaign here.
It’s a bittersweet day for League of Legends fans: the beloved animated series Arcane has ended after only 2 seasons. And while the show had a rampant fanbase across the globe (it was the number 1 TV show on Netflix in 85 countries during its release), the reason for its short running largely comes down to spending.
Variety broke the story on Arcane’s big-budget animation, describing it as ‘the priciest animated series ever.’ How pricey, you ask? An eye-watering 250 million dollars.
While the bulk of this was spent on production, another large piece of the pie was spent on promoting the series to fans. It did find a home with LoL fans, but Riot Games wanted to cement their position as an entertainment behemoth by bringing in fans of the show who weren’t necessarily familiar with LoL. But did it cost them a future on the silver screen?
Decide for yourself with Variety’s piece on the game studio here.
Enjoy your long weekend, see you back here next month! ??
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