Gamescom 2024 key takeaways

Here’s our fresh take on the vibes from the meeting rooms beyond the show floor

1. Born of fire

Like flowers that bloom after a wildfire, a wave of new start-ups is forming from the ashes of the layoffs.??

That’s led to a proliferation of AA and indie games fighting for investment dollars, publisher support, and marketing oxygen.?

Challenges include:

• Meeting the demands of commitment-phobic investors wary of high central bank interest rates, volatile player numbers, and the rising cost of player acquisition.?

• It’s extremely hard to stand out due to fierce competition, genre saturation, and limited marketing budgets.

2. Self-publishing

Many studios must now navigate the self-publishing route unless and until they can score a publishing deal.?

Challenges include:

• The need to constantly validate the market to secure further funding.?

• Developers who could previously focus on making games are now required to act as mini-publishers, analyze business intelligence, devise early access strategies, manage marketing campaigns, negotiate successive funding rounds and so on.

3. Finding the right partner

Start-ups need support while publishers need a pipeline. Moreover, there’s a widespread acceptance that smaller, more adaptable dev teams are an important part of the ecosystem.?

At the same time, publishers are becoming more specialized: attempting to dominate particular niches where they can efficiently market to key target groups they have plenty of data on.?

Challenges include:

• Identifying the best-fit publisher and understanding what they’re looking for.?

• Fostering active engagement for your project from gamers that can be translated into buy-in from prospective publishers.

4. Not the usual suspects

Now for some games. In between talking to studios and publishers, we spent as much time as possible having our hearts gladdened by all the amazing games on show.?

One trend that stood out was the strong presence of some superb looking South Korean and Chinese games that have mostly slipped under the radar until now. ?

Challenges include:

• Not spending all our time playing the demos instead of having more meetings.

The First Berserker: Kazan | Nexon | Action-RPG

Brooding, stylish, cel-shaded soulslike with blistering combat.

Crimson Desert | Pearl Abyss | Open-world action-adventure?

WWE meets Vikings meets Street Fighter-esque combos = insane combat in a beautiful fantasy world soaked with atmosphere.

Inzoi | Krafton | Life simulation?

Potential The Sims-beater - enjoy spreading rumors, crashing cars, and messing up your relationships in a whole new world.

Mecha Break | Seasun Games | Multiplayer mech combat

Love giant robots? Love frantic firefights? Enough said.

Call for back-up

While the industry is as exciting and forward-looking as ever, it’s also true that studios and publishers are engaged in an all-out slugfest for player’s finite attention spans and wallets.?

As a specialized videogame and tech marketing agency, we can help with:

Market intelligence - Including brand consideration and consumer sentiment tracking, competitor activity tracking, trend analysis, and social listening intel.?

Audience insight - We find the highest value segments in your marketable universe. Then uncover their motivations using psychographic segmentation. Those insights allow us to craft effective marketing campaigns. Our campaigns convert consumers by targeting their underlying needs while aligning with their most important values.?

Unconventional creative thinking - We have the creative edge that videogame marketing campaigns need to cut through:?

• From guerilla marketing to brand collaborations.
• From UGC strategies to GaaS player recruitment and retention.
• From TikTok know-how to influencer partnerships via best-in-class creative executions.?

Drop us a line to talk through how we can help.