Treat the Game as a marketing product instead of a Game - "A Biz Continuity Platform if you will"
Brands today are realising that Esports has become a billion-dollar industry, but if it is going to get much bigger, then brands have to buy into it in a much bigger way when it comes to the business of sponsorship and the like.
A smart approach recently done in the Philippines is from a educational institution and pillar Lyceum of the Philippines University partnering with a leading SEA Attention Through Gaming firm Tier One Entertainment
Those brands have to chase after the millennial batch, who aren’t watching as much TV or sports as previous generations. It can be easier to reach them with games, esports, and digital media. But to be effective, the brands have to find an authentic voice that speaks to the new generation.
Video games (free to play, subscription and store bought) are high art. They are most recently made, tech sophisticated, story complicated and complex art form known to us humans. Literally games are the evolutionary frontier of human expression. If you do not immediately and intuitively understand that this is true beyond doubt, if you think of games as sales support or ancillary revenue for something else, you are going to make a horrible game.
Clearly, Plants Versus Zombies is not Call of Duty, but the first point if this paragraph is about potential and respect for the genre required to make a good game. losing sight of that potential is the first and most important step toward making a bad game, thus bad marketing and bad business decision as a whole.
This one rule is the initial reason that almost every game made by an integrated media (film/TV) outfit is sub par.This is the reason that almost every game associated with a brand is also sub par. Video games (FTP, ET AL.) are not merchandise sales. Video games should have their own marketing department. Not to be run by the marketing department. There is no overlap between the skill set if your marketing department and the skills required for managing the production of games, esport teams, content creators and the like.
There is an elusive bunch of integrated marketing hits like Game of Thrones, Harry Potter and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. People are still going to want to partner non game intellectual property into games. We should stop doing it the "wrong way". The right approach is to treat the online game as its own creative and marketing product. Give it the same serious consideration, budget and infrastructure investment that you would the original intellectual property and idea.
Treat the Game as a marketing channel instead of a Game - A Business Continuity Platform if you will
Businesses today should be able to identify esports as a channel to use. Especially NOW as Novel Corona Virus or Covid-19 has triggered a near global lock down. Brands like the NBA, F1 and even Educational Institutions are pursuing esports executions as a way of business continuity, digital counterparts of said properties could be found or private and public channels/platforms online. Be it a Japanese high school mounting it's own graduation attended by all students and families via Minecraft this March 2020. To F1 rally driving races globally.
Digital Citizen Alodia Gosengfiao made efforts to drive awareness of a glocal campaign to support Stay-At-Home call to action by World health Organization and the Philippine Government by a campaign called Game-At-Home. Further driving the message to employees, younger generation and even parents to Stay At Home to battle the spread of Covid-19. Audience and players get to share relevant information real time, drive awareness to social causes and charities.
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Esports is something I would always be amazed with. Having been exposed to video and online games at an early age. It never ceases to invoke emotions whenever watch and or play. Gaming has a big social impact globally. Allowing several generations to date to pursue continuing education or new pathways to employment. Realising new opportunities for self improvement and growth, players online can now be contributors to self, family and country.
#TierOneEntertainment is an attention through gaming consultancy, based in South East Asia with regional head quarters in Manila, Philippines