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🪄 Game Publishers’ Viagra
I met them for the first time when I started downloading games. Never gave a fuck about them when I was younger because for some weird reason I thought games were created out of magic... Yeah, I was not the smartest kid in class.
It was only when I came back to gaming as a grown up when I realized people hated them. A few people liked them, but they wouldn't hesitate to make a backstab at any given time.
Game publishers. They have an interesting life.
- The transition from an idea to an actual game is thanks to the developers. Countless hours of coding to see if later on game publishers buy it and distribute it.
- Sometimes publishers buy the game, or the game + the developers team, or the publishers come up with the idea and they develop it from scratch.
The Conflict
We learned that both developers and publishers’ personalities could reach high levels of sassiness, triggered by an audience of gamers that are literally insatiable.
Let’s avoid generalization and place ourselves in a niche: esports publishers.
To be honest, esports is a difficult science. From the get-go, their sales pitch to sponsors and potential players was — imagine if in a basketball game instead of using one ball, we can use three. Also, the size of the ring and the player's height can change all the time.
Yeah that shit sounds dope, the problem is that constant changes to the game will never satisfy everyone. So now publishers are making forced decisions.
The same game is played for different purposes. Pro players, amateur players, wannabe pro players, fans or viewers… they all have something to say to every little change because they don’t know the true purpose behind it. No matter if it’s with good or bad intentions.
Survival Mode
Because of constant changes and technology evolving fast, people get crazy hyped for new things but the concept of new gets old real quick and people move on.
The result? More difficult decisions.
If game publishers were man about to have sex, I see it this way:
- Valve is an old man that needs viagra to keep it going. So it’s ok, Dota 2 and CSGO had their run for a long time. We don’t expect new things to come from him, but we expect things to keep going normally until, you know… the old man passes away.
- Activision Blizzard is like a guy in his late twenties who could easily practice the action of the intercourse. But that’s the problem, he calls it intercourse. He pumped all the viagra with Overwatch and COD when he didn’t really need it.
- Riot Games is also in his late twenties, and he is fucking. A lot. All the time. No chemicals needed.
Own It
Even though the meme of Riot devs balancing champions or items will live forever, we need to stop for a second and look around to see the incredible distribution of League of Legends IP developed over the years.
✔️ Esports: their structure is unmatched. Killing viewership. Their events are something I’ll never forget. It's really unique and people notice that.
✔️ Game: there’re constant changes, good and bad ones. However, there’s a solid base that makes people want to keep playing. It’s addictive for a reason.
✔️ Genre Diversity: instead of going all over the place from the beginning, they first mastered a genre with League of Legends, and then added mobile, shooter, cards and others.
✔️ Partnerships: partnered with big dogs and made them understand that it’s not just about a PR announcement. Louis Vuitton made a LoL trophy, Mastercard added in-game banners, BMW customized cars and created championship rings.
Their latest move was the Netflix’s show Arcane, which by the way, what a fucking piece of art. It’s the most-watched show in Netflix’s history, beating Squid Game in six days.
They are building brands upon brands when the time is right. Carefully tailoring them to keep the essence for their grassroots audience, but finding a balance to newcomers. Slowly trying to be the MARVEL of gaming.
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