December 22, 2019

Sips Happen #3: Building Brands with a good Trailer

Sips Happen #3: Building Brands with a good Trailer

Unrelated to the year coming to a close, Interpret is looking at the top entertainment brands of 2019 (in the U.S). Unsurprisingly video games can be counted on, but their fanbases are so fragmented that it’s hard for a single brand to beat the likes of Spiderman or Game of Thrones. How can we build a stronger brand? Building strong videos around your game is a good start and you can learn a lot about it from Derek Lieu’s great newsletter on how to build a trailer.

State of the Market

• The CCPA is coming into effect on January 1st. Much like GDPR last year, it aims at protecting California residents’ personal information. Here’s what you need to know.
• Still hard at work on building its Stadia studio roster, Google acquires Montreal-based Typhoon Studio. First title Journey to the Savage Planet for which I have strong expectations coming up in January. Stadia exclusive?
• Apple launched an annual plan for Apple Arcade: at $49.99, it’s a bargain vs. the $4.99 monthly one.
• Ever wondered what it takes to be featured on the App Store? an average rating over 4.4, being a game, and, oh, being Fortnite or Harry Potter helps a lot... A far cry from Apple’s marketing spiel that it’s a tool to help the indies.
• In the race platforms are running to secure as many exclusives as possible, Atari is firing the big guns: an 88/12 revenue share scheme if you’re a VCS exclusive, the same as the Epic Games Store offers. Reminder: VCS is Atari’s retro console, due in March 2020.
• I still haven’t played Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (the one from this year, that is), and apparently I’m the only one, as it’s already the most-played CoD of this generation.
  • As we’re on the topic of most-played games, the most downloaded mobile game of the 2010s? Subway Surfer.
• With Leaderboard Games, you can now play asynchronous games against your friends on Snapchat.

China

• Consoles are finally entering the Chinese market, with Nintendo Switch selling more than 50k units on launch day.
• For more than a year now some publishers have released mobile games in China without waiting for a formal approval from SAPP (State Administration of Press and Publication), expecting « all to be alright in the end ». Well, all’s not alright, as an (undisclosed) Chinese publisher was just fined 100k USD for releasing an unlicensed mobile game.
  • But releasing a game that lets you beat up HK activists appears to be OK.
  • Supporting Uygurs (one of China’s muslim ethnic minorities), on the other hand, can get you kicked out of PES by NetEase.
• Tencent is entering the Cloud Gaming arena with its Start service.
• TikTok, Tencent Video and iQIYI are some of the most-downloaded and most-used apps this decade.

Esport

• A Global Esport Federation backed by Tencent has just been announced. What role does it aim to take on, when a European Esport Federation and an International Esport Federation already exist?
• Clash Royale League World finale seen from the viewpoint of a neophyte sure does sound epic.
• The LoL World Championship brought in 44 million concurrent viewers, making it the most-watched LoL event ever.
  • Numbers can’t really be compared as they’re different metrics: PUBG Mobile Club Open Final reaches a total of 532 million views.

User Acquisition

• Stop targeting « gamer », this audience is too wide to be useful.
• E-Marketer states that In-Game Advertising is taking off. Where have they been this past few years?
  • I mean, Mindworks had the time to make hundreds of playable ads, enough so that they can share learnings and best practices with us.
• AdColony asks: Do you trust your mobile performance team? There’s a difference between trusting your in-house mobile performance team and blindly trusting an agency or an ad-network (especially self-attributing networks). Do not mistake oversight with distrust.
• Activision-Blizzard sets up « King’s Council », gifting in-game rewards to select players of King games to get feedback on new ads-related projects.
• There’s a new podcast on air: The ASO Review by Phiture. Already 2 episodes to listen to during your holiday break (if you’re so lucky as to have one).

Product Management

• Is there an end to the long-winded battle between marketing and product teams? The perfect outcome could be more collaboration by merging marketing and product together. Now which team will absorb the other?
• Battle Passes, introduced to the masses with Fortnite last year, has now become widespread among mobile games, with more than 20% of the top grossing games now equipped with a Battle Pass system.
• Facebook gives a quick 101 intro to balancing IAP and Rewarded Videos. Won’t make you an expert, but a good starting point if you’ve never implemented them.

One Last Sip

• LONG READ OF THE WEEK: Portraits of some of Roblox’s best makers. As someone who completely missed Roblox, I was baffled by the creativity and the scale of these worlds.
• Mobile Games didn’t get to shine in the spotlight during the latest Game Awards. Is that a good thing?
• Is pewdiepie on a slippery slope? His latest mobile game Poopdie was rejected by Apple because of « crude imagery ». His influencer status doesn’t seem to yield a lot of influence with the powers that be at Apple.
• I binge-watched the whole first season of The Witcher in a day. Now I need to play all 3 games and read all 8 books. Good job Netflix.
• Finally, if you’re looking for some hot topic to disarm an explosive argument among family members in this festive season, nothing better than the yearly review from the Pornhub Analytics team of what’s hot in porn (very SFW). From Belle Delphine (very much expected) to Aliens (seriously, what?), what’s arousing the world these days?