With the recent announcement of former God of War art director Raf Grassetti joining the streaming giant, we know that they are ramping up their gaming offerings. More than 50 games have been released so far, and 40 more are on the way.
Grassetti said he is excited to build a team and to work with the amazing Joseph Staten, Jerry Edsall, and Sonny with the goal of bringing a new world to life. Over the last couple of weeks, thank you. He said that he's not going away anytime soon and that he loves making games.
A check by MARKETING-INTERACTIVE saw that his post has gotten over 31k likes and drawn positive vibes, as many people said that they look forward to the future work of the game maker, while others said that they were surprised by the investment by the streaming service.
MARKETING-INTERACTIVE spoke to industry players who believed that this is a strategic move to broaden its offerings and tap into new markets.
Karlye Chan, director, programmatic and activation partnership of media agency Assembly Global said that with other OTTs such as Disney+ and HBO stepping up to drive more localised in-house productions, it extends its audience pool, which has promising potential.
The former CEO of Omnicom Media Group agreed with Chan that it was a strategy to not only enrich the experience amongst its current subscriber base but also to create a diversified entertainment experience that could potentially attract younger customers to the platform.
The strategy seems right, what needs to be seen is how they execute the strategy.
According to The New York Times, there was a loss of 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of 2022, and almost a million subscribers in the second quarter, as a result of some of the decisions that it had made.
The managing director of Hong Kong and Taiwan of media agency Society said that gaming can be an opportunity for the company to grow its business.
Does turning to gaming support the company?
Tim Durgan, VP, strategy and insights, Assembly Global, said that it is not always easy for brands to explore new revenue streams.
It is not possible to directly apply the winning formula on video streaming business to gaming as the gaming industry is cluttered with fierce competition.
Neal Chung Yee, head of the studio of Gamification agency Shadow Factory, was also in agreement with Chow.
They seem to be used just for secondary advertising from game to show, but nothing from the show to the game.
He said that gaming should not be seen as a way to get more people to watch a show. It should be an experience that builds on the show or a game such as DOTA: Dragon's Blood. He said that he was expecting more integration between the games and the shows on the streaming service.
How can the company increase its gaming offerings?
Some industry players believed that the streaming giant could step up the game to elevate user experience in order to lure back subscribers.
The scattergun approach that has come to define gaming needs to be avoided, according to Durgan. "It has achieved this in its current content such as Stranger Things and Squid Game, but it needs to ensure it lands this in gaming...also it should not underestimate the vast differences of mentality and expectation between the sit-back TV audiences and the sit-forward gaming audience," he said.
PHD HK CEO Antony Yiu said that the key to improving the video games is tying them to the movies. The number of subscribers will grow overnight if the game is based on a popular show.
It's all about collaboration and leveraging its database and recommendation engine to make it known to the user.
In addition to creating games based on popular shows and movies, the founder and creative director of a digital agency suggested that the streaming service should collaborate with renowned game developers to create exclusive titles, offer a diverse range of gaming genres to cater to different player interests, and regularly update the gaming library with
It is too early to comment on the subscriber adoption of video games on the platform, however, it is possible that stand-alone games could leverage the scale of overall platform subscription as well as spin offs from programming content that could enhance the engagement and lifespan of video content. The production of quality gaming has the potential to create new demographic growth segments for the company.
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There is a US$ 2.5 billion investment into the creation of South Korean content by the streaming service.
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