IS STREAMING THE BEST MARKETING STRATEGY FOR THE VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY

Source: recode.net

Streaming has surpassed pictures in providing true descriptions of events to people and especially in gaming; it gives gamers a taste of what they should expect upon release and purchase of a game.

 Streaming became the way movies were shown to people to entice them in watching films when it hits theaters in the form of a trailer, in contemporary times, movies, video games and global sporting events are all streamed online. 

 With the world shifting from a physical world to a virtual world almost every second, webinars have replaced seminars. The Hollywood Reporter on a Round Table discussion for CEO’s of film production asked the panel if a movie could still be considered a movie if its streamed on Netflix. The answers gotten from the CEO’s were mostly positive and this has ushered in an era where streaming has come to stay. The real question is with so many marketing strategies available, is streaming the best marketing strategy. 

 Streaming undoubtedly is one of the best strategies available especially for countries that have free internet access. A study by Statista shows that only a handful of countries have internet access and freedom  stream whatever they so desire so with that an online video needs to be marketed well in terms of streaming for free countries and traditional marketing needs to be done for the other markets.

Data Sourced From Statista and Freedom House

To get the best out of streaming as a marketing strategy, there are some of the key features to note.

Online Video Must Feature Great Content to Allow Effective Streaming

There are some Hollywood movies that do not need online streaming like a James Bond movie, previous contents have cemented the movie in people’s heart. The new indie developer or existing developer due to a saturated market must know what the audience wants. Most movies most often time get taken away from theaters just some two weeks into its theatrical run. The Business Insider has it that Universal Studios is pulling JEM AND THE HOLOGRAMS from theaters, why? Audiences might have watched the trailer but the content was not a witty or catchy content that could entice them to put away some few dollars to watch the movie. 

Star Wars is one of the names that might benefit from streaming as a marketing strategy. It has gone through shades of media frenzy, from movie to providing toys of characters in Kellogg's Corn Flakes to video gaming. This shows the transition in marketing Star Wars as a product has endured through the virtual world in the form of films and games to the more physical aspects of providing toys in easy high purchasing consumer products. Watching the Star Wars Battlefront trailer, it enlightens and transitions the viewer from a physical world of real human beings disappearing from their clothes to a high intense virtual game world.

Overwatch, the new team-based multi-player shooter with Pixar-like graphics is the modern poster on Blizzard's billboard. Blizzard as a developer and publisher has built great content providing gamers with classic games like Diablo, Star Craft Series and Heroes of the Storm among others. Many reviews of the trailer features complain of enjoying single-player games for shooter games and they don't see the need for a multiple player game but they are complaining because the streaming of the trailer has reached them. Overwatch would reach a new point in terms of sales for Blizzard because it is being backed by a developer who is well-vexed in streaming and has a strong editorial team who has spent months bringing consumers the best in trailers before the game hits beta mode next year.  Contents mean everything in streaming of videos and Star Wars Electronic Arts and Overwatch's Blizzard Entertainment has it in different shades.

  

Choosing a Platform with the Audience as the Main Focus

Platforms form the basis on which the products are marketed and it also points out the target audience. Platforms like YouTube are the second most search website on the internet and garner over a billion unique visitors per month. This means that a video with great content that captures the attention of audience would be shared and patronized by other stakeholders through streaming. YouTube can be considered the mother of streaming as the best marketing platform but new comers such as Twitch.tv which came to the scene a little over four years ago are not doing badly for themselves. Twitch.tv has become YouTube’s version of movies for gamers and gamers have the opportunities to stream their games and come to contact with the graphics and visual effects before they make a claim for the product. 

STATISTICS OF TWITCH AND THE NUMBER OF VIEWERS ON THE SITE

SOURCE: TWITCH.tv ENGAGEMENT REPORT 2014

Facebook has swam against the tide and though they are not the leading in stats of contemporary online patronizes in terms of social media across North America, they are still the platform with the most users so providing a stream service is one that would get the video down to the last viewer.

Twitter’s new application Vine provides scintillating six to ten second videos of funny witty content therefore a capture could be wired there to be re-vine to as many followers as possible.

Platforms like YouTube and Twitch helps in recommending continuations or loose trailers to augment other features if you really know your way around what streamers want in streaming.

The online world is a circular world and as always takes off it each other. With creating videos for streaming and using it as a marketing strategy, Search Engine Optimization also plays a great part, the ability to make your writing content appear on search engine is the same as optimizing your video to help its marketing reach other markets.

Blended Distribution is one of the ways that makes streaming the best there is. Blended distribution in terms of streaming means posting your ad video on more than one channel to enable more viewers finds your video. This can aid you reach more than a billion views within a short period of time, all other things being equal, if your video goes viral. 

With Northern America, South America, Western Europe and Australia having the freedom to do whatever they want, streaming as a subsidiary of cloud marketing is the best marketing strategy game developers and publishers can use in marketing their game to the public. It is not slowing down anytime soon as Cisco one of the leading companies in internet and global networking predicts that mobile video is going to make up 69% of the traffic found on the internet. With smartphones, tablets and pads, streaming is undoubtedly the best marketing strategy to drive sales.

With China, South Korea and Japan contributing to Asia leading the market charts in the leading markets of the video game industry in terms of revenues, marketing in the forms of direct marketing, alliance marketing and especially affinity marketing needs to go down these areas as affinity marketing is more concerned not only about the benefit to stakeholders but the impacts on the markets as well.