Let’s say they’ve launched their game, 47 copies after 30 days. Something’s not right. Is it dead? Is it too late? Like,

what’s the situation? There’s very, very few accidents in the games world nowadays. Most successes,

even if they’ve apparently come out of nowhere, there’s a heck of a lot of marketing work that goes into making a

game successful. Nowadays, you can’t just do great work and expect everybody to know about it and buy it and hit your

sales targets. Today I’m joined by the co-founder and managing director at Other Things. A lifelong gamer with

nearly 20 years in creative marketing. The majority of his time in games from breakout indies like Squirrel the Gun to

global AAA titles like Elder Scrolls Online. The Scroll with a gun trailer was really, really effective. A lot of

impact for that game and really resonated well with his target audience and got a ton of views, got a lot of

interaction online. If you have a relationship with um a media outlet, then posting a trailer on their platform

generally reaches a wider audience. Well, they’ve got 19 million subscribers. It’s a lot of people that are going to get pinged when this

trailer goes live. We get into the best practices for key art and trailers and how to market effectively post game

launch. Ending with some quick tips to stand out in today’s job market. You’re rolling the dice when the game gets

released because you can’t expect a game in this particular market to cut through

without help, without doing all the things that you need to do to market a game effectively. From someone who has

mastered in-game cinematic marketing, this episode’s guest, co-founder, manager director of other things, Matt

Hitchcock. Matt, welcome to the show.

Hi, Harry. How you doing? Very, very good. We met luckily start of

this year. So I’ve known you a little bit now. We met at Pocket Gamer in London and we’ve kind of stopped by at a

few different events together and it’s just been good to follow your journey and just very excited for this

conversation. Yeah. Yeah. Likewise. Thanks for having me on. Great. So for people at home, nearly 20

years in creative, co-founder, managing director of Other Things, which is an agency that does the other things of game development. So we’re talking

marketing, creative, anything on that from indie to AAA. So today I’ve

structured this podcast today when I was speaking to Matt where we’d cover three subtopics. So I want to start with kind

of marketing and launching your game because Matt’s seen a lot of different from his side in agency in studios. So,

what it takes to like launch a game in today’s market and then we’ll move on to kind of what to do when your current

game isn’t selling, whether it’s five years old or one month old. And I would like to end because Matt’s in a unique

position where he’s hiring right now, what he’s finding in the market. So, it’s going to be chapters to this. So,

if you’re one to kind of skip ahead, if you’re a job hunter, feel free to skip to that part. But essentially, we’ll be covering kind of how to market a game

that you’re building, how to market a game that’s already out, or how to kind of find your next job in games. So, I

want to start off. You recently did a really, really, really cool project. It was Elder Scrolls Online, right?

Yeah. Could you tell me about that? How does that come about? Cuz that seemed really, really crazy when I saw that on the feed.

Yeah. Yeah. No, that that was awesome. Um, you know, the first work that we’ve done with Bethesda, Zenamax as well. Um,

yeah, just a really, really great opportunity to bring The Elder Scrolls Online world into

well live action, you know, re real life, a real life imagining of of what that world might look like. So, um,

yeah, you know, we worked with the team um, at Bethesda Zenax really closely. It was a, you know, competitive pitch like

a lot of these things are to to win the work. Um, thankfully, you know, we got this opportunity. um they saw the

potential that we could offer and um yeah I mean I feel like we we did a

really great job really smashed it. It’s we’re really really proud of the work the the team there are really happy with

it. It’s quite a technically challenging um prospect as well because you know a lot of it was like virtual production

there was green screen a lot of post lot of pre-work to be done too just lots and lots of organization lots of different

moving parts and obviously the quality bar for an IP like that just needs to be

super high and you know we’re all invested in it we’re all fans of the franchise here at other things as well

so we all want it to be as awesome as it can possibly be and as authentic as it can possibly be so you know we spent a

lot of time making sure that, you know, everything was was going to going to be right for the for the fans. You know,

the um there’s a lot of little details in that film that, you know, the casual

viewer would miss that we’ve spent a lot of time agonizing over and putting Easter eggs in there just to make sure

that, you know, everybody’s um everybody’s served with the work that we do. You know, you can just watch it and

enjoy it as a piece of work. If you watch it as a as a fan, you’re going to get extra bits out of it. So yeah,

really pleased with how that went. Beautiful. It’s got me thinking because I saw that trailer and I was like the

amount of time that would take to make something which you could say it’s a

very small piece of work, right? It’s like a few minutes on YouTube and it got me thinking about like trailers. So I

want to open this with people who don’t have their game out yet.

How important is the trailer? cuz at least from my perspective when I’m deciding what games to buy, I don’t

instantly think trailer, but I can imagine from where you’re sitting, a lot

of the work is trailerled. So, could you just paint a picture of what it looks like when someone’s developing a game, they’re thinking

about their marketing? Like, is a trailer 80% of the amount of head space they should have? Is it 50%? Like,

where does a trailer fit in when it comes to marketing a game? For me, it’s it’s hugely important because it can be

used in so many different places. Um, firstly, you’re going to want a trailer

for your for your store page. You know, that’s, you know, as soon as it launches, that’s the first thing that a

lot of people are going to see prior to buying your game. Um, so if they don’t already know about your game, which you

know, maybe they do, maybe they don’t, maybe they’re just intrigued and they’ve landed on your store page, that trailer

that you have there for that first interaction with with the potential buyer, potent potential customer, they

that needs to be as strong as it can possibly be and put your best foot forward for your game. The um Steam just

yesterday actually re released some updates to the Steam player on the store page which you know have allowed a

little bit more flexibility there. But interestingly, one of the pieces of advice that they gave in their um in

their notes around the update was that the trailers that you use on the Steam Steam page should lead with gameplay. Um

because you know that’s what their research that’s what their customers want to see. They want to see the game

that they’re going to play, how it plays, what it’s like. So that’s gameplay versus some kind of narrative

slowburn um you know or animated trailer that that you know there’s plenty of

room for those as well in the mix but on a store page specifically if you’re producing a trailer to that you’re going

to use in multiple places and it’s going to appear on the store page frontload it with gameplay. That’s what Steam that’s

what Steam themselves are saying and that’s that’s what I’ve always advised not always advised that’s what I’ve advised for for quite a long time um

that you know you need people want to see what they’re going to play. I want to touch on that quickly because like in

my world I just did a post today. Um I was advertising one of my coaches new

course and I was doing the post yesterday and I was going to post it and

it was um LinkedIn speaking course and when I clicked the link her video wasn’t showing up because they needed to enable

cookies and I said well I’m going to send these people here. They’re not going to watch the video. My call to

action was watch the video to decide if it’s a right fit. So then we waited a day and then she fixed it and posted it

on Vimeo instead of YouTube. So it actually played. And then hearing you say that, I realized, oh wait, that trailer can stand alone, but that’s actually what’s

going to probably be the most converting piece of content on the actual page once

you’ve got the attention. So like yes, the trailer can take them to the Steam page, but what I’m understanding is when someone goes to the Steam page, the

trailer might be the decision maker to actually convert them. Yeah. Well, that’s, you know, a trailer can serve so many different purposes in

in the, you know, in the marketing campaign. You know, we often work with clients where we’ll produce multiple

trailers for the same game. Um, all this stuff depends on budget, you know, and

how much how much time you’ve got and how forward planned you are with your marketing, which I think is something that we’re going to talk about perhaps

later, so I won’t go too deep into now. But if if you’re able to you know produce an announce and you know a

release date and a launch and various other kinds of trailers where you know

just keeping people’s interest revealing a little bit more about the game each time um just you know building up

excitement for what it is that that you’re that you’re making that’s going to be optimal but I’m thinking about

this from the um position where you might only be making one trailer your budget might not be huge this might be

you know a double A an indie game. Um there might, you know, there might not be a there might not be scope to produce

multiple different trailers of different types and it has to be a multi-use asset. Then um that’s where I think your

trailer becomes super important and and getting that one asset right and investing a lot of head space and a lot

of time into making sure it represents your game in its best possible light is

super important because that’s that’s the thing that people are going to see on your stores on your socials and it’ll

be a lot of people’s first touch point with how your game feels to them you know

so um hu hugely important in my opinion All right. So, if I’m going to role play

now, like let’s say I’m your friend. I’m an indie developer. Then the game’s got some traction somehow. I’ve got a little community,

let’s say, and now I’m putting a bit more money into it. And you know, I’ve got a lot of cash. And I’m like, okay, I

need to prepare marketing this game. And let’s say the release date is in one year’s time. I’ve been good. I don’t

know. Is that good? Is one year’s time knowing you’re going to start marketing? Is that a good runway? That’s a you know, it’s a lot more than

a lot of our clients come up with. So, yeah. What would you say is the optimal if someone I know I think you’ve you

said in the past you want to start marketing from day one like mentally right?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean that is it right. I think I think marketing can begin before a game’s even in development. I think

there’s a role for marketing you know in the in the whole pre-production of the game. um re in terms of research and you

know audience analysis and trends and just being a sounding board for the development team and you know making

sure that relationships in place between marketing teams and development teams is super important I think for making sure

that a game can be positioned optimally for success. Um but yeah in terms of

like a standard running for a for a game to to begin marketing activity 12 months

is is is a good amount of time. You know, you don’t want to leave it so long that people start to get fatigued

waiting for a game. Um, but you want enough time to drip feed your content,

keep it steady and high quality and interesting. So, and build, you know,

build up your community. Um, the community thing can take a whole lot of time to build up, you know. So, that’s

something that you could start very early in the development process. start, you know, working with fans of the

genre, trying to find where they are to get them interested in the development process of your game. But, you know,

when you’re talking about marketing and starting to cast the net more widely, starting to try to appeal to a broader

audience, then, yeah, that’s when you have to start thinking about producing

content that’s that’s going to appeal in its own right. And you know, a trailer is is one of those things that can be

really really effective at that as as can um you know, working with creators as well to help amplify the message of

your game particularly and you know almost ideally exclusively when those

creators are doing it for the right reason that it’s it’s a game that they’re into. It’s a game that their fans are into. They genuinely want to

play it and talk about it. It’s not just a paid opportunity which you know many of these things are as we all know.

So, um, yeah, 12 months is a good amount of time. Depends on your budget. If you’ve got infinite budget, you can talk

about the game forever. Um, but if you’re going to like use your budget optimally to try and get a good enough

runway of interest, build up your wish list, build up your community and interest, I think 12 months is a is a

decent runway to do that. All righty. So, let’s say I’m being good. I got my 12-month runway. Is there

I feel like cuz there’s so many different ways to do a trailer, right? And if I’m not the one making the

trailer, I’m kind of having to rely on marketers that I hire or agencies on

what they think is best. I I’d imagine there’s probably something I know about deep about the game, but I feel like

there’s a bit of overwhelm maybe where there’s got so many choices to market a game and they’ve got also all the

stories that say, “Hey, this person didn’t market their game.” Yeah. During a trailer, it just, you know, caught on cuz the game was good. was

like, “Ah, I can just do that on the back end.” And what I’m getting at here is I’m wondering, could you just give us an

example maybe of a game that you’ve worked on trailer wise that you feel like really hit home and then maybe we

can just do a little bit of a breakdown of like what we could learn from that? Is there any that come to mind? Um, immediately. Um, I think it’s kind

of old cuz it’s like about a year old now, but the scroll with a gun trailer was um was really really effective. that

had a lot of um lot of impact for that game and really resonated well with its target audience and you know got a ton

of views, got a lot of um interaction online. It’s um also the game sold

really well on launch and it massively exceeded its expectations. Um but you

know that that that was something that we did last year. That’s not to say that we’ve not had um you know hits since.

Obviously we’ve done some some great work. It’s just that that one was the one that immediately sprang to mind. Um,

I’m going to bring it up for people to see cuz I I remember seeing this trailer

on my shorts actually. So, like people were making clips of this and talking about this

weird game. Let’s get rid of this advert for a second. And I’m just

wondering like that’s this is crazy. Okay. Could you break this down for someone

actually? Yeah, this is a good opportunity. IGN is posting this. Why wouldn’t the developer post this? Is not

the publisher, right? Like what happens when a trailer is done? Like who’s posting it? Like can you explain like

how this relationship works? Well, often if you’re if you have a relationship with um a media outlet like

IGN um or you know or one of the platform, one of the platforms, you know, Xbox, PlayStation, um Switch,

whatever it might be. um then they will um posting a trailer on their platforms

generally reaches a wider audience. They just generally have almost invariably will have more subscribers

um on their channels than than the publisher will have. Like in in the in

the case of Scroll with a gun, it’s Maximum Entertainment. Um you know, they they have a fraction of the subscribers

IGN has. You can you can see here they’ve got like nearly well they’ve got 90 million subscribers. It’s like

there’s a lot of people that are going to get pinged when when this trailer goes live. So, you know, you if if a um

if a publisher or a developer has the opportunity to perhaps give an exclusive to launch their trailer on a a media

platform like IGN or on, you know, on one of the um one of the games platform

channels, then it’s always worth taking. You know, it’s worth pushing for, seeking if you can get it. It’s going to

um you’re just going to find a wider audience for your So, how do you get it, Matt? Is it is that you doing that? Is that a developer

emailing them like for someone who has no idea? Right. Right. I mean, generally, it’s a it’s a

PR company that would deal with these kind of media outlets and the placements of or, you know, if you’ve got a media

company working with you and and buying ad placements and such like, they might have relationships with these companies.

Um or in-house teams might have it. It can it can come from all sorts of different places. It’s not a part of the

process that we generally deal with other things. Um we don’t really focus on the PR or or media placements for the

content that we create. Um but a lot of it comes down to relationships and

knowing who to speak to and also you know have great content. If it’s great compelling content then the channels are

going to want to post it because you know their subscribers are going to want to see it. like you know this scroll with a gun. It’s it’s silly. It’s funny.

It it kind of it captures people’s imagination and attention and attracts a

load of like dafted comments that are in keeping with the world of of the game and the the sentiment that drives it.

It’s just it’s one of those things that’s um kind of easy to lean into um

because it’s so just silly and rem you know remarkable. I think and what we

tried to do with the with the trailer was was really really lean into that and you know make it almost like absurd

satirical a bit a little bit unbelievable. You know there’s comments on some of the um on some of the

postings of of the trailer where um people are questioning whether or not it’s a real thing. You know it seems so

silly that is is this actually a you know a real game, a real concept or somebody just created like a you know

Rick and Mort. into just scroll down to the comment section. This looks like

so like the fact that someone’s commenting this I’m guessing this is all a good sign. So

yeah, I think so. What I’m coming at here is like if I’m a developer and let’s say I want a

successful trailer like this, is it my responsibility to kind of

how do I capture this in a bottle? I don’t know. Like is there a formula here to like good trailers? because I feel

like why don’t all trailers pop off like this? Isn’t there a way to just kind of always make it work? Like is what’s the

secret source? Is there one? I I think the secret source is um it’s

not so much something that you can you can bottle and sprinkle on whatever you like and it’s going to work. you know, the the secret to success, if if there

is one, is, you know, finding the right team that’s going to pull the best out

of your game and make it appeal to the widest possible audience. Um, having

people who are, you know, proven and talented, I guess, at being able to do

that and then present your game in in its best possible light to whoever it is that you that you’re trying to present

it to or appeal to. It’s um it’s more of a it’s more of a craft than a than a

science, you know. It’s a without wanting to try and make it sound too grand. It’s um you know, is it is an art

form creating you know, game trailers and creating them well. Um and so giving

whoever it is that’s making the trailer for you enough time um and enough resources to create the best possible

work that they can do is is really key. Um, sometimes

not having um, you know, a game a finished game build can be something of a of a hobbling factor when when

creating trailers cuz, you know, things get updated things get updated right until the last minute. Sometimes in game

development, well, more often than not in in game development is, you know, it’s the the build is getting updated

until the week before launch. Um, or or even closer. So, you know, when you’re trying to get a a build of a game so

that you can go in engine and take captures and create cinematics from within the engine of a game, that’s when

that becomes really tricky because every, you know, you might only get your optimal build right at the last minute

and then you’ve got to try and make all these ideas that you had work quite quickly. Um, obviously if you’re going

like down a more CG animated trailer route that kind of negates a lot of that because you’re not relying on the build

itself, but we need gameplay, right? According to Steam, you need you need gameplay. But I

suppose there’s two sides to needing the um needing the build in good time. Yeah. one is one is gameplay and uh and making

sure that’s representative of what your final release is going to be, but also you know a lot of the work that we do

other things it’s um it’s it’s in engine cinematics so it’s not necessarily um

it’s not like full CGI recreations of the um of the game world which we do we

do also do but a lot of clients like the uh I guess the speed the flexibility and

and the authenticity of using their own build in order to be able to create cinematic scenes. Like a lot of what you

saw in the the scroll with a gun trailer is done in that way. It looks, you know, it looks like it’s um been created in

some sort of, you know, it could it could be CG work in a lot of cases, but it is actually just us going in engine

working, you know, with sequencing and and camera movements to create these

cinematic scenes. Um it’s it’s more cost effective for the client to be, you

know, to to be sure and it’s also um it is more authentic to the game because

it’s using it felt good watching it. It felt like this could be the game, you

know, like I don’t know how to describe it, but it had the little animations like ah that’s a gameplay animation. That’s not

a person making that one kind of like slow-mo matrix style cut scene. It’s

like oh that’s just gameplay. Um, but like you say, it feels cinematic, which is really cool. So,

yeah. Is that like gold standard now? Is that something everyone should be looking at doing? Like, because I feel like from my

side, I’m a very I say I’m a numbers guy. I guess I am. Like, if one way is better, then why not

just always do that way? Like, is this just not the norm for any game that has that type of stuff? It’s it’s it’s quite time consuming, you

know, and it’s quite a specific skill set that you need in order to be able to do this kind of work. It’s quite

leftrain, right brain at the same time. The people that that we work with that

we have on on staff that um that do in engine captures um you know they have a technical side

to them. They understand how to work Unreal, how to work Unity, but they also have that artistic um you know,

cinematography side to them where, you know, they know how to frame a shot and place a camera and, you know, they’ll do

the lighting and things like all these things matter in terms of getting the best possible work out of a game um you

know, out of a game build. So it’s yeah it’s kind of I think it’s kind of difficult to find the right people to do

that you know and that’s that’s why I guess agencies like ours exist because you know we can we have you know access

to a lot of people that can do that we have the skills and the experience to be able to get the best out of the games

and creatively direct them in that sense. Um but yeah I think the results from it can can be really good. you

know, we’ve we’ve just we do we’re doing quite a few trailers at the moment with um an upcoming game called Cloudheim by

Noodle Cat Games and um we’re approaching that in very much in that way where we’re taking a lot of

cinematic scenes uh well, sorry, we’re creating a lot of cinematic scenes by going in engine. We’re also focusing a

heck of a lot on gameplay to show exactly what the game’s like, but you know, we’ve got a trailer coming out

soon. The one that we’re working out at the moment, we’ve created some really good um you know, cinematic scenes just

from, you know, from going in engine to do that. Have you already made a trailer for them? Is this the one I’m I’m just googling it here. Could I

No, we’ve made we’ve made um we’ve made three already, but we’re doing we’re currently working on another one. Um

wait a minute. Why is there so many trailers? I why would you need more than one trailer? Like why why wouldn’t you

just make one super trailer for Steam rather than Why are you doing multiple trailers? I think Well, this is where um you know

you get to the Is you going are you going to find the Make sure it’s right. I’m just Is this the one you guys made?

Uh that is that is not that’s that we didn’t do this first one. So there was

um everything after the first one we’ve worked on. What I wanted to do is get a

feel of the game. Is it this one? The combat trailer. We did we did do that one. Yeah.

Yeah. So, like and this is an example of just showing.

Right. So, we’re leading in there with some some gameplay footage straight

away. So, you know, you get an idea of where it is. But after that initial like flurry slows down a little bit. We start

showing a little bit of the world. But all, you know, all of this stuff is shot in engine. It’s all authentic to the game. Um,

you know, we’ve also got um a voice over on this as well from one of the developers talking about the game itself

and you know, how it what’s cool about it basically. So, but I guess to answer

the question about why we’ve created a series of of trailers for this particular title, it’s um I think it’s

back to that point about having a good running to launch and trying to do things right in terms of keeping people

interested by um you know slowly revealing in more depth certain elements

of the game rather than Look at this quote here. This is saying what you’re saying. When I first saw the trailer for the game, I didn’t think

much of it until I saw the combat. I’m glad they’re leaning into it a bit. I reckon this would be a lot of fun,

right? So, you know, if we tried to cram everything for a game like this into one trailer, it would have been difficult to

land properly with anybody watching because there’s quite a lot to it. You know, it’s it’s an action RPG. There’s

loads of different elements that you’d want to pull out. You know, one of them is it’s it’s co-op, um, which you need to get across

quite clearly. Um it’s um you know there’s there’s crafting and building in

there as well. You know there’s um it’s quite combat focused as as that that

trailer outlined. So you know trying to say all these things in in one message

in one trailer probably just gets a bit mushy and you know you you end up not

really being able to say anything well. Yeah. So, you know, Noodle Cat knew this. Um,

you know, the So, they’ve worked with us to um, you know, develop very specific

targeted trailers that that will talk to those um, you know, specific points

around the game, which um, seems to be working really well. You know, the the audience are loving what we’re doing.

Um, it’s really good feedback for the team there. you know, everybody can see in real time what what the comments are,

what people are saying about the work as it as it’s being produced, you know, cuz the game’s not not finished yet. It’s

not ready. It’s still in production. So, you know, and also what you said, it’s an asset cuz like I’m guessing that’s just one

version of it on YouTube, but you could post that as a 30 second clip somewhere because it’s already made because what

at least we just watched like two minutes of that. It seems quite modular. You can probably have the voice over of

one thing on Twitter or something. So yeah, it’s interesting. It just before

we move on to like relaunching another game, I’m just thinking for the person listening to this who’s like, I hear

you, Matt, got a budget, I want to invest in it, but now you’re saying I need multiple trailers potentially. like

what do you see when you speak to indie developers or double A studios and

what do you see that they don’t quite get about marketing that maybe we can kind of dispel today? I think one of the

I think one of the things that it’s absolutely not everybody you know we work with a whole ton of ton of clients

um you know and we’ve yeah not not everybody is is the same obviously you

know some some are more experienced than others um you know and some are you know more more skilled than others obviously

as you might this is coming from love in the line of work right um yeah I suppose

the the thing that is the thing that I struggle to understand

most or like feel that perhaps some um you know people in in charge of

marketing budgets don’t understand is just quite how integral the marketing

side is to the success of a game and um how much

by I suppose not investing enough in your marketing is essentially leaving so

much to chance at the end at the end of a project that you’ve just dedicated years of time. A team has dedicated

years and countless amounts of money to to then not try and give it the best

possible launch pad when it when it when it’s time to go live. That’s that’s the

bit that I always kind of I guess don’t I don’t understand why a lot of people

who work in marketing don’t understand that. Um, and I think, you know, many many do. You know, it’s it’s, you know,

you’re asking me what is a thing that some people don’t understand that kind of, you know, that I wish they did. I

think I think that is it. It’s um you know it’s understanding that if you don’t invest in your marketing well and

and early enough in a project then you are you just you’re rolling the dice

when when the game gets released because you can’t expect a game in this

particular market to um cut through without help without doing all the

things that you need to do to market a game effectively. And if you if you want

to try and do that on a on a on a very very low budget um you need a lot of

luck um or something very special about your game or um or you know it’s just

it’s it’s just very very difficult to do. You need you need expert help. That’s you know that’s why we exist. That’s why, you know, that’s why we we

do the work that we do because we can be effective at at maximizing budgets. But there’s only so much you can do with a,

you know, if somebody’s got 5k to spend on their marketing budget, then,

you know, you’re limited with with what you can actually do with with that with that sort of that sort of money. And I

understand, you know, there’s a lot of a lot of small indies out there that don’t have the funds or the investment to be

able to invest a whole lot more money into their marketing. And um and that’s

where it just it does get very very difficult in today’s market, you know. Um there’s no two ways about it. All you

can do is really um you know, focus on the things that you you can control or

produce more cost effectively. Um, and you know, hopefully you’ve got a great

idea that’s got a lot, you know, that’s got the potential to fly and and you

find your audience and then the audience can help you amplify it. But um, it’s very, you don’t really

there’s very very few accidents in um, in the games world, you know, nowadays.

Most successes that you see out there, even if they’ve apparently come out of nowhere, really really didn’t. you know,

there’s a heck of a lot of marketing work that goes into um to making a game successful nowadays. And anybody who

thinks I just posted a I posted something on LinkedIn just the other day saying um you know,

how did I phrase it? I can’t remember what the lead line was. Um it was it was like, oh, to to make money in games, you

just need to make a great game, right? It’s um it’s just not true. It’s not true anymore. Um, you can’t you can’t

just do great work and expect everybody to know about it and buy it and hit your

sales targets. Um, there there’s too much there’s too much competition out there. There’s too many

other games that are uh that are competing. There’s too many other things in the entertainment world that are

competing for your attention. Um, so a great game, if people don’t know about

it, is just a great game that nobody knows about and nobody buys. And that’s where marketing comes in.

If you take the parallel of like any other business, it’s quite obvious. Like if you tell a

business owner, it’s like, “Hey, I’m going to be the best plumber in the world.” Like, great.

How are you going to get clients? Yeah. Be doing great plumbing and ask for word of mouth. I’m like, that will work to a

certain point. But then the weird thing for me is like when you’re selling a game, it’s digital copies. So you just want like you want

to pull that lever of marketing and if people are buying copies then you great

you can pull that lever even more I’m guessing like I want to segue into kind of squeezing more out of a game that’s

already there right because the Elder Scrolls was a good example of that

where that is an older game right and they’re still reinvested in marketing so

what do you do if your game which is objectively great, great reviews, it’s just not selling.

So, let’s say they’ve launched their game, 47 copies after 30 days.

Something’s not right. What’s the first thing they do? Whether it’s to analyze the situation or to try

kind of savor it. Is it dead? Is it too late? Like, what’s the situation? Tell it to me straight.

I think it very much depends on the game. um you know if it’s um if it’s

another kind of you know me too standard there’s a billion of them out there kind

of games with no no differentiation to it then you know maybe maybe it is just

you it was the wrong place at the wrong time and it and it missed catching that particular wave. Um

it could you know it could be a great game but there’s probably others out there that are scratching that itch for um you know for users. That’s that’s

that’s you know one one scenario but I think there’s also countless games out there where they do have a lot more to

them. Uh they do have a lot more to offer that users just haven’t found yet.

You know um it’s just not it’s not being relayed well enough that the game has

found its audience. So that’s all in the messaging and the marketing of the game.

you know, how well did how well has that game been presented to

its target audience? That’s the first thing that you need to look at. You know, what what’s great about the game?

What you know, what what makes it good? What makes it better than scrolling Tik Tok for 30 minutes? What’s what’s cool

about your game? Put extract all that. How is your current marketing materials,

your current messaging relaying that? Well, is is that what people see when they visit your store page or whatever

touch points you have out there that representing your game? And then, you know, I think this this question as well

is so it’s so big because, you know, you can you can talk about like games like Concord where, you know, they’ve had

millions and millions spent on them, but they’ve still flopped. Um, I’m I guess I’m thinking more about games that are

um, you know, maybe they’re like, you know, indie games, double A games, the

they’re great. There’s a lot, you know, there’s a lot to them, but they’ve just not they’ve not found that audience, and

the reason for not finding it is probably in in the marketing because if

the game is great, then it should be able to make money. This is the um I suppose this is the the counterpoint.

There’s loads and loads of games out there that that are fantastic and they’ve just not found their audience.

How they find that audience is in effectively messaging what’s great about

that game and getting that message to their target audience through um the

placement of the media, working with targeted creators and you know obviously

press and PR talking about their gaming um to the to the audience that they want to speak to. There’s um like like with

anything, there’s no there’s no silver bullet to making it work. Um but the the

things that that certainly should be looked at first up is your messaging and that you know how how you’re talking

about it. The trailer obviously is that representing your game really really well. The key art for the game is is

hugely important too. That could put people off right from the moment they see the key art. You know

what would someone be put off from key art? I think ki art is is a really um

not necessarily underestimated but um it’s it’s something that that you see

done badly more than you should you know more than I think you should. Yeah. Could you give me the 101 on like key

art for people listening like what does it serve and what’s good and what’s bad key art. Right. So, like, you know, also known as

like capsule art. The the the art that appears on um on a store, you know, on

on a store page is specifically what I’m thinking about. Um the, you know, the

key art for a game might might be something a little bit different, but for the advertising, the marketing of the game, it’s generally what then

informs um what the thumbnail will be on a you know, for for a game or what the

um what the header banner might be on a store page. And it’s it’s the thing that’s going to be that’s going to catch

people’s eyes first first and foremost about about a game. Um yeah, here you’ve

got your yeah you’ve got some some key art that’s you know that’s serving as as marketing materials to basically try and

I mean Rust, you know, it’s a great game. It’s it’s huge. Um but if you didn’t know what kind of game it was,

that ki doesn’t necessarily tell you what kind of game it is. But yeah, this one’s more I feel like

brand retention. It’s like, hey, remember Rust? Come play it. But like this one for me is like, okay, I can

understand what type of game it is. It’s interesting they put it to the right instead of the left. I think Rust is just so huge. It’s such

an it’s a bit of an outlier. It doesn’t necessarily need to do what you know, like Peak.

Peak is a new game that did really well, but I’m wondering did it do well? I there’s probably loads of factors, right? We can’t but I wonder could you

explain like this key art decision making from your perspective? I I think this is is great you know

having played peak I think it’s brilliant game. Um I think the ki does a really good job of of showing you that I

kind of know what the game is just just looking at this you know and the name itself is is is quite logical. It’s

you’re clearly climbing something. There’s a few of you and you’re and you’re doing and you’re doing it with your friends and you’re helping each

other out. And that’s exactly what that’s exactly what the game is. You know, you’re all trying to climb up um

obstacle courses essentially together. And yeah, you know, you can you can offer a hand. You can help somebody up.

You can, you know, share share ropes to, you know, to get to different places and and just and share your resources too to

to get to where you need to be. So, and you know, and the art style as well, it’s, you know, it’s all very very

cartoony and you know, you can you can um customize your characters as you know, to whatever sort of colors and

facial features and accessories that you want. It’s really good. Um, so interesting cuz now that you’ve said

it, I’m seeing the store page so differently now. I was like, ah, this one minute is what’s going to help me

decide whether to buy this game or not. And these are all pictures to help me get a window on what it feels like it’s

in a game. It feels like all of these things are a lot more not like, oh, here’s a few

pictures. It’s like these are million-dollar decisions being made for like big games, right? Like what’s here?

Totally. Yeah, it it should be anyway. If it if you know, it absolutely shouldn’t be an afterthought. So, you

know, looking at looking at store pages would be a really, you know, a key thing

that I would do when um considering whether or not my game that is perhaps

critically acclaimed or maybe it’s not even got that far. Maybe it’s just something that people really haven’t

discovered, but it’s good and you believe in it. Look at the store pages.

Look at what can be optimized. How how good can your key art how well can your key art represent your game? Um, and you

know, it needs to also look compelling. It needs to it needs to stand out in a in a sea of sameness. And I think that’s

what’s quite good with uh the Peak Kia. You know, they’ve got the the quite colorful characters. Um, it’s it’s and

it’s quite I don’t know. There’s something a little bit distinctive about it. It does stand out and standing out

is absolutely paramount in a in a store like well any any games online store

because there’s just so many games there. This one caught my eye. I think I’ve seen it around. I’ve heard it’s

very popular, but like you’re not forgetting that once you see that. That’s just weird. It just

Yeah. It makes you think. And I’m also interesting that you said like it needs to stand out in today’s market. So,

is it an argument that key art that was objectively performing a few years ago

in today’s world could be out of date and then it might be worth like re-updating everything

potentially. Yeah, absolutely. You know, there are there are sometimes um trends

that that you you see in ki as well. Um you see a lot of the same kind of thing

happened for a while. There was, you know, a famous famous sort of don’t don’t think you quite call it study, but

perhaps observation of um, you know, FPS’s um, a little while ago where it was always, you know, some guy walking

towards the camera with his with his uh, with his assault rifle um, and you know, behind him was um, you know, some sort

of war war scene. absolute trope to get you know um everything you know I mean

Battlefield 6 is I suppose the tournament face the opposite direction but

kind of um it’s it’s not a you know it’s not a but you know it also it is shorthand for what kind of game it is

you know so it does serve a purpose but if you want to stand out you need you

need to stand out and Battlefield 6 arguably people are going going to find it anyway. They’re going to know about

it anyway. It’s going to be huge regardless. It of course key art matters

for a game like Battlefield 6 and capsule art matters for a game. It’s interesting because I’m not

learning why Battlefield 6 is different to Battlefield 5 with this key art, right?

Right. Yeah. Yeah. The the Yeah. I guess the key art is arguably less important for for a huge,

you know, AAA game. Yeah. But if it’s your first entry into a franchise, Yeah. will be white. So, just to I’m

just playing devil’s advocate here. Like, okay, Matt, I’ve updated my key. Like, how are people going to go to my

store page? Like, is there a way to send more people to the store page when the game’s already been out? Have you ever seen people do that

successfully? That’s basically where you’re, you know, you’re set, you’re setting out your stall in the marketplace better if you

um if you if you create better kia and a and a better store page. you know, it’s

it’s not necessarily that in and of itself isn’t necessarily going to bring more people to the store, but if they’re

in that store and they come across your page, they’re more likely to go to it. And then if you’ve got better materials

on that page, they’re more likely to convert and buy your game. Um, so the

the task of getting people to actually to to be interested in your game in the first place, you know, that’s the um

that’s where you get back into having to market the game in in more, you know, traditional marketing campaign ways.

You’d want to revisit a go to market plan um and actually devise ways that

would work best for your game. I think there’s no um again there’s no sort of like one-sizefits-all way to do that but

it would be a case of looking at where the you doing some audience analysis where are they what appeals to the

audience create materials that are likely to resonate with the audience in

an authentic way along you know that’s that’s relevant to your game and then you know and then seed it as well as

possible. Um there’s so many different ways of doing that, but that’s the real sort of like topline. This these are

some of the things that you would do. Um but you know, fundamentally it starts with with a with a go to market plan and

you know an analysis and an analysis of um the best marketing path to to market.

I’ve seen a lot of mobile games have continuous marketing for basically

years. I haven’t seen many, at least on my feed, like my YouTube

shorts or my ads. I don’t see many ads for games that already exist, apart from one, which is Hearthstone. I think

they’re running a retargeting ad on like my account or something cuz it’s like it literally says come back to Hearthstone

and like I get that ad. Other than that, I haven’t seen much else. Um, but

yeah. No, it’s and you know it is interesting because um you know obviously working on that Elder Scrolls Online trailer earlier this year that

was um it’s an 11 year old game and it’s you know a significant um push to you

know I suppose present that game to a new audience um that that might not have

appreciated it first time might not have just been in a position to to play or or know about it. And yeah, you do see it a

lot with with mobile games, you know, games like um you know, well, obviously

there’s obviously Candy Crush and Clash Royale and you know, all all the all these games that just continue to be

huge forever more. And uh but also, you know, in games like um Pokémon Go, which

was huge like what eight eight years ago, it’s still huge. You know, it’s still massive. It’s just um you know

it’s I suppose it’s they’ve they’ve kept updating the game. They’ve kept

improving it. They’ve kept adding new features and you know the they keep they continually market the game and um and

let people know about it, let people know why to keep coming back and keep playing it. I think you know these it’s

as we move into a world where it’s like games as platforms which I think is

definitely something that is that we already are seeing and you know with GTA

6 and you know the the rumors around how that’s going to actually play out. I

think there’s, you know, there’s quite a quite a significant chance that, you know, plat games as platforms is is is

going to be it’s going to be quite quite a shift in the way that, you know, people actually get generally. And when

that’s the case, then how you advertise those and market the changes and the

updates and the developments within those games is all going to be very interesting as well. But I think the

fact remains if you’re not telling your players why they should keep coming back, then it’s easy to lapse. You know,

it’s like if you stop playing a game, there are so many other distractions out there to um to take you away from going

back to that game that if you’re not reminding your audience why why they

played in the first place, why they should come back, what’s new, you know, if people have got bored of it or feel

like they’ve, you know, just done everything there is to do, then, you know, you have to remind them there’s

there’s more to this game. And, you know, that that’s where Yeah, that’s where the marketing comes in.

For sure. I think it makes sense, right? When it’s a live service game, then I’d imagine if it’s a game which has like a

price tag, then you could, you know, redo the store page and then do maybe an

event or maybe some paid ads or something. I’d imagine because I think,

yeah, it’s a big question is what I’m getting at. Like, it will depend on each game from my understanding.

Yeah, definitely. um you know it’s um yeah like it’s really hard to to answer

it like in a in a non-specific way because I think it is very you know I think the answer would be quite unique

depending on whatever product you were talking about and whatever the audience was and it’s all about making things

that that will um resonate with the audience that you’re trying to talk to and um that’s that’s where you know

that’s where we come in as an agency and we we we identif those things and then we make them.

Sweet. So, love to move on to the final part now. We’re talking about people

kind of looking to join the industry, maybe get a new position in the industry given the state. So, I’d love for you to

quickly share maybe like how did other things start? Um, why did it start? And

then maybe about your experience hiring recently and what you’ve been noticing from kind of the better portfolios

versus the portfolios that needed work and maybe some tips for people looking for jobs. So, I’d love to hear that story.

All right. Um, yeah, I guess we um to to skip over like the the earlier part of

my my life story, you know, I I I spent a lot of time um working at media companies, games companies in my career.

Um and I was based in in London for for most of my young younger years. Uh grew,

you know, grew up in the north of England, moved to London after university. Um, and yeah, spent most of

my career down there, but then moved back up about 9 years ago to to Leads in

Yorkshire and took a job here in in Leeds at Sky and that’s where I met my

now business partner Richie. So um you know we started working together there to build a um an in-house creative team

and um so we we were kind of like the two two managers of the team working

really closely together to you know build and develop processes and just you know ma make this this agency that was

going to you know service creative work for that business. Um after about 3

years we you know effectively built the team done the job. Um redundancies

happened you know we were caught in the redundancies and um it was a really good

catalyst for us to have an opportunity to you know to try this ourselves. You

know we we kind of we’d spoken about potentially doing something like this um as you know a lot of people do dreaming

away in their in their day job. we could do this for ourselves. And then we found an opportunity to be able to actually

try that and prove that. And so um and so yeah, we set out to do it. And um

yeah, that was that was about six and a half years ago. And we very quickly pivoted into video games mostly mostly

thanks to, you know, my my background in games and working for games companies. Um and obviously a personal interest

there as well because I’m a you know, I’m an avid gamer, always have been. And um it yeah it was it was at a time you

know just just precoid um and there was some like boom years around you know around games. It’s not

been quite the same for the past few years but I think we segueed into gaming

a really you know interesting time where there was you know a lot of investment and a lot of optimism around how it was

going to grow um and you know our business developed from there. I think,

you know, we’ve we’ve we’ve ridden the waves, uh the ups and downs of of the industry so far and um we’re now in a in

a place, you know, luckily where we’ve got some really great clients. Um we’re growing the team a little bit. We’ve um

you know, we’ve just hired a creative operations director um and a content

producer. You know, we’ve got a couple of other ads out um for roles as well.

So you know we are we are trying to you know just grow up the in grow the in-house team a little but our model is

quite is it’s like almost like a true agency model where we do keep things we want to keep things quite small but work

with a network of people um that we know that you know freelance and contract and

always then we can always pull in the the right expert for the job. Um it

gives us a lot of flexibility. It means we’re always getting the very best talent for the work that’s that’s

required and you know it allows us to scale up and scale down um really quickly but we do still need a you know

really strong team core which is you know what we have at the moment and what we’re continuing to build. Um yeah

that’s that’s that’s the the very short history to to where we are now. So now that you’re hiring, for anyone who’s

also kind of for anyone who’s job hunting right now, any observations from

your side of the table? Yeah. Any tips? Yeah, it’s been it’s been interesting

having, you know, having a few few job ads out there and seeing um how people

are are applying for roles, particularly creative roles or or roles that require

a lot of organization. Um there are a lot of kind of I guess a lot

of unforced errors I saw in in going through a lot of job applications. Um,

which just make me feel that it was it was an avoidable way of put,

you know, to you could have avoided putting me off at this point by just

running this thing through a spell check or having somebody, you know, double check what you’re writing here to make

sure that it’s it does actually make sense. having somebody click the links into your portfolio on your LinkedIn

page or in your CV to make sure that they’re not dead links or that your SSL

certificate is up to date. So, people tell me every time I ask this

to do that, but you’ve actually just felt this right now. Like, how common is it that people don’t have the right links

or spelling checks? Cuz for me that seems like, oh yeah, everyone should know that, but everyone brings it up. So I’m wondering

in reality what does it actually look like? Is it that many people who don’t do it? I think it’s, you know, so

remarkably common, you know, which is, you know, quite quite shocking given that, you know, a portfolio is going to

be a really key piece of work for a for a creative role. And um

yeah, it’s hard to, you know, put put a percentage on it without going through some statistics right now, but it’s, you

know, it is it’s something that that I’ve seen way more than I would have expected to um going through the you

know, literally hundreds of applications that we’ve been through over the past couple of months uh while these while

these roles have been live. And um there’s there’s something as well around

um how people apply for the roles and and LinkedIn um and the the ease with

which LinkedIn allows people to apply because there’s like a quick apply button there um where it’s kind of a

oneclick just throwing my hat in the ring for this job. I think a lot of people are tempted to just go, “Oh, that

sounds like something like maybe I could do. I’ll just press that button and, you know, I’ll go in the ring.” But at the

other end of that, there’s, you know, there’s somebody checking all these applications. And if if your application

is just completely off the mark, then, you know, that’s that’s your name.

That’s your reputation. You you know, you’ve just shown you you’ve just you just literally scatter gun applying for

things. Um, there might be another role that’s more viable for you coming down the line, but you know, you’ve

potentially just damaged your reputation somewhat with that hire or by, you know,

being a little bit slap dash with how you’re applying for things. Yeah, people maybe don’t realize that

yes, by applying to more jobs, you could get more yeses, but every person who views your

CV and then decides not to hire you because, for example, you didn’t read the application, they’ve now kind of

you’ve been dinged a little bit and they add up, right? you know, and it’s yeah, it’s,

you know, it’s sad to say it’s, you know, it’s a tough market out there at the moment and, you know, sympathetic for for everybody who is, you know, job

hunting and struggling. It’s it’s really hard. You know, I think most people have have been there and can empathize with

with what that’s like. It’s not not a nice place to be. Um, but scatter gun

applying for jobs is is not not the answer. Um I think you know absolutely

making I guess conscious have spoken a lot about you know the negatives of of people applying the people who you know

who were successful who did catch our eye when when we’re um reviewing all of

the applicants were people who had you know the read the job ad thoroughly

understood it and played back to us what why they were the right person for the

role. Um, I mean, one one thing that we did in our in our job ad as well was um,

we stated how to apply for it and how to apply for it was to send an email to a

another things’s email address with their CV and, you know, a little cover note about why why they want the role or

why they’re right for the role. Um, so so few people actually did that. Um so

whilst we had hundreds and hundreds of people applying online on on LinkedIn

for the role you know I probably had more like a hundred people that that came through the correct route. So it’s

like that was that served as somewhat of a filter to begin with because

particularly like for the creative ops director role where attention to detail is you know pretty pretty major part of

the role not following that particular detail of

the application process is a bit of a flag. So, you know, it might if anybody’s ever tempted to just

not, you know, just click quick apply when the when the ad says apply in a particular way. I would say, you know,

don’t just do do what do what the job ads asking you to do. If if the job is

appealing enough that you want to apply for it and you’d like to do it, then you know, it’s probably uh worth spending

that bit of extra time to apply in the way that that they are asking for. Even if LinkedIn does offer you the option of

just going quick apply for sure and even if that is the only

way it suggests to apply what a difference is if you find their email send them a quick note and say by the

way couldn’t do it in the application process here’s why I think I’m relevant for the role but then like you say

replay it back I’m guessing you’re going to remember them over the other hundred so it doesn’t take more than 10 minutes

there to become the top of a pile from my understanding. Absolutely. Yeah, it it matters and it

and it does make a difference. Um you might not hear back from from the person. You know, you you might not be

the successful candidate. Um, I’ve in the process if people have

written a um, you know, a cover letter or a cover note that’s uh, tailored to

this job role, I have I’ve been trying my best to respond to everybody who has done that with, you know, with what you

know, whatever the answer might be. Um, just because, you know, it’s it’s the

right thing to do. But when you’re having hundreds and hundreds of applicants, it’s it is just difficult to

do that as a small business um where you don’t have the resources to necessarily reply to everybody. But that doesn’t

mean, you know, I wouldn’t let that necessarily put people off writing a um

a tailored application for any particular role because yeah, the people who did that stood out. I paid extra

attention to their application. And there’s also a thing in LinkedIn where I

think you can mark it as like a top job or something when you’re um when you’re applying for a role and when that

happens there’s like an opportunity to write a few words about why the job appeals to you. So and that’s you know

some of the people who applied through LinkedIn because some people applied through LinkedIn and sent the email um

and applied that way which is which is also fine. Um but you know a lot of those people also then marked it as a

top job and had like a little note on LinkedIn. So when you’ve got like you know hundred you know 500 applicants to

look through you’ve got also these people who’ve marked it as a top a top thing and it’s a much smaller percentage

and I always I always looked at those people and read what they had to say. Um

I don’t actually know how it works from a candidate’s point of view. I don’t know if you get like x amount of chance to do that or you have to pay to do that

or what however it might however it might work. All I can tell you is from a hiring manager point of view. I did read

those. They did stand out and um you know I did look at those applications a bit more closely than some of the

others. Even if it did cost money, you could do the equivalent of that by emailing probably the email and saying, “Hey, by

the way, this was my top job because of XYZ.” Basically, from my understanding, a little note that is clearly custom for

the row would make a huge difference in Also, I was very surprised when you said

you said 500. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Were you surprised that you got that many applications?

Yeah, that’s so many. That is so many. That’s good. Um, you know, strangely as

as is often the case, you know, the the person that that we’ve ended up um

that’s got the role in the end is, you know, one of the first people we’re chatting to as well. Um, but, you know,

it’s it’s such a key role for us, the u the operations director, creative operations director, that um, you know,

we needed to make sure we were properly, you know, doing doing a proper search to make sure we covered all the bases. Um,

really difficult role to fill. So, you know, really, you know, and also get flattered that so many people wanted to

to work for our for our little company. You know, it’s um it’s it’s a it’s a

it’s such an integral role. We just had to make sure we um we took the time to get it right and get the hiring right

and Yeah. Great. Well, congratulations. Yeah. Thank you. Cheers. Amazing. So before we close up, is there

anything you feel like we could leave people with from a marketing perspective that we maybe didn’t spend enough time

on from anyone listening here wanting to kind of get their chops up, I guess, with marketing? Anyone want to improve

their marketing over the next few months? I think, you know, I think I banged the drum quite hard about um you know, the

value the value of marketing in this chat. Um, obviously starting early. Um,

dedicating as much budget as you reasonably can to creating high quality,

effective marketing materials and developing a marketing plan is um, is something that I suppose you would

expect me to advocate as an agency owner, but it’s also genuinely something that I would do if I ran my own game

studio um, or or publisher. It’s it’s so important in today’s day and age to

stand out among the crowd and the way to do that is to have an excellent game but

also to to market it in the most effective way possible and um so yeah

any ways that you can do any ways that you can give yourself an edge to do that do them.

Sweet. Lovely. How can people get in touch Matt? Uh you can contact me at matt other thingsagagauagaggency.com

um or through the website which is other thingsagaggency.com or just get me on

LinkedIn. Fantastic. Lovely. Thank you very much Matt. And for everyone at home, if this

was useful, consider subscribing, maybe sharing it with a friend, and I’ll catch

everyone later. All righty. Goodbye, everyone. Thank you, Matt. All right. Ch.