Twitch, YouTube Influencers Are Becoming Video Game Publishers (bloomberg.com) 26
Influencers in the video-game industry are evolving from playing games to making them. From a report: Over the weekend, One True King, a media company focused on gaming content, launched Mad Mushroom, a new publishing division. "We have a unique competitive advantage in this space," said OTK co-founder Asmongold, a top streamer on Twitch, Amazon's live-streaming platform. "We can give games the push they need to actually go out to market, get eyes on the game and give [developers] insight." Moving forward, OTK's stable of gaming influencers will collaborate with lead adviser Mike Silbowitz, a gaming industry veteran who has previously worked at Square Enix, to publish, distribute, test and market games.
Currently, publishers pay top influencers tens of thousands of dollars to demo new games in front of their sizable audiences of live viewers on social media platforms, particularly Twitch and Google's YouTube. According to company executives, by reducing such marketing and user-acquisition costs, the organization can take a reduced cut of sales, say, 30% rather than the regular 40% or 50%, potentially benefiting the makers of independent games. "Twitch streamers have a large tool that is effectively a non-cost, which is their time and their audience," Asmongold said.
Influencers are increasingly diversifying their income streams beyond social media networks, which can be culturally and financially volatile. Popular gamers have said they anticipate that selling products directly to their audience will eventually form a larger fraction of their revenue. Top streamers, particularly those who have carved out a niche within a specific genre, are looking to publish and advise on both top tier and indie games that might appeal to the specific tastes of their fans.
Currently, publishers pay top influencers tens of thousands of dollars to demo new games in front of their sizable audiences of live viewers on social media platforms, particularly Twitch and Google's YouTube. According to company executives, by reducing such marketing and user-acquisition costs, the organization can take a reduced cut of sales, say, 30% rather than the regular 40% or 50%, potentially benefiting the makers of independent games. "Twitch streamers have a large tool that is effectively a non-cost, which is their time and their audience," Asmongold said.
Influencers are increasingly diversifying their income streams beyond social media networks, which can be culturally and financially volatile. Popular gamers have said they anticipate that selling products directly to their audience will eventually form a larger fraction of their revenue. Top streamers, particularly those who have carved out a niche within a specific genre, are looking to publish and advise on both top tier and indie games that might appeal to the specific tastes of their fans.
Penny Arcade (Score:4, Informative)
The video game comic Penny Arcade (which used to have a link on the Slashdot homepage) have put out four games [wikipedia.org] since 2008.
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I still picked up the games. I had the first two already and Zeboyd make great games. I even have a credit in Cosmic Star Heroine.
New Way to Find Games (Score:3)
This is really the new way to find games for a lot of people. I've picked up a lot of Indie games that I've seen a clip of someone on youtube or twitch playing. In some cases publishers paid for the game to be played, but it seems like the game studios could arrange that themselves for a lot cheaper.
It works out a lot better for consumers because even if someone is paid to stream a game and is pretending to enjoy it, it's hard to mask a bad game experience.
Hmm, Bud Adventure? (Score:1)
D. Mulvaney tries to distribute Bud Lite to fans by farting turbo rainbows while red staters try to stop her with AR's and lassos.
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I'd rather just smoke some bud, that sounds like a better proposition on all fronts.
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Dude I forgot about that! Man isn't it shitty how terrible the quality of games has become now that money is being affected through wages and all that. When Knights of the Old Republic first came out I was in awe at how awesome the story was well written. Now we get micro transactions and a crappy story at best that gets broken up into downloadable content.
With all this digital money and everything going on I really hope the wealth created by such technology does solve this problem because it has not gotten
Nature advertising... (Score:1)
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I only became aware of "One True King" recently...and they seem like a real pack of douchebags. They and their members have a track record of scandals (sexual assault, tax evasion, etc), and they tend to take advantage of people for content.
Give them a few years. They're working their way up the scum-sucker totem pole. Soon they'll be running for office! And winning!
God, I wish I was joking.
It's just branding... (Score:5, Insightful)
This sounds a lot like when brands partner with pop stars, actors and athletes. These companies know that consumers will buy anything when it's associated with a celebrity. In reality these people aren't actually making anything; they're more like glorified project managers and even then just barely. It looks like this company is carving out a niche to facilitate that kind of brand-based game design.
An old friend worked at a fashion company who did that sort of thing. Very infrequently some celebrity would pop in to weigh in on the output of hardworking designers. Their contribution consisted of picking some designs from a handful of options to be marketed under their brand. Even then, they didn't do it for much of the product line. Of course it enabled these people to label themselves as fashion designer. It would be like a client calling themselves a programmer because they hired you to do some coding.
I know I'm being really cynical and I'm sure there are some influencers who legitimately put in the work, but I'd say it's pretty rare.
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It sounds like that, but the major difference is that they have a marketable skill. Critiquing games is sort of their thing. Even if all they do is give feedback during the development cycle, they would probably make a positive difference in the end product.
Your celebrity/fashion example isn't that bad. They wear a lot of high fashion clothes, even if only for (very frequent) special occasions. But again, if the company doesn't use the asset as anything more than for their brand image they are wasting e
So like a car dealership... (Score:2)
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I can't. Celebrity is fleeting, so it only makes sense to capitalize on that quickly and diversify your streams of income. For the jockey, that means a car dealership. For others, that means a clothing line.
Remember the twins who played the youngest daughter on Full House? They took the tiny little bit of recognition they still had in the late 90's and turned it into a tween empire. They also made a bunch of video games.
I don't know that the average YouTube millionaire has that kind of recognition, but
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I feel like you've never been in a car dealership
Demos. (Score:2)
They're going to be raking it in (Score:2)
Save us, AsmonGold and friends... you're our only hope!