In August, PlayStation unleashed a massive marketing campaign to get its live shooter, Concord, in front of millions. Streamers who played the game on their channels mostly gave positive reviews. Weeks later, the game shut down, and in October, Sony announced it was closing the studio down. Concord now faces overwhelming dislike from users on Metacritic. Were the streamers so wrong? And if so, why do game marketers continue to turn to them first to get a game off the ground?
When a video game company is looking to push sales of a game, the go-to option is no longer to show a presentation at an annual convention (RIP E3), to place a splashy poster at a retail store, or even to buy traditional online ads (though that is clearly part of the strategy). A lot of companies now are going straight to individual enthusiasts to push their games. In many cases, getting a large influencer to play a game is enough to have it trend for days.
