How Ubisoft spent $2.1M on influencers to secure the launch of Assassin's Creed Shadows
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Really good games flopped before because they weren't marketed well. Marketing is budgeted for productions of any size, and influencer marketing in general is very effective for something like videogames. Larger amounts were spent on TV ads, or printing campaigns.
Such as…?
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Such as…?
Prey (2017)
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There are some confused people in the comments, it's industry standard to sponsor streams/have brand collaboration/twitch drops. Every company does it, and 2 million dollars is not much at all. their advertising budget is at least 20x that much, probably more.
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Such as…?
I guess modern examples are Psychonauts or Prey (2017). Hundreds of games are released every week. There will be some gems, we'll just never know. Among Us was one of those games before it got successfull by pure chance.
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You could cry couldnt you, what a colossal waste of money. Just make a good game, spend the cash there, word will get around.
Given the vitriol against Ubisoft (I'm not commenting on how justified it is), obviously they need to do something to counter it. The anti-woke crowd are an incredibly noisy minority.
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I believe its production budget was pegged at between $250m and $350m.
So this particular item in the marketing budget is less than 1% of the development costs.
I haven't found a source for this number when I looked for it. The best I got was a finance blog saying "experts say" without saying that they were progenitors of the reporting or not. Valhalla had a budget about half of this, so it would surprise me if Shadows was that much more expensive.
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There are some confused people in the comments, it's industry standard to sponsor streams/have brand collaboration/twitch drops. Every company does it, and 2 million dollars is not much at all. their advertising budget is at least 20x that much, probably more.
For real. EA spent north of $10M on streamer sponsorships for the Apex Legends launch and that was like 7 years ago.
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I just wish companies would stop releasing games to streamers only. It does nothing but piss me off when I see someone playing a game, find it interesting then find out it doesn't even exist to buy yet .. no demos, no test play versions no nothing..just coming soon.
Makes me not want to play it anymore
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I guess modern examples are Psychonauts or Prey (2017). Hundreds of games are released every week. There will be some gems, we'll just never know. Among Us was one of those games before it got successfull by pure chance.
I really don't think Ubisoft needs to advertise a new Assassins Creed game beyond a few ads here and there, and chatting with some journalists. Spending a ton of money to allow people to play it ahead of time on stream just dilutes the experience for anyone that intends on buying the game.
Seriously, the last thing I want is for the start of a new game to be spoiled for me by some streamer.
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I really don't think Ubisoft needs to advertise a new Assassins Creed game beyond a few ads here and there, and chatting with some journalists. Spending a ton of money to allow people to play it ahead of time on stream just dilutes the experience for anyone that intends on buying the game.
Seriously, the last thing I want is for the start of a new game to be spoiled for me by some streamer.
Then avoid the streamers? I'm sure the marketing experts employed by Ubi know what they're doing. I'm also done defending that crappy company.
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Sponsoring streams isn't even close to the same thing as hiring shills
Do streamers call themselves influencers?
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Do streamers call themselves influencers?
Plenty do, yeah. Though to the marketing team, all streamers are influencers
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Plenty do, yeah. Though to the marketing team, all streamers are influencers
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Yes, someone who promotes a product while hiding the fact that they've been paid to promote the product. Streamers generally say "this is a sponsored stream" to avoid lawsuits.
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Sponsoring streams isn't even close to the same thing as hiring shills
Isn't it though? They're being paid to promote a game right? That seems like a shill to me. I'm not sure I understand the difference to you.
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Isn't it though? They're being paid to promote a game right? That seems like a shill to me. I'm not sure I understand the difference to you.
A shill doesn't disclose that they're being paid to promote a product. The secrecy is what makes them a shill
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There are some confused people in the comments, it's industry standard to sponsor streams/have brand collaboration/twitch drops. Every company does it, and 2 million dollars is not much at all. their advertising budget is at least 20x that much, probably more.
This is true, but one thing I noticed with AC Shadows is that there were a LOT of no-name streamers posting reels with fake hype over the game. It was a little egregious and came off as more than a little desperate.
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This is true, but one thing I noticed with AC Shadows is that there were a LOT of no-name streamers posting reels with fake hype over the game. It was a little egregious and came off as more than a little desperate.
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Yes, someone who promotes a product while hiding the fact that they've been paid to promote the product. Streamers generally say "this is a sponsored stream" to avoid lawsuits.
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someone who promotes a product while hiding the fact that they've been paid
Streamers generally say "this is a sponsored stream"
So by your own definition streamers are generally not shills?
If someone starts off saying "this is a sponsores stream" then yes, that is correct. It's illegal to not disclose when media is an advertisement in most of the world. I'm pretty sure it's against the TOS of most streaming sites, too.
