Posted by Anime, Nostalgia and Live Streaming
On the menu of this first monthly Spawn Points article:
- Why adding an anime flavor to your game might be an excellent idea.
- How to best capitalize on nostalgia to boost back catalogue revenues.
- More proof that live streaming is a versatile tool that delivers better results when you empower your community.
Without further ado, let’s dive right in!
The untapped potential of anime in video games
A fascinating deep dive by early-stage VC firm Konvoy Ventures sets the record straight:
- Video Games and Anime seem to be a match made in heaven, due to the immense permeability between their fan bases. E.g. 60% of anime fans are also avid gamers, and 40% more likely to spend over 20 hours a week immersed in games than non-anime fans.
- The crossover potential is mind-blowing: there are 3.4 billion gamers and almost a billion anime fans, the latter growing 4x faster.
- Both have a vibrant overlapping culture, but also similar growth opportunities (e.g. India).
- Despite this natural fit and immense potential, successful anime game adaptations like Dragon Ball FighterZ are rare.
All in all, this cries untapped market potential and a multibillion-dollar reward for talented game developers able and willing to tackle this crossover opportunity.
But before you rush to rethink your game project and add an anime twist, it’s essential to understand that working with anime creators and IP owners comes with many challenges that you’ll need to overcome to succeed.
You will find more insights in condensed form in my social media thread, and to dig even further, I highly recommend reading the research by Konvoy Ventures.
The art of timing for video game remakes and remasters
A well-documented study by gaming production company Virtuos reveals that adequate timing and content adaptation for your video game remake or remaster can go a long way in helping you achieve your business objectives:
- A remaster, characterized by modest improvements, mainly in graphics and quality-of-life, is best released shortly after the original to benefit from an active player base while maintaining gameplay competitiveness with modern titles.
- A remake, involving deeper and more extensive changes, historically tends to be more successful when released 9 to 25 years after the OG. Content wise, it must remain authentic and pay homage to the original, while aligning itself with contemporary needs.
Virtuos’ research doesn’t stop at the question of timing. It will convince you more generally that nostalgia can be a money-printing machine, and that remakes and remasters have a secret weapon in the context of accrued competition and soaring production costs: they have a proven track record in the marketplace, with existing and predictable demand.
Head out to my social media thread for more highlights and delve into the full report if you’re still thirsty for more.
Unlock your reach with simulcasting and co-streaming
A market report by GameSquare and Stream Hatchet contains a few interesting tidbits:
- Simulcasting, or the ability to broadcast live on multiple platforms at the same time, has the potential to boost a creator’s viewership with minimal extra work. While I wouldn’t pay too much attention to the figures provided due to an unrepresentative sample, it’s clearly something a game developer should have in mind.
- Co-streaming, or the ability to let creators stream one of your events and even facilitate it, has a huge impact on the reach of those events. For example, co-streaming is reshaping eSports viewership, soaring from 10% in 2020 to over a third in 2023! On this topic, it will be interesting to see what comes out of the triple-I initiative digital showcase on April 10, and in particular whether their co-streaming initiative will bear fruit.
- Creator-led events are stealing the spotlight, dwarfing traditional eSports viewership by 415%. This means that creators can be powerful event organizers in their own right, and it’s something I realized years ago: helping community members with their initiatives can be far more effective than running your own marketing campaign from start to finish.
To find out more about the key trends in live streaming, check out my social media thread for the gist, and check out the full report if you want to know even more.
Spawn Points was born out of a common challenge: trying to better understand the video game market and its dynamics can prove quite time-consuming, if not overwhelming.
With new reports coming out every day, it’s hard for a non-specialist game developer to focus on what truly matters and take away memorable insights that can be directly used for project ideation.
The promise of this series of monthly articles? A few top-level insights that can be read in less than 15 minutes, curated and explained by a video game industry veteran with a wealth of practical experience.
Thanks for reading,
Antoine
Antoine Emond - Digital Innovation 