Real-Time Strategies

A few things have been on my mind about the nature of accountability in PR crises lately, in no small part thanks to Uber’s growing troubles and YouTube’s biggest personality losing deals with major partners. None of this is meant to fully address any one story specifically, but they may come up as examples.

Some PR crises explode not from a single event, but from an accumulation or pattern of unresolved events. Bad PR doesn’t always cause a crisis - perhaps the story only gets a little attention, the news cycle moves on, the situation blows over, etc. But even when bad PR doesn’t result in disaster, that doesn’t erase the slate. That event gets tucked away into the memory banks of the public and media, ready to be pre-loaded into the next news beat. That makes the work that comes after an instance of bad PR (listening earnestly to criticism, being transparent, following through on promises made, etc.) important in how the next potential crisis <knock on wood> unfolds.

Uber didn’t stumble into PR trouble at the start of 2017; it had years of bad PR here and there, quietly accumulating until the right story opened the floodgates and unleashed a torrent of repressed public sentiment. Patterns of behavior with their own snowballing narratives could be drawn together, and those can be especially challenging to rewrite.

We’re always interested in stories that explore the work content creators on Twitch, YouTube, etc. put in to build their channels, so I appreciated this piece from ProfessorBroman on the increasing pressures some feel to stream all day, every day to keep their hard-earned audiences, especially early on. It paints how difficult it can be to pull away from work when you’re your own boss and everything in life can be framed as a personal profit/loss opportunity cost calculus.

We have, as an industry, defined “growing channels and audiences” as a numbers game of views and subscriptions. But maybe this is a self-limiting view of growth. Content creators are businesspeople, yes, but their business is entertainment. And we rarely talk about the qualitative output of talent, creativity and skill those channels produce - how engaging or expressive or unique a channel is vs. simply how big it is.

From quality and quantity of game types to storylines and more, the past year in gaming was one that both impressed and astounded. Some random thoughts:

The fact that mobile gaming continues to trend is great, though we’ve found that UA drives many more downloads than PR. Editors that care about mobile games are tougher than ever to find, even though there are more players than ever. What does this mean as we head into 2017? I look forward to finding out. We envision the rise of premium content once again; games that continue to innovate can make noise in the media, but the flip side of that is licensed products and well-known IPs, which can get traction based on their lineage.

We watched a number of titles reaffirm the influence that Twitch and YouTube coverage can have directly on sales. It’s not easy - in fact, it’s getting more competitive all the time. With rare exceptions, you need a dedicated content creator strategy in conjunction with traditional PR to see results. But I’m continually amazed at the sheer variety of games - games that might have been written off a couple years ago - that make it big on these platforms.

I want to talk a bit about one of the challenges that Microsoft and Sony face now that their 4K resolution display-designed consoles have been unveiled, and that’s the burden of teaching consumers what this next format evolution is, and what it means for their purchasing and gaming decisions and experiences going forward. Because it isn’t just that 4K TV ownership in the public is still low - it’s that strong knowledge of 4K TVs is low, too. And even though 4K isn’t a new term in gaming, I think it’s one most people could afford to not pay much attention to up until now. Why go through all the effort to learn about something expensive you don’t seem to need anyway?

The reveals of Microsoft’s Xbox One S and Scorpio at E3 and, this week, Sony’s PS4 Pro change that. Suddenly, “Do I need 4K?” isn’t such a simple question to dismiss. But nor is it any easier a question to answer, especially if price is a concern. And this is the landscape in which both Microsoft and Sony will operate - one in which teaching the public about 4K technology is as critical as promoting it.

With so much of our business coming from overseas, we rarely get to see our international clients or business partners face to face. Even at industry-focused trade shows like GDC, we might only get time with clients in the context of a demo or some other work activity. And when you’re holding to a tight convention schedule like that, it can be difficult to find the moments to slow down and really get personal or talk about the bigger picture.

That’s not something we’re happy about. So this past spring, two of Sandbox’s partners - Corey Wade and myself - flew to Europe for a road trip across three countries to visit as many of our clients and industry friends (some former clients) as we could. No agendas or pitching or schedules - just stopping by (announced ahead of time!) to hang out and learn a bit more about their worlds firsthand.

The first stop was Berlin to attend Quo Vadis. If you’re not familiar, it’s one of my new favorite shows, a throwback to the original vibe GDC had about 15 years ago: a nice, casual mix of business meetings, informative talks and great parties. I’ve gone three times now, and it gets better and better every year. If it’s not on your list, definitely check it out: http://qvconf.com.

I had been asked to speak about the legacy of the King’s Quest franchise (which we work on) then and now. It was half history lesson, half modern inside baseball, reflecting on the first game I worked on at Sierra - King’s Quest V - and comparing and contrasting it to the experience of promoting The Odd Gentlemen’s recent, highly praised spin on the series. I prepared an hour’s worth of material, and the most talked-about slide was the one simply listing the system requirements of King’s Quest V - remember when we used to run games on 2 MB of RAM?

Later, we headed to Finland to chill with a bunch of studios, including Frogmind, Next Games, Housemarque and a few others. Finnish game developers are a big part of our business, and Helsinki’s gaming scene is incredibly tight-knit and social, so we try to stop by whenever we’re even vaguely in the neighborhood (this was our third company visit to Finland).

It was a valuable experience. That may not translate immediately on our ledgers - we took time away that could’ve been spent productively in the office. We ate well with friends and did some sightseeing in the places they call home. We enjoyed ourselves. But this wasn’t a business trip. It was a personal trip to spend time with the people we do business with, and their perspectives are ones you might miss if your travel is limited to the demands of press tours and conventions.

One of the lingering threads from last week’s E3 I keep revisiting is the set of challenges gaming console manufacturers face as they prepare to launch new systems in 2017 at a midpoint in this current console generation. It’s a tightrope, made all the more difficult by the history of console marketing.

I really enjoyed this article from GamesIndustry.biz on the challenges that a toxic culture poses to esports as they try to go mainstream. It takes the scene seriously by treating its problems honestly, and now that we’re past the question of whether or not esports will have a future, I’m glad we can start to ask more thought-provoking questions about just what that future will look like. 

But I worry that the question of what audiences will tolerate from their entertainment is more complicated than presented here.

This is my personal gaming backlog. I keep it taped to my bedroom wall. When I buy or receive a title, I add it to the list. Many things on this list I obtained with the excited intention to play. Some things I did not, with the feeling I should try them to widen my gaming experiences. But as bundles have grown in popularity, increasingly more of those unintentional games I own end up not making the list at all. I am very good at amassing games at an efficient value. Sometimes I feel bad about that.

As an overall fan of “walking simulator” games (a phrase I’m a little less bothered by as I remember that walking in real life is often rewarding), I enjoyed this recent Jimquisition episode exploring the elements that separate the rising genre’s best titles from some of its less stellar entries.

I think one of the traps these kinds of immersive adventure games can fall into is making the player an observer of a story rather than an active participant, creating something players merely pass through rather than become a part of.

(Otter unrelated to trivial scribbling below; source: Wikipedia)

One of my responsibilities as a kind of editor at Sandbox is managing the overall style and language rules we use in outreach. Recently I was asked: “How do we write the term for [electronic gaming sports]?” I quickly responded, “eSports!” (because it’s what many media outlets use, and it’s what we’ve used before as a result). But when you’re the final word on a subject, you have to be willing to face the possibility you don’t actually know anything at all. So I tried to fact check my own claim, and thankfully, the first search result that popped up was this (fairly old, I know) Daily Dot piece on their own style debate over the term.

Their argument: we don’t randomly capitalize letters in real words that aren’t proper nouns. That’s it. Not a new or groundbreaking point, but it’s never too late to stop perpetuating a mistake. So “eSports” is now nixed from the Sandbox style guide. We’ll still follow client formatting preferences when they exist, but on projects where the question is up to us, “esports” is our new standard.

If I had to make an admission to myself, I think “eSports” came from a place of insecurity. “No, no, it’s a real thing,” it almost shouts. “I know you think games as sport and watchable entertainment is a childish concept, but look! It’s got its own special spelling, which makes it official! And lowercase sports - which we all know are really sports - can still go on being their own thing!” Capitalizing that “s” felt like a way to legitimize the scene while simultaneously safeguarding it against criticism or mockery. But perhaps it accomplished neither.

“Esports.” It’s a word. It’s a real thing. It’s official.

(Image source: lazygamer.net

One of the things I find most fascinating about the rapid rise of esports is watching the story of its first major generation of players unfold. What happens to players who achieve so much at such a young age? What happens to them afterward? That’s why, unfortunate subject matter aside, I enjoyed Vice’s recent piece on an orthopedic surgeon whose most frequent patients are: 1.) MMA fighters, and B.) esports gamers.

It’s routine to see esports teased for lacking physical activity, but the truth is the extensive repetitive motion associated with professional gaming can potentially take a severe physical toll – with real bodily and financial consequences for its players. Given the relatively brief span of time when the mind and body are fast enough to perform the actions per minute required for victory in certain games (with even the mid-20s being considered old for many titles), the potential for a career-jeopardizing injury seems significant. When you then consider that younger demographic isn’t traditionally one to appreciate insurance or the fragility of the human body, it’s even more concerning.

It’s daunting to consider that gaming has very quickly developed a wildly successful multimedia entertainment scene on the efforts and energies of some very young people, many of whom aren’t even out of their teens yet. And as with more common sports, there’s a responsibility to make sure that some segment of the industry exists dedicated to looking out for the lifeblood of that community, whether through preventive awareness, or post-injury care and advocacy. It will be interesting to see how quickly esports evolve (or don’t) to meet that challenge.

When we talk about educational games, we tend to focus on products that are strictly tuned to teach or apply a specific skill. But what about the educational value of exploring mature situations? What label do we give to media that isn’t strictly focused on learning, but still manages to help us grow by challenging how we react to different people, ideas and situations?

Nate Ewert-Krocker‘s recent piece in Paste on Dontnod’s Life is Strange is a nice spotlight on the importance of these kinds of games. Experiences that are mature not necessarily for their violence or sexuality, but for the ways in which they actually inform the process of growing. It’s notable that while literature and film have huge libraries targeted at young adults and teens, the breadth of games for people in this critical age of development is relatively limited. It’s kind of a catch-22: we live in an industry dominated by mature experiences, but pay shockingly little attention to creating things that might actually help young people process them in a healthy way.

I think there’s a fascinating thought experiment buried in here: if you were 13 today, what would you be playing? Which modern games and storylines would speak to your tastes as a young adult? What would you even be allowed to play? What games would you have missed out on because they weren't ‘viable’ at the precise time you happened to be developing? How would all of those factors shape your growth as a player and a person?

I’m personally struggling to answer many of these questions. It’s strange, but young adult themes aren't always the most appealing to explore when you’re a kid. On some level, I identify more with young adult characters and themes as an adult than I ever could at that age (perhaps that isn't surprising given how popular young adult books and films are with adults). I hope that if I was 13 today, I’d be adventurous enough in this open gaming landscape to try new things that challenge my sense of self and the world – but I wish I was more confident in that.

There’s so much to admire in this piece from Polygon last week in which fashion editors from Racked critique the ever-changing look of Final Fantasy’s Cid, the character/archetype who appears in nearly every game in the series.

Cid frequently bounces back and forth between high-fashion aristocrat and form-practical mechanic, but going down the list, I appreciate that the criticism isn’t a straight split between culture and function. While the regal usually beats the modest overall, that’s not always the case, and just like in the fashion world, I’m fascinated to see where workaday minimalism wins out and overdesign goes overboard. It’s wonderful how the editors find implicit character details in these outfits that players might not immediately pick up on; the suggestion that anyone who could pull off this many belts and layers must be a fairly capable person is a pretty clever insight.

Above all, though, I love that two separate but, for outsiders, equally inscrutable institutions – fashion and JRPGs – each have valuable things to say to one another. That there are current, real-world analogues for some of the most fantastic of Final Fantasy’s designs, and that they are debated/puzzled over just as fiercely, makes the works of both worlds just a little more interesting.

…and the sheer sense of betrayal the editors feel when they see the design for FFXV’s take on a female Cid is priceless.

One of the happier little trends of the past year has been Ubisoft’s steady stream of smaller games. Titles like Grow Home, Child of Light, and Valiant Hearts: The Great War have stood out as totally unique from their parent company’s other offerings in a refreshing way. Where AAA products are often announced well in advance of progressively louder campaigns, more intimate games like these have almost felt like they simply appeared out of nowhere.

Yesterday’s feature in Kotaku on what it took to get Valiant Hearts produced is a fantastic reminder that of course games like these don’t just materialize from thin air. As AAA culture focuses increasingly on the security of ever larger blockbuster budgets and returns, if anything, it’s the smaller experiences that can be harder, that can take years upon years of shuffling aside to see through to completion.

There’s also a fascinating argument to consider here as we perpetually wrestle with who may or may not call themselves “indie.” Developed in-house at one of the industry’s biggest publishers, Valiant Hearts is not what we would immediately consider an independent work. And yet the struggle to get it made – the scrounging for resources, the persistent politicking against AAA forces for attention in a hit-focused culture – is undeniably identifiable as an indie effort. Perhaps it’s worth remembering that “indie” as a marketing label can be separate from indie as a shared creative cause.

Happy 2015!

If you're anything like us, you spent a good amount of time over the holidays on planes, trains, and automobiles. As such, we have some new and old mobile gaming favorites to share. Read on and tell us your own current mobile obsessions.

Sandboxers respond!

Andy: Assassin's Creed Unity

Rob: Kalimba

Matt: Far Cry 4

John Mak: The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth

Corey: Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker

Shaun: Geometry Wars 3

And for some inexplicable reason, Bill will be revisiting this one:

Lars Doucet gave us a rather nuanced breakdown last week of how his studio’s game, Defender’s Quest, has fared on Steam since the platform rolled out its discovery renovations earlier this year. When we wrote about these changes in September, we noted that what appeared to be the most powerful new feature was the potential control given to users to shape their own purchasing experience. What we couldn’t predict was how effectively those new systems would work in practice, particularly during Steam’s biggest sales events. Now we have at least some insight:

“Unlike [2013’s] Halloween, which was basically just big sales driven by being lucky enough to be at the top of a big list, our [2014] Autumn sale results seem to have been driven by a much healthier mix of organic traffic -- recommendations, search, the specials list, games under $5 and $10, etc. Sure, we didn't top Halloween, but we made about 30% as much, and all without having to rely on a hand-picked promotion to drive the traffic.”

If Doucet’s anecdotal experience is at all representative, this is perhaps the most important detail. Because no matter how well the top performers do, the metric by which we judge discovery on gaming platforms has to focus on how products do without the favor of gatekeepers. And to that extent, the changes appear at the outset to be an improvement. It’s interesting to take Valve’s claim that “the new store roughly doubled the number of items being added to wishlists” alongside Doucet’s findings that nearly half of all units of his game sold were “fulfilled wishlists.” It suggests that a sizeable chunk of people are finding games and deciding to purchase them at a later time.