Event Recap: E3 2019
Key takeaways from the biggest gaming expo and what it means for brands
The Electronic Entertainment Expo, E3 for short, is a three-day industry event that brings together game publishers, industry executives, gamers and influencers. Each year, the top game publishers such as Microsoft, Sony, and Ubisoft gather in LA to show off the latest games, hardware, services, and gaming-related announcements. This year’s E3 saw gaming’s continued expansion into mainstream culture with top Hollywood talents announcing and starring in yet to be released games, as well as a continuing shift that will shape how games will be distributed and played in the future.
Gaming Culture Continues its Ascent
In the past, starring in a video game was considered “below” top Hollywood talents. However, the stigma around “real actors” taking voice acting roles for games or lending their faces to video game characters is quickly disappearing, as top games like Fortnite continue to drive mainstream culture. At Microsoft’s E3 keynote, they brought out one of the hottest names in pop culture right now, Keanu Reeves, to announce their upcoming release, CyberPunk 2077. In the game, Keanu Reeves has his likeness and voice transformed into Johnny Silverhand, who is the companion to the main character in the game.
Keanu Reeves isn’t the only Hollywood talent that is breaking into the world of gaming. Leading up to E3, Dead Stranding, the highly anticipated action adventure game from SONY, announced a November 2019 release date. In it, Norman Reedus, best known for his leading role in The Walking Dead, stars as the main character. The game also has Ex-Bond villain Mads Mikkelsen and Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro on its cast list.
Similarly, George R. R. Martin, famed writer of the Game of Thrones series, which is one of the biggest cultural phenomena in the past decade, announced a collaboration with gaming studio FromSoftware to help develop a new fantasy roleplaying game titled Elder Ring. While some GoT fans might see this side project as yet another distraction for Martin, the project nevertheless validates gaming as an area where attention and cultural are shifting.
Interestingly, Netflix is also getting in on the action, making their first ever appearance at E3 to announce Stranger Things: The Game, a role playing game coming this summer with the release of Season 3 of the popular show. Netflix is no stranger to creating interactive experiences and their presence at E3 serves as yet another example of how Netflix is approaching the concept of interactivity on their platform.
Not to be outdone, traditional game publishers are looking to enter the scripted entertainment space. One of Ubisoft’s big announcements at E3 was their foray into scripted show production with a partnership with It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia creators Charlie Day and Rob Mcelhenney. They will be working with Ubisoft to create a TV comedy about video game development for Apple’s upcoming TV+ service.
E3 was a big showcase for the top Hollywood talent and content creators, illustrating that gaming has become a widely recognized part of today’s mainstream pop culture. Smart brands and marketers should be thinking about this ascending cultural relevance of gaming and how their brand plays in it.
Game Streaming & Subscription Services
The subscription model continues to permeate across industries, from music to movies to car rentals. At this year’s E3, it became clear that the subscription fever has reached gaming as well. Ubisoft announced their new game subscription service UPlay+, which will be priced at $14.99 per month and grant subscribers access to 100+ Ubisoft titles on PC. Another major game publisher Square Enix announced their plan to create a game streaming service for their entire catalogue, including porting over old NES games for modern hardware. Additionally, Microsoft unveiled their game subscription service called Xbox Game Pass, which is now available for PC.
The challenge game publishers will face with their subscription services, as all subscription services do, is content. Now, hardcore gamers will always look to performance first and thus preferring console or PC gaming over streaming. But the larger casual gaming population will increasingly look to buy into an ecosystem with the most relevant gaming titles. A publisher’s catalogue of content is becoming increasingly important as consumers start to enjoy a more democratized access to video games thanks to these upcoming subscriptions services, which will allow subscribers to play more games at a lower cost. This explains why Microsoft has been on a streak buying indie game studios to make games for their Xbox Games Pass subscription service.
Taking it a step further, game streaming services like Google Stadia and Microsoft’s xCloud will further democratize access to games by greatly reducing the upfront hardware cost needed to play games. User will be able to play games on any device because the rendering of the game will be done in the cloud instead of locally on a game console or a PC.
This increased access to video games will no doubt continue to grow the overall gaming audience. For brands, this means there will be more individuals engaged in playing games and partaking in the gaming ecosystem. Resultantly, the influence gaming has on mainstream culture will only grow more prominent. As gaming continues to enter mainstream relevancy and capture the attention of the coveted 18–34 demographic, it is time for all brands to come up with a media strategy for gaming and esports and evaluate how they can provide value to this growing audience in order to capture this major shift in consumer attention.
