Marketing | Wiktoria Wójcik | Chat Decides: How Live Streaming Changes How We Play and Market Games

Hello everyone. Uh nice to see you all here. Uh so maybe just two words about myself. Uh I was a streamer before I moved into the marketing world and my companies are helping brands and game developers uh reach gamers in live streams all over the world. We have over 150,000 creators on our platform and I'd say most of my time I am helping non non-endemic gaming companies from you know condoms through sausages to uh veggies and and whatever advertise to gamers. Uh but I will take part of this experience [clears throat] that we have from non-endemic brands also as well into how to advertise and how to even think about live streaming as a uh as a game developer. [snorts] So, uh, here's to how live streaming changed gaming. A

bit of context, and you probably know this context. Uh, there is over 20,000 games released on Steam last year, and there's going to be more this year. And you know, making the game is part of it, but then making sure it's getting found and it's getting uh played by people is the second and probably the most important thing because we all know shitty games that had good marketing and had great results. So, distribution is part of a product now. And for gaming, live streaming is a part of distribution. And I think it's one of the most important parts, not only because I work in it, but because I think gaming uh gaming live streaming is what makes the trend set in game development, how we market games, in how we play games, and it all mixes up together. So, uh let's chat chat about how live streaming have changed how we uh build games and how to use live streaming to, you know, make your game

known. But let's start with uh with the thing like why people watch. We have done a research really like two weeks ago on um nearly 1,400 game viewers games live streaming viewers on Twitch in Poland uh France and uh sorry in yeah Poland, France and in the US to have different markets perspective. uh to be completely honest I will not be focusing on uh Asian markets live streaming game in Asian markets especially China but Southeast Asia as well it's a way different ecosystem so and I don't really know this ecosystem so this is the western world the Europe and the uh Americas of the world when it comes to the knowledge that I have but many of the strategic things will you know be uh be the same So the most important uh question that

we all uh ask ourselves or a lot of brands are asking me. So why would someone else watch somebody else play a game? Like in our case we all know why we are watching games. I assume like how many people of you watch live streams at least once a month. Can you raise your hand? Cool. So you know why we are watching games in a sense that it's not a foreign idea of people just watching other people play. We watch other people run around the field uh with a ball and it's also the same fun. But really understanding how live streaming is different and why people choose to watch gaming I think is the is one of the most interesting things about the whole phenomenon. I think live streaming is the biggest alone together modern form on of entertainment especially in gaming. So on one hand you can play games usually like most of the games that are right now popular are the games you play with other people and even if

they are not played with other people they are highly highly engaging. We all know that we have days where we don't really have the brain power to play a game. It's very active, very engaging. On the other hand, you can watch VODs, YouTube videos about the game, but this is very solitary. Like, of course, you can interact in the comments, but it's not really, you're not really co-creating the experience. The engagement is very low. It's a very very passive uh interaction with gaming. And there's the thing in the middle, watching live streams. There is a thing where you really feel connected to other people. The interaction, the connection between the chat, people in the chat themselves and between the streamer and and the chat is something that really makes you feel like you are spending time with other people. Of course, parasocial interactions form, but it also doesn't demand as much engagement and as much work as playing a game does. And this is why I think uh live

streaming is so influential. It allows people to be engaged, be feel like they are with other people without the burden and the need to play a game. Case in point, like I probably watched more League of Legends that I played because I'm at League of Legends, but I do enjoy watching it. And it made me feel like I'm the part of the game and under and and the community. And this is why uh live streaming is a place where people are really focused. In our research, 47% of uh stream viewers watch a given stream for two hours at a time. We are in a world when in marketing you are fighting for 3 second of attention in a Tik Tok after every 3 seconds of of of another Tik Tok and you are and you have to be in there in like this little moment of attention span of a goldfish. And then you have live streams. Most of live streams and most of the time in a live stream is very boring. You know, waiting for a

game to load, reading the description of the items, waiting for the next game. Like there is a lot of downtime. And this is why it's the the feeling of spending time with another person is there. And this is why it is such a quality area. uh also uh people cannot just you know turn on a stream for 10 minutes and in 10 minutes decide or they can turn on for 10 minutes but for a minute or two you don't really get the full experience. So in case of games when we are all struggling to you know fit in 60 seconds what makes our game unique live streams are actually a place where you know people have time to really enjoy it. Uh so this is a deep selective voluntary attention uh really directed at content that earns it and what's interesting the content itself is important as a background thing. So uh this is a research for uh from four

years ago uh that we did on live stream viewers and live stream viewers are more likely to say they that that they watch gaming live streams because they like a specific streamer, not because they enjoy gaming. And I think it might be contradictory to talk about that in here and trying to convince you, hey, you know, live streaming is good for our game. But I think this is a very important thing because a lot of our games, especially if you're doing multiplayer co-op games, is not really about the gameplay itself. The gameplay itself is a context for social interaction. The same way that people go bowling with friends instead of going kayaking is not because they're going bowling with an idea of, "Oh, I'm going to bowl so hard. Yes, I love bowling." No, they prefer bowling over kayaking for some reasons. But it's just an activity that allows us to spend time with our friends. And a lot of our games, especially the games that, you know, benefit from live streaming the

most, are in the same way, entertaining and fun enough to be the context, but the personality, the community, the things that you can do are actually what makes people play and come back again. And of course uh this is also very good for us because we think that streamers you know are bound to streaming one game but actually if they have a good community that really likes them they will watch them play another game. My my most popular stream when I was a streamer uh I was mainly a League of Legends streamer and let's be honest nobody for sure watched me for my gameplay. Uh but my most popular stream when was when I decided that I have to make dinner and I had to peel potatoes and peel um cucumbers for miseria and I thought to myself, oh I don't want to do it alone. I will turn on a stream and just chat with people. 80 people watched me and no for sure nobody watched me for peeling potatoes and we were talking and these were the same people who watched

me when I was playing the game and I probably could turn on another game a different game and they would be watching still and of course you know entertainment and relaxation is a part of it. This is from the the newest research. Uh of course we play because we watch streams because we play the same game. Uh especially if we are too tired to play set game and we are just watching content, watching somebody play better, watching to get inspired uh to improve. Uh but also we watch to hang out because we are spending time with the same community and you know friends themselves are not a reason to watch a stream. This is a place where you go to find friends but friends don't really influence you that much. what streamer do you watch? To also give you one more slide about like who's in the room when we are talking about live streaming. Uh when we are talking about major live stream platforms, Twitch mainly and I will tell you why Twitch over YouTube even though

YouTube is chasing Twitch with uh live streamer uh content. Uh, Twitch is going to be 16 to 35, 70% male. Uh, median age 24 a 24 years old and probably is not the best place to focus on. Good place to be in, but not to focus on 100% when you're doing a game that's targeted at women. This is not live streaming otherwise, but it's still good to understand it. And uh why uh they are interesting also because they don't watch anything else. So they don't watch TV. Uh they will block your ads in Google. They will block your ads in they will not use Instagram. They will block your ads anywhere else on the internet. And a lot of them are content creators or want to be content creators. And if they are watching live streams, they are also gamers themselves. I will talk about the content creation uh thing uh later because this is a very important part. So gaming is the most important uh

streaming is the most important game discovery channel for stream viewers. So I am not talking about you know all the gamers in the world but when we asked stream viewers where do you find games to buy they said live streaming. So this is a very you know enclosed ecosystem in a sense that when when your audience fits the live streaming profile well you have to find them in live streaming because they will not be in a in another place and of course they declare that they have bought a game after watching it on stream and they also declare that they changed their mind about the game after watching it on stream. So we asked them what question uh one question why if you have seen a game that you didn't like or it seem you know too too hard for you and after watching a stream you changed your mind around 40% of uh respondents said yes. So uh so there are a couple of questions that you as a game developer if this is

your audience should ask yourself. Of course, my game has to be good, but a good game doesn't mean a game that is worth watching and that that it's a game that's worth creating content from. Because the game you are playing when it comes to live stream distribution isn't really about do people like to watch this game. It's about do streamers feel like it's worth for them to stream the game. And of course, the viewership is a part of it. But if a game uh is very hard to stream because it has DMCA music or there is like issues with the game itself that makes them not brand safety for sponsorship deals that it will make it harder for them to stream and even if it's a game worth watching make it uh harder for you to uh get the viewers. One of the two things I want to for you to remember from this talk, one of the two theories that really shape the uh the thing around gaming uh marketing via

live streaming is that Twitch itself is not the most popular medium. You have more hours watched of content on YouTube. But I think uh especially with Twitch now there is kick and YouTube live streaming is a different different kind of game. Uh Twitch is the place that ignites. There is the trends setter. So if you are seeing memes uh about a certain game, memes in community emotes, this all comes from Twitch. If you are seeing clips on YouTube going viral, those clips were first recorded on a stream. So Twitch is the place where everything starts, but it doesn't leave without the distribution of YouTube. So you are not only thinking about those three questions like how I make it worth to stream but also how I make it so that from the stream the streamers can make clips that can go viral and spin the machine. Uh very complicated but I think the idea of

Twitch being the trends setter being the place that ignites a lot of things. We all seen it uh with Among Us that in the end like blew massively because of YouTube but it was on YouTube because streamers started playing it on Twitch and it's a very simple flywheel. Uh if a streamer plays a game uh viewers watch it there's a lot of run content around of it. H viewers buy the game your player count grows. Uh so games become more streamable because it's easier for viewers to watch the game because they know the game and because it's popular. uh then more streamers will play the game because it's the meta and then it snowballs at least for a while. So Arc Raiders was a big hit uh in uh in the end of 2025 like everybody every streamer played Arc Raiders but it made them the 20 24th most watched game on on Twitch but I think everyone would take the success that Arc Raider had. So I

would like uh so apart from you know creating things in game that make it easy to stream I would also think about things that make it easy to clips from and those clips and those moments can happen on a stream and there is something to look forward to as a viewer because I'm saying that you know you are not fighting for 3 seconds on of attention on Tik Tok but on stream you still have to have those moments that make it worth watching those 30 minutes waiting for something very very interesting happen on the stream and uh I think those games uh are have very very interesting examples of uh the gameplay loop making it very sharable. Uh so so gang beast and human fall flood are physicsdriven absurd absurdity so something that you know is very random. Uh then you have little company with content warning, the proximity voice chat, the horror plus co-op uh equals just moments that that

write themselves. And of course those games are made to be streamed and made to be played with friends. But but I think that going for the sharable things uh just means that you don't have to optimize for crazy builds and victories only. What makes it also very fun to watch uh the things that you know are making streamers barely survive or the uh we can call it the close call economy. Uh so it's a some kind of tension and the sharable moments really happen where the victory margin is very low. People don't share the moments that uh are very comfortable wins. People share really the moments that are closed call and those moments make it so high stakes on stream to watch and this is what builds the uh the tension in the end. You know a spectular spectacular failure is as sharable as epic victory and when it comes to a hack to make a

game that is very popular on live streams it's you know probably make it very very hard and very uh rage inducing. Uh so um there are two ways of creating a game that's streamable. Of course you know the more multiplayer the game is the better but also uh make it so that people are always on the verge of feeling that they could do it a bit better than the streamer or they are amazed on what choices the streamer makes. So make it so it's a player's choice or fault. So choice if they win but fault if they if they make the mistake h make it visually dramatic still in the end it has to you know stand out in all the other things and uh make it so that they feel that the growth or recovery is still possible and design those moments in your game that you really you really lead to lead to this in the end uh you you want the

viewers to ask themselves a question like how is it even fun or how is this even possible? with an answer I need to try it and I am focusing on multiplayer games and of course major let's say roleplaying or storydriven games also have their you know high things happening on uh on Twitch but it's always a very short-term hype so they of course get the spike of stream viewership after the premiere but the long tail doesn't stay that long if you want to make a game that you know really goes massive and you probably know it even better than me, you have to opt for multiplayer. And of course, the games that are wellnown stay on top the most. Only Arc Raiders, so it was 20, not 24. Arc Raiders uh was a new IP uh release in the top 20 games and the list could go on. there was

maybe two or three more new games in and not counting, you know, EAFC 30,24 uh just the games that are that were new IPs in in the roster, but you know, it's doable and you don't really need to be in the top 2025 uh games, 2026 games to uh really make an impact and have this impact. Uh, stream hatchet estimates that for every 41 hours watched on stream, there is one copy of a game sold. It was from a small data set of 10 different games. But even if it's 100 hours watched, you can do the math yourself. How many uh how many people and how many stream hours do you need? It's a for one copy of a game, it's going to be one streamer playing it for uh for an hour for 100 viewers. Much or not much, really hard to tell. So, the other thing that is important when

it comes to creating games that are uh good for live streaming is of course the interaction part. You know, streaming is about interaction. We don't watch streams just because of the content. And even if we don't ever read the chat, don't ever write on the chat, still the thing that the streamer is in the contact with the chat makes us part of this interaction. And of course, you can use it uh in your games. There are games that are made uh for uh strictly you know live streaming experience or like this is the part of very important part of the gameplay loop. Uh this was one of the games that I played back in my streaming days. choice chamber where viewers could decide to make it easier or harder uh for me in the game. And probably it's not the best way to go. If you are making a game that only lives on streams, it means that the whole distribution is only to streamers. They are your clients, but then the viewers

will not play themselves. So you want to make it easy to integrate interaction into your game but not really create a game with streams in mind unless you have a different way of monetizing it than just copies bot. So there are a couple of ways to approach it. First of all turning and especially if you're not making a multiplayer game. So turning a single player game into a multiplayer experience. There was the mode mod mode uh to the Vukong game uh that really blew up in China because they introduced multiplayer uh possibilities. Not even talking about GTA 5 that's you know still alive and very well just because of the multiplayer part. The second part is modifications or even opening the IP because if you have a good game that is already, you know, snowballing, uh players would will do it themselves if you just open the possibilities. Uh, one of the ways that Balders's Gate 3 has such a longevity on Twitch, apart from

it being a amazing game, is the fact that they are introducing modifications that allow viewers to decide on choices, to chip in into the game and make it more interactive, more wi with the chat. And of course, the far third way is to foster the collaboration between different streamers. So, what I told you about the interaction is also about the interaction between other streamers. The best way to really blow up as a streamer yourself is not to grind the hardest, not to even be the best gamer, but it's about having the connections and crossing uh crossing your content with other creators that are already successful. So making giving opportunities for those creators or even manufacturing them yourself for them to play with each other and not not just go solo with it and creating ways for community to even grow and do challenges and fun stuff will you know make it very easy for people to stream and make the

game live the long uh longer even for an established game. And if you cannot you know design for those things because it takes time and money just leave an open end to it. You know the players can do it themselves. GTA 5 roleplay self servers uh appeared uh appeared in uh because of you know companies or players doing it themselves. now is one of the most live streamed and la most watched games in certain markets because people are watching, you know, streamers just having fun and and talking with other streamers and role- playinging as policemen's and and thieves. Then there is Hollow Night. Uh I love Hollow Night content. I played maybe 20 hours of Hollow Night because it's hard. I watched around 200 hours of Hollow Night content because the community have made, you know, uh content like a bingo, a room randomizer, a multiplayer mode when

one person runs away and other people are hunting them and so much content because it was an open platform and even if the game is not really watchable because it's a streamlined experience more or less, it's watchable because people can remix it. And of course then it comes to live streams because most of the content I watched on YouTube was recorded on live streams. And here we go. And Elder Ring was interesting. Uh analysts said that Elen Ring copy sold was tapped. And then uh Kaisenat [snorts] did the Elen Ring marathon and it converted into two other million copies sold. Like in the end uh make it easy to uh do interesting things with your game for stream. And of course make it easy to you know to stream. H this is this is uh four things that the basic things that you could you should do in your game. Uh so streamers have a way to stream it. First of all DMCA save audio

option because on Twitch DMCA strikes are uh very common. Uh the VOD uh will can get corrupted and you cannot basically download from Twitch because they mute the audio. So all the clips gone like imagine the streamer doing the most insane thing on Twitch and then cannot make a clip out of it because it's you know the audio is gone. Uh username hide anti- snipe mode especially in multiplayer games like make it easy for streamers to uh not get swamped by their viewers especially it counts for uh the most popular streamers. Then content toggle, nudity off, gore toggle. Uh if you have swear words, it depends on the game and the topic. But if you are making a game that could be appealing to younger audiences, then turning the swear all uh words off, especially for the most brand safety streamers might be a good thing because you know brand safety uh brands are

crazy about the things and and and also if you can make your game as low peggy as possible and still like have good content in it, then it's also good because from our point of view advertisers ers uh in some countries say we want to target people 18 plus but we h can only go uh Peggy all games and Peggy 16 is like they streamers cannot stream the game during the campaign. So it's an interesting thing and they will not stream the game because they have to earn money from the sponsorships and of course uh UI so make it easy to you know put your camera in places uh make it more readable for viewers. You don't have to go as far as ma make Twitch extensions for uh community to be able to read details of the game but you know making it easier is always uh fun and if you can add you know open opportunities to do weird things. This is a guy that uh recently

uh reached a master in Apex Legends by playing uh the game by controlling it by riding on a unicycle. So you want this content to happen to your game as well. Uh so I think there is uh two ways to approach thinking about live streamers going even further on strategic side. You can treat them as influencers as somebody who has a reach and you can you know buy this reach from them by the visibility and this is fine. I think 90% of the time this is a way to go because this is the transaction that that you have. But the other thing that I really uh encourage you to do is to think about those streamers and content creators as stakeholders. So engage them before even you have the marketing budget and it will require a lot of leg work. Influencers like the reasons like platforms like extremely exist is because it's very hard to work with influencers. They don't respond to your

emails etc. You have to do a lot of leg work to make things happen. This will cost you your time. But if I was making a game right now, I would fight the hardest I can to find a streamer that is extremely hyped about the game that I want to make and I would get them even in as an angel investor even on low money. Just make them feel that they should that they are participating and they want to be a part of the game success. So invite them to the beta play tests. Invite them to uh say what works for them, what doesn't. uh Arc Raiders wasn't an success just be just because it was a great game because they worked with the community and also with people who were uh popular in the extraction space to make it a good experience. Uh so uh make them feel like it's their game. Uh, one thing that for example Cyberpunk did and I think it's repeatable for smaller games as well is uh they they invited streamers, content

creators to voice over some uh some characters in the game. And I watched a lot of clips of streamers trying to find their character and and showing this to their viewers. It's a cheap thing to do. They will record voiceover lines and you have them in game. And of course, you know, the game has to be interesting for them to participate, but you don't have to have the biggest of the biggest at the start. And why I'm saying it's uh very interesting to be visible on live streams and work with streamers because one streamer leads to more streamers. From our research, uh 35% of stream viewers want to be uh creators. Uh and they would like to they tried they occasionally stream uh they have an influence. Even if they stream to five people, you will have five people fully focused and fully engaged with this person. So uh being visible uh doesn't

only mean that you are you know just reaching the viewers as players but those viewers can be your other distribution channel and then you you know spread out like a roots of a of a uh of a tree. Uh so I can skip this one. Uh so there's also things you can uh do when it comes to working with stream influencers and I'm sure this part will be very short. Uh this is because I would need another five hours to talk about ways you can engage with streamers uh as stakeholders, as influencers for your game. Uh you can do Twitch drops. Not many companies uh can afford to do a Twitch drop. But you probably can use like we have technology alternative to Twitch drop that works the same way but outside of you know uh Twitch in a sense that we are tracking things on Twitch but you have a separate landing page for it. There are ways to do stuff. Uh there are ways to even you know outreach the

influencers and get them on port board as your stakeholder as an angel investor. This is not here. But the uh three I think four uh really uh basic things that you can do are uh are things like this. So first of all and things that don't scale from what doesn't scale to something that scales uh the most. So first of all are direct relationships uh the biggest fraction uh friction for you uh the biggest time sunk cost the biggest uh risk and reward part of thing. So I would, if I were you, I would never outsource my direct creator uh relationships, especially at the beginning. I would make sure that I spend time as the CEO of a of a game development company to get those creators as beta play testers, as people who are advising you how to make a good

game because they don't only know themselves as gamers, but they know their community and they know what works for content. 10 minutes left. Cool. Uh so so this is something that you have to do and if you're working if you have the biggest money in the world and you want to work with the top stars still you have to have the direct relationship to them because the top stars they get a lot of offers and uh you cannot automate working with them. So there's like this those two layers. Uh then you can do let's play campaigns either through direct creator relationships or for example we uh do it as an automated thing that we have for example 60 streamers playing a game and you're playing for a certain number of hours watched. So it's more performance-based uh than just u you know play paying a flat fee for a streamer to play. Uh then you can of course do key seating and briefing the influencers on you know how

they can play the game. what's interesting in the game and just hoping for the best sending out keys. There are a lot of tools to do it. Uh we also do it with influencers. Uh but it you need to generate some traction for the game first, some some spark that makes streamers feel that this might be good to stream and watch. And of course there is like the visual reach campaign, the awareness uh b buying any kind of awareness in you know uh both in game festivals, showcases etc. but also on streams uh directly. I wanted to show you one case study that even the the bottom thing uh works. So this is a campaign that we did for hotel galactic uh and they work with us only in France and at the same time they were doing uh advertising on Reddit and on YouTube in other countries and France wasn't even in top 15 countries before the campaign started. and we've run a campaign with this uh very fun artwork. It's within

the uh within the stream targeted at certain uh matching uh uh game categories. And we made it so that France was the top one country on on Steam wish list and Steam visits uh during the campaign with 479 streamers participating. And what is interesting that if you go this way uh for example we can do a campaign if you're doing let's say an FPS game we can make it so that it will be visible only when streamers are playing FPS games. So this is fun because you can be there where your competitors are and it means that streamer doesn't even have to change the game that they are playing for you to still uh benefit from being inside the category. Uh so this is a media solution. they just paid for the views that we delivered but the views done well deliver uh just good results. Another example of uh fun things that you can do and of course you can do it

manually as well. So work with streamers directly uh for them to just stream a game. Uh what is interesting and uh and we are not the only one that do it in the world is that we instead of saying that you are paying X amount of money for a to two hours stream and guess how much it will yield you instead we are saying you are buying an X amount for a certain number of hours watched and we make sure that the streamers deliver the viewership and the stream time in as many streams as possible if needed or small number of streams more condensed. So in a big scale you can think that you can just basically scale and pay your way to Twitch visibility on a on a certain day taking it over. So uh one more thing uh a couple of uh things that I think you could do if you want to go the extra mile to make it easier to stream your game.

I think the most important thing is to make it easier for the streamer to create content from set game and to making it interesting for their viewers. And you can go as far or as as low effort as possible. But if I were to I have a low budget, I this streamer is playing my game. I want to maximize it to the max. First of all, like give them any assets they need. Give them an overlay, give them logos, give them uh visuals, like create those visuals and distribute it to them to make it even more fun. Widgets, make it so they can have a custom animations on their stream because they got it from you and they can make the stream look like very polished for a cheap uh cheap amount of money and effort, especially effort. uh if they are to you know explain it to their uh their viewers, make a short

landing page with uh with the mechanism they that they would be explaining before they play the game so the viewers can understand it. Like make it easy for them to lure the viewers in to understand the game. And uh when you are pitching those influencers, for example, doing key seeding, like mailing keys to them, create a video that's not only about here's the game trailer, make it tailored for the streamers. Say this is the moments that will like why this game is so fun to stream and why is the g this game so fun to watch. What are the hooking points? what uh types of uh maybe if you have different modes in the game, what types of modes do you recommend to those streamers to try? How they can invite viewers to play? And maybe even make uh make a reward like say to them that uh they can invite that you are giving away five copies and they could, you know, make a small giveaway on stream and the viewers could join

them in the game. give another reward like make a com if it's a free-to-play game uh go with the streamer and said hey you can make a giveaway and uh there there's there's a reward where waiting for reviewers here's the reward and make it as easy for the streamer to do it without mailing back and forth because you're losing them at the mail and of course like write them a brief that is not about you and about your game but about them and their audience this is the mostant important thing uh think about the client not about your product and one thing that would be taking it to extreme but I think it's a very interesting thing so you might have seen the news of uh some of the streamers uh admitting to hiring thousands of people to make clips from their streams and basically publish them on on YouTube to just you know make their popularity skyrocket. Uh, this is the meta right

now. As many clips as possible, as entertaining as possible, like your whole Twitch thing is to make content for Tik Tok and YouTube. And still like the the biggest engagement layer and the most fun you have on Twitch, but to earn money, you have to be visible. So, making it easier for a content creator, especially if you're working with a mid-size content creators that might probably not have a full team behind them creating content, going on the stream that they streamed your game from and creating those clips. Still, it's an investment of just your time, somebody from your team, and saying to them, "Hey, we made fun clips. we will post them on our site but you can also post them for yourself in your social media and you are part of the loop and making it very easy to promote your game. So this is a thing I would do. I don't see anyone doing it that much. Uh so if I were uh uh building a game today, I would first

of all have a creator at the table from day one. I would go as far as having a creator as a co-founder of the game. And if not I will go uh then to have the uh the influencers the streamers as part of my cap table. If not cap table not investment have them be call them a formal uh you know uh advisory board and make them feel like they are part of the experience and then make it even build in public. have them stream and talk about how they are contributing to making your game better and engage with them, be them, and then when their community catches on, when you have a beta, when you have a a demo, when you have an early access, then go up and scale and make it so it's very easy for content creators to work with you to create content. and of course like creating the game in a way that it's streamable and then uh amplifying the reach as possible. I think even in a

very short term when it comes to live streaming it's all about catching on a trend. So in non-endemic brands we go more into let it mellow make it like very uh with no spikes but make the awareness grow steadily. In case of games, I think a shortterm but a bigger campaign puts you on the radar and you want to be on the radar because then you start the bigger loop. So, a game can be an excellent multiplayer experience, but can be invisible on live streams. And a game can be mechanically thin, like a bad game, but still become a cultural moment because of how it looks when someone else plays it, how exciting it is to to stream it and create content from it. So watchability and you know treating live streaming as a channel doesn't start with just uh with just uh you know

treating it as a marketing channel. It starts earlier with making sure that we are creating a game that's worth watching and worth creating content from. So uh thank you very much and I'll be happy to answer your questions.
[applause]
Thank you so much for your presentation. It was really interesting to see how uh the live streaming audience can influence their process of creating and marketing your games. But before we conclude this presentation, I would like to propose two segments. We've already covered chat decides. How about chat rates? You can rate this uh lecture by scanning the QR code. Let us know what you thought. And also chat asks, we have a short Q&A section. If you need it, uh if you want to, you can come up to the microphone and ask away.

You don't have to be shy. We don't bite. Uh if there's anything on your mind, you can come up.
This is the the worst thing for a streamer when you are talking talking and you see that nobody's interacting. Go ahead. Uh hello. So my question would be about Overwatch and their strategy. The the first Overwatch uh to my recollection uh the strategy was we will release the game exclusively to streamers and be them somewhat of like a uh
elite
pre-alpha like a pre-release exclusive. And uh the community that well game was successful. It sold great. Uh but there was also voices that were um somewhat of well why we don't have access why people don't have access and how would you rate that approach uh could it done could it be done better or was it good approach or bad approach
I think it was a blizzard approach

[snorts] and uh I didn't follow this that that much also because I wasn't uh I started streaming in 2016 so Overwatch was already in but from what you describe I think that stream viewers like they are kings in live streaming but still stream viewers streamers try very hard to seem like they are normal people common people and unless you have big money to pay those streamers because rage is also a way to do marketing because they talk about the game but I don't think uh Blizzard has the leverage to do it but any other studio I think making it so that it's more communitydriven that viewers can also go, oh, I played this champion and I recommend this build, etc. I think it it forces more of the things that make live streaming more interesting. So, this interaction, this uh this replayability, and I wouldn't really recommend it right now. Maybe depending on the game, but

I think Blizzard was the only one that could do it.
Okay, thank you. That answers my question.
Okay, thank you. Okay, if there are no more questions, I think we can conclude. Oh, yeah. Okay, go ahead.
Yes, I have a question. How to start when we have, for example, small budget or we don't have um publisher or funer and we want to start working with streamers. Is this possible with low budget?
Yeah. So, the thing that you have is your time and your like work. Uh so I would first start by trying to find the streamers like making very good assets that the slide that I had with the uh things that you can do to make it easier to stream and just finding uh and making it so that you're looking for streamers that will advise you on how to make your game more streamable and even tell that you you can you know buy them a ticket to Digital Dragons or whatever like uh

do things that don't scale. startup advice and uh opt for a relationship instead of reach. So reach costs money but relationship costs just your work and I would start with this and then for example when we are doing uh key seeding to streamers it's quite low budget in a sense that we are just sending a a mailing out and they can you know either go to you and say I want the key or they will not. uh but when you are just starting I think the biggest asset that you can build is the relationship and then maybe even pitching to those influencers as uh as either advisors or angel investors just because when you go to publishers or you're trying to raise funding the biggest issue that the biggest question that the investor will have is not only can you make a good game but can you make a game that sells and if you say that you were thinking about distribution from day one working with

creators because you know that creators are the thing that distributes it also puts you in a better position this way and then you can get the money to really you know pay out.
Okay, that's very good advice. Thank you.
Yeah.
Okay, thank you everyone for participating in today's presentation. Uh once again give it up for Victoria Vik.
Thank you very much.