the year and has a couple of known games industry names attached on the creative side. We also hope that we will be able to reveal soon the first licensed projects that are currently in development.
You have recently launched your bespoke game key distribution service, GameTomb. What can you tell us about this new service, and what lessons have you learned so far during the Early Access period? Carly: GameTomb was born partly out of a necessity to streamline the more routine aspect of games PR – handling media and content requests and then distributing review codes. Also, some of our clients were using multiple pre- existing distribution services to varying degrees of success. So, we wanted to create a game key request service that was as simple as possible for media and content creators, which also could reassure clients (and ourselves) that the outlets receiving codes were legitimate.
Stu: Currently this is something that our clients receive as part of the PR service package, but we have had many requests to just provide access to this service from publishers and developers who may not want a full-scale press office. Lesson-wise, we weren’t prepared for the volume of sign-ups that we had when we launched into Early Access, which did cause a minor Twitch sync issue. Aside from that, it’s already proven to be a popular tool for media and content creators who anecdotally say that they signed up for one game, and ended up discovering a few more that caught their interest.
In a previous interview with us you said that Dead Good PR wouldn’t involve itself with NFT projects. How difficult is it for companies to refuse these offers when there’s often real money on the table, and why is it important to distance yourself from the practice? Stu: Yeah, I did think you’d ask me about that again. I absolutely stand by what I said during the game PR round table and, being totally honest, I was perhaps a bit surprised that I might have come across as an outlier. It’s just that the games media that we talk to still have zero interest in covering what some consider to be an ethically grey area. You only need to look at the comments or replies on social media when another video game NFT story drops. And honestly, it’s never been about holding our nose and cashing the cheque. I’m personally not comfortable dumping on our reputation and making the team miserable for the promise of a quick buck.
Carly: We don’t rest on our laurels and always want to evolve what we offer our clients, so hopefully that’s evident in how we foresaw the increasing demand for influencer content, and more recently, the GameTomb distribution service.
50 | MCV/DEVELOP May 2022
However, within Dead Good, NFTs is not an area that the team have much stock in when it comes to something that is PR’able. We have built a reputation for ourselves for being “no nonsense” so currently, taking on a video game NFT project would be going against our company values.
Do you believe the big NFT push into games will continue, or have they been sufficiently scared off yet? Stu: I think the conversation about NFTs and their place within the video game industry has really only just started. Sorry, everyone. Despite rollbacks from publishers on their NFT initiatives, it isn’t something that I think is being taken off the agenda at board room level. It feels like it’s being pitched as the new video game gold rush, like how micro transactions were universally reviled by the media but have nonetheless taken a hold. Maybe NFTs can be integrated into gaming in such a way that consumers actually demand it, but the inability of NFT advocates to clearly communicate the value to gamers does speak volumes at this current time.
NFTs might not be the future of the games industry, but what changes do you expect to see over the next 10 years, both in the industry and at Dead Good? Carly: Whilst we will see the return of physical shows, the last couple of years has shown that digital events, done right, can work. We don’t see that changing any time soon and looking at the calendar for the rest of the year, nor do publishers. The pandemic has also made the landscape less clear on how traditional press tours and trips will function, with some media we talk to are still not quite ready to hop on a plane for an international flight to a dev studio. Finding the balance between digital and an in-person approach is something that could ripple on for the next decade.
Stu: Traditional games PR is constantly evolving. Over a decade ago, we saw print media diminish to just a handful of titles following the rise of the gaming websites. Now we are seeing websites lean into more video content and livestreaming in reaction to the core audience moving over to Twitch and YouTube. And then there’s the question of how social media channels fall into the games PR net – we’ve recently handled a campaign that saw a client allocate almost an equal amount of value on content for Instagram and TikTok, alongside Twitch streams and YouTube video features. As for Dead Good, we are looking at opening a physical
office again in Montréal. Our last attempt happened a couple of weeks before the pandemic broke out, but with the team’s continued expansion, it’s something that is being discussed. We had a work from home policy before it became fashionable, but do try and get everyone in a room at least a couple of times a year… and not just to eat poutine or throw axes together.
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