Studio Leaders: Turning Game Visibility Into Commercial Value

Tom, you’ve built First Look Games and TAG Media – what was missing from the market and what is Studio Leaders?

Studio Leaders is a fully managed affiliate growth service for game studios. It’s a partnership between First Look Games, TAG Media and GameOn, bringing together the different capabilities of those three businesses. The simplest way to describe it is that First Look Games shows studios where their games are winning or losing across the affiliate ecosystem. Studio Leaders is the team that acts on that information.

We handle publisher targeting, affiliate and streamer outreach, media placements, content distribution, compliance and reporting. Essentially, everything a studio would want from an affiliate marketing campaign around a game launch. We’ve found that studios increasingly understand the importance of the affiliate channel, but their marketing teams are generally focused on busy release schedules, exhibitions and other commercial priorities. They simply don’t have the people or resources to act on all the opportunities available. The idea is that the studio sets the priorities and Studio Leaders manages the follow-through.

Why launch now? Has something fundamentally changed in the environment facing game developers?

The biggest factor is the volume of games entering the market. There’s an enormous amount of noise around new releases, which means launch windows are becoming shorter and the opportunity for a game to establish itself is increasingly limited. Operator lobbies are more crowded than ever. At the same time, the affiliate channel has become more diversified, but it remains enormously important to operators and, consequently, to studios.

Over the past seven years, we’ve developed First Look Games to address the visibility problem. We currently track more than 55,000 games across over 3,000 affiliate websites in 79 markets. Studios can see where their games are being covered, how they’re presented and where competitors are gaining ground. We’ve effectively reached a point where identifying opportunities is no longer the principal problem. The bottleneck has shifted to taking action.

Our studio partners have been telling us that they simply don’t have the bandwidth to capitalise on the information we’re providing. Studio Leaders is our response to that.

How does First Look Games’ data give Studio Leaders an advantage, and what do TAG Media and GameOn contribute?

First Look Games has tracked more than 600,000 affiliate game reviews over the past seven years. That gives us considerable insight into which publishers cover particular games, how those titles are presented and the accuracy and sentiment of the coverage. We’ve also introduced an analytics product that allows studios to benchmark themselves and individual games against competitors, market by market.

It’s this information that’s fundamental to our approach. Before we contact an affiliate or spend any marketing budget, we can identify the publishers most likely to deliver an impact for a particular game in a particular market. Each business then has a specific role. First Look Games identifies opportunities and provides the data, benchmarking and reporting. TAG Media brings 17 years of experience working with operators and affiliates, alongside established relationships across the affiliate sector. GameOn contributes its experience in games PR, marketing strategy, content and creative campaign delivery.

A studio could engage separate marketing and PR agencies and purchase third-party analytics, but bringing all those capabilities together within a coordinated service is much harder to replicate.

Affiliates have traditionally concentrated on promoting casino brands rather than individual games. Is that changing, and which types of publisher offer the greatest opportunities for studios?

Traditionally, the operator owns the commercial relationship with the affiliate, while the studio supplies content to the operator. That’s still the fundamental structure of the industry. However, operators aren’t always equipped or incentivised to provide affiliates with the detailed information they need about individual games. In many cases, the affiliate management team might not even know that a particular title has launched. It’s one of the reasons why we created First Look Games.

In terms of the opportunities, I’d divide affiliates into three broad groups. Streamers are probably the most familiar channel for studios. They can be extremely effective, but those relationships take time to develop and shouldn’t simply be switched on and off around individual releases. There’s a particularly interesting opportunity with smaller, localised streamers whose audiences may be much more relevant to a particular game than those of the largest international personalities.

The second group is review and comparison websites. I see these as the foundation of a sustainable affiliate strategy. An accurate review that performs well in search engines can continue introducing players to a game for months or even years.

The third group is local-language specialists, including influencers, micro-influencer networks and regional review sites. They may have smaller audiences, but those audiences can be much more targeted. The objective is to identify the publishers that will influence the right players rather than simply paying for the largest possible reach.

Do you think studios have relied too heavily on operators to market their games? Should they now be taking greater responsibility themselves?

I think there’s a legacy issue in the commercial relationship between studios and operators. I’m told by many studios that their agreements effectively include a contribution towards marketing undertaken by the operator. Those arrangements developed when the market looked very different.

Twenty years ago, an operator might have worked with one principal games provider. Today, larger operators can launch hundreds of games every month. It’s simply unrealistic to expect their affiliate teams to understand every title and communicate all the relevant information to their partners.

We’re hearing from studios that operators are encouraging them to take a more active role in promoting their own games. There are already market leaders that have developed sophisticated streamer partnerships, but there’s a much broader opportunity for studios to approach the affiliate channel more intelligently. Very few studios employ dedicated affiliate managers. Even those that do can benefit from the data and relationships available through First Look Games.

For me, this isn’t exclusively about smaller developers. Any studio that wants greater control over its marketing and less dependence on the operator to generate visibility can benefit.

You’ve talked about the shrinking window of opportunity for new games. Can Studio Leaders also help a title six months after launch, when it might otherwise disappear from the operator lobby?

Absolutely. The percentage of games that remain prominent in operator lobbies for an extended period is getting smaller. Historically, certain games and mechanics could establish themselves and enjoy sustained visibility for years. However, with the number of releases today, the opportunity to build that level of traction is becoming shorter – which is why it’s important to understand the conversations taking place around games across affiliate websites, social media, streams and review comments.

If we can measure and benchmark that activity, studios have better information to take into conversations with operators. They might be able to demonstrate that a game is continuing to attract interest and deserves additional visibility, even if that’s only an extra day or two of prominent positioning. Equally, an accurate review on a well-ranked affiliate website can continue attracting players long after the original launch campaign has finished.

I think that’s been an important part of the success of some legacy games that have remained visible in operator lobbies for years. Studio Leaders isn’t simply about generating attention during launch week. It’s about building relationships and activity that can continue supporting a game throughout its commercial life.

What does a studio actually receive when it signs up, and how do you decide where its marketing budget should be spent?

We work through four stages. First, we agree the brief with the studio. Which games are being launched, which markets are priorities, what audiences are they targeting and what would success look like? We then map the opportunities using First Look Games data. We examine existing coverage, previous releases and competitor titles to identify the publishers most likely to support those objectives.

The third stage is activation. TAG Media handles the affiliate outreach and commercial relationships, while GameOn develops the campaign strategy and content required to support those partnerships. Finally, we report on the results, review the performance and refine the approach for subsequent campaigns.

Localisation is particularly important. A global streamer might have an enormous audience, but you’re paying a global price when only a proportion of those viewers may be relevant. We generally ask studios to identify two or three priority markets and explain their operator distribution within those territories. That allows us to understand the available audience, identify appropriate local publishers and ensure campaigns comply with the advertising requirements of each market. The aim is to make the studio’s budget work harder by concentrating on the audiences and partnerships most likely to deliver results.

How far can you go in measuring those results? Can you demonstrate a financial return rather than simply reporting exposure and affiliate coverage?

We aren’t yet tracking campaigns directly through to game revenue. That’s something we’re working towards, and it’s important to be clear about that distinction. What we can measure is a comprehensive range of marketing KPIs, which includes audience reach, clicks, the accuracy and sentiment of reviews, share of voice across affiliate websites and the visibility of individual games relative to competitors.

We can also benchmark performance by market and assess whether campaigns are generating additional coverage beyond the placements we’ve purchased. For many studios, even that level of information represents a significant improvement on what they’ve historically been able to measure. The next stage involves working more closely with operators.

If we’re running a campaign, we want to engage the operator’s affiliate team to ensure the customer journey is properly managed, whether that’s through a dedicated landing page or another appropriate destination. We then want to work with operators and studios to understand whether that activity is producing an uplift in game performance and revenue. That’s ultimately where we need to get to. We believe the combined capabilities of the three businesses will help demonstrate that commercial impact, but the current reporting proposition is primarily focused on measurable marketing performance.

Where do operators fit into this approach? Could direct relationships between studios and affiliates undermine the operator’s existing affiliate partnerships?

To my mind, it’s a clear benefit to operators. Every player reached through a Studio Leaders campaign is ultimately being directed towards a licensed operator carrying the game. The operator receives additional promotion for its content, potentially gains exposure through new affiliate relationships and benefits from marketing activity funded by the studio.

We believe the best results will come when operators are involved early, which means coordinating launch schedules, ensuring affiliate teams understand upcoming campaigns and aligning external marketing with activity taking place inside the casino lobby. If an operator is running a free spins promotion or tournament around a particular game, the affiliate campaign can support that activity.

Different operators will have different requirements. Some want complete control over the customer journey once a player leaves an affiliate website. Others may be happy for us to develop dedicated landing pages incorporating their branding and the relevant tracking links. We can accommodate those differences. The important thing is getting the studio, affiliate and operator working together rather than treating them as separate parts of the marketing process.

AI is changing how games are developed and marketed. Where does it fit into Studio Leaders?

AI is certainly contributing to the growing volume of content entering the market, and that’s only going to make the challenge of securing visibility more difficult. For Studio Leaders, the immediate opportunity is to use the intelligence we’ve already developed through First Look Games to make more precise marketing decisions.

We have substantial information about publishers, games, reviews, competitor activity and individual markets. That gives us a strong foundation for identifying opportunities and measuring results. The important thing is that the decisions are driven by evidence rather than simply assuming that a particular affiliate or streamer will deliver the best outcome. Ultimately, our proposition is about combining that intelligence with the experience and relationships of the people across the three businesses.

Looking ahead, what would success for Studio Leaders look like over the next 12 months?

Our overriding ambition is to demonstrate what happens when a studio, affiliate and operator come together, plan together and succeed together. In the first year, we want to establish a strong group of studio partners who believe in that approach and are prepared to build more meaningful relationships with affiliates.

We want to show that studios can grow those partnerships internationally while adopting a much more intelligent, budget-conscious and localised marketing strategy. It’s also about understanding what those relationships actually deliver beyond a few LinkedIn posts and some launch publicity. We’re not looking to grow at the expense of service quality. This is a managed service, so we need to ensure we have the resources and processes in place to deliver consistently as we expand. Studios can get involved through First Look Games or request a Studio Leaders demonstration directly.

For me, success means establishing a different way of working, where studios take greater ownership of their marketing, affiliates become more closely connected to the games they’re promoting and operators benefit from better-targeted player acquisition. That’s the opportunity we want to demonstrate.