Marketing AAA Games: Why Positioning Beats Advertising

0:00Pierre Miazga:I'm the marketing director of Ubisoft Bordeaux.

0:02Andres Figueira:So that is a video game studio of 400 people. I like to call me not a seller, but an enabler. If it doesn't go in the direction that players would like or that they were imagining, sometimes it might not meet their expectations. So I feel it's a high pressure environment. It's a balance.

0:17Pierre Miazga:Selling a video game is not just about building storytelling around the marketing campaign to the consumer. It's about selling a storyline. It's about selling already a project that has a story, emotional depth.

0:28Andres Figueira:How are you guys able to cut through all the static of so many games being available to players? Do you have any actual way that you know that makes players choose you guys over other games each time?

0:40Pierre Miazga:I would say it's even more complex than that because we are not only competing against other games. We are competing for players' time. But I would go back to my initial statement. You want to give players what they want, what they are looking for, but you also want to surprise them.

0:59Andres Figueira:Hey, everybody. Thank you for tuning in. My name is Andres Figueira, and I'm going to be your host for the day. This show is brought to you by the Global Talent Company, helping fast-growing teams hire exceptional remote talent from Argentina, South Africa, and beyond. We connect companies with world-class professionals who bring skill, reliability, and a global perspective to every role. And just for our listeners, we're offering an exclusive 10 % discount on your first hire. All you need to do is visit GlobalTalent.co, click Start Hiring, and mention the podcast listener discount when we reach out.

1:31Andres Figueira:And today, with me here is Pierre Miasga, Studio Marketing and Communications Director at Ubisoft Bordeaux, a studio that was inaugurated by Ubisoft veterans that is and has worked on some of Ubisoft's biggest AAA games, such as Assassin's Creed Mirage, which was initiated and directed by the Bordeaux Studios creative and production team, as well as co-developing on Beyond Good and Evil 2. And with that said, Pierre, welcome to the show. It's a pleasure to have you here, man. Thanks for having me, Andres. Very nice to meet you. No problem at all, man. We're super excited to be able to talk to a studio that has worked with games that are as notable as Assassin's Creed.

2:13Andres Figueira:Because I'm going to be really honest, I have played Assassin's Creed a lot and I love it. This hits home as well. But Pierre, just in order to get the audience a bit more in context here, would you be able to provide us a bit more about your background, your experience, and how you ended up at Ubisoft Bordeaux?

2:31Pierre Miazga:So yeah, as you said, I'm the marketing director of Ubisoft Bordeaux. So that is a video game studio of 400 people that is recently known for Assassin's Creed Mirage. And my job is essentially, I'm talking to creative people and engineers and tech people. I'm very much inside the development team. And my job is to assist them. I like to call me not a seller, but an enabler. As soon as the concept phase of the game is kicked off, I know that the idea of marketing being involved early in development, it can feel like it risks turning games into products designed by spreadsheet. But that's not my job.

3:11Pierre Miazga:What I like to say is that bad marketing in development tells the team what to build. But good marketing helps the team understand for whom they are building. And that is the key thing that I try to do is clarify the audience expectation, protect the tone, consistency and help the team survive complexity. Because, you know, creating a video game is incredibly project. You start, you have just a few people talking behind themselves and great ideas are fragile. So you want to be helpful. You want to be listening to the creative people and help them feed them with players' expectations in order for the great ideas to survive the complexity of a video game development that can last for four years, four years of uncertainty, four years of discussion.

4:03Andres Figueira:I can only imagine. And furthermore, with legacy games such as Assassin's Creed, I believe it also it's intense because Assassin's Creed has gone all around. I believe I've played from pirates to being in what's it called, like in Baghdad, in Mirage as well. And like it goes all over the world. So I imagine there must be a certain consistency in the tone and the branding of the game that sometimes creative people need to take into account. because if not, I feel Assassin's Creed will go to space or something like that.

4:38Pierre Miazga:Exactly. And actually, it's funny that you mentioned that because Assassin's Creed Mirage was designed as the game for the 15th anniversary of the Assassin's Creed brand. So the brand was 15 years old when we released the game. And the objective of the project was really to be positioned as a legacy title. The game for the fans, the game that was going back to the roots on the initial pillars of the project. So it was also a brand project going back to what was initially Assassin's Creed before all these games, all these time periods. So the marketing tactics were very specific to that objective, talking to fans and really designing the game for them by listening to them.

5:27Pierre Miazga:So it was kind of a game made from fans to fans because very much like you, I play a lot. I think what's behind me here for those who listen to us in videos, I have a lot of Pokemon and everything behind me. So I'm a huge player as well. So it was important for us to really listen to the players and talk from players to players to feel very authentic in the project we were releasing.

5:51Andres Figueira:Now, I understand. I understand. And that is something that I believe is very important because I know the gaming industry and gamers per se are very sensitive and they hold dear to their heart those games that they love. And Assassin's Creed having been in the market for so long, I imagine it's very important to get things right. Just in the fact that if it doesn't go in the direction that players would like or that they were imagining, sometimes it might not meet their expectations. So I feel it's a very high-pressure environment, if I'm not mistaken. It's a balance.

6:25Pierre Miazga:Selling a video game is not just about building storytelling around the marketing campaign to the consumer. It's about selling a storyline. It's about selling already a project that has a story, emotional depth. What I would say is the first thing is listening. Listening to what players want. And we have a lot of tools. We have a lot of methods. And we'll be able to talk about that. to really nail down what's expected and be very careful of the eco-chamber. You're a player, you sauce. You don't want to only hear about you. You really want to cross this with a lot of players and understand what they want.

7:03Pierre Miazga:That is kind of the easy part. Understanding. The hardest part is surprising people. Because when you play a video game, you want to get what you're looking for, but you also want to be emotionally gripped and surprised. So that is the daily job that we had, walking the fine line behind being where you want to be and how you surprise people and create emotion.

7:31Andres Figueira:now i hadn't thought about it in that way but it's so true like i i'm also an avid pokemon fan and i always know what i want from a pokemon game but i want to be surprised as well it's like i don't want to just fight and catch them because that's why i'm buying it for but also please surprise me with a new story or something that i didn't expect to happen because that's just what adds a little bit more value so i totally um vibe with you there man and pierre if i may in terms of when you guys create and know that you want to develop a game, how much time passes since the conception of the idea until you actually know what needs to be marketed and how you want to market it to the gamers?

8:10Pierre Miazga:It really depends. There is no rules here. I would say that a video game is usually between three to four years to be built, but you see other games inside and outside Ubisoft taking less time and even more time to build. It really depends whether or not you are creating a game inside a franchise that has already some safe line, clear ideas of the gameplay experience, of what you want to create, or if you really want to create something new, something fresh. and something new and something fresh means test, fail, retry, correct. That takes time. And sometimes you start a game and during one year, one year and a half, you're only 10 people trying stuff, prototyping stuff.

8:59Pierre Miazga:And then you actually kickstart the development of the game. Usually what I like to say is differentiating positioning from advertising. Marketing is already there from the start in working positioning with the developers in making sure we understand what we want to do, what's the game, and what kind of player needs it will satisfy. That is very much positioning. It's an internal document that helps us know what we're crafting. It's in between development and marketing. And advertising comes at the latest stage, usually approximately a year before the game is being out. Some games have tactics of longer marketing campaigns.

9:40Pierre Miazga:some other game that's what we call a shadow drop they want to catch everyone by surprise boom the game is available now that's another marketing tactic so what i would say is that it really really depends because what we you need to understand is video game is not only the first industry global entertainment industry in the world it's more than 200 billion dollars yearly video game as a whole but this also became incredibly competitive uh would you be able to guess how many games were released on steam in 2015 on steam in 2015 oh my goodness i don't know

10:24Andres Figueira:but i would i would imagine it's about in the five no in 2015 i think it was a while back so i'd say like what a thousand games a thousand five hundred something like that it was already two thousand

10:36Pierre Miazga:eight hundred oh my goodness second part of the quiz and i'll be dumb what about last year 2025

10:44Andres Figueira:10 years later so 2015 2800 to 2025 oh my god the exponential growth of video games in 10 years was crazy. So I take it to maybe 10 ,000 games or something like that?

11:01Pierre Miazga:It was 20 ,000. That means 52 games being released every day. What I'd say in that is you have everything in video games. It's a mature market. You're talking to all age and demographics, to all kinds of games. So development really depends on the game you're creating and the length and the production. ambition that you have so you pretty much have everything uh on the market today and that's what

11:30Andres Figueira:makes it incredibly exciting wow and like pierre how are you guys able to cut through all the static of so many games being available to players like do you have any any actual way that you know that makes players choose you guys over other games each time because i do understand that you You make really good games. Like Assassin's Creed is a AAA game. And it's the fact that how are you able to make sure these gamers stay focused on you guys rather than other parts of the market?

12:01Pierre Miazga:I would say it's even more complex than that because we are not only competing against other games. We're competing for players' time. We're competing against TikTok. We're competing against Spotify. In a way, not directly. I mean, we just, players only have one key budget, is they have 24 hours a day and they work and sometimes they sleep. So you're fighting for players' time. You're fighting for time of people. And if I had the magical formula on how to grasp players' attention automatically, God, I would be rich. so I can't answer for certainty what I can tell you is we have teams inside Ubisoft that are tasked to survey the markets to extract data we all are gamers so we all spend time on gaming platforms on Steam reading players reviews on other games reading comments on YouTube and we forge ourselves an opinion on what's the expectation but I would go back to my initial statement is you want to give players what they want, what they are looking for, but you also want to surprise them.

13:20Pierre Miazga:That's why I'm working in video games. That's this small risk that you take in creating something different, something that falls into expectation, a trend, a video game trend, or a kind of fantasy, sci-fi, heroic fantasy. You know these things are carried by the market or not but when it comes about the experience itself the feature you want to develop you gotta take some risks you gotta take some risks to surprise people and to forge ourselves some certainties we go as far as to invite ex-normal players to our studio before the game is being revealed we just have an undisclosure agreement but we have them play we have them share their point of view and reveal that with them video games are so much often that we think built with players that's that's what enables us to always know we go in the right direction.

14:14Andres Figueira:Of course, it's like a mutualistic relationship. You create the game, but you need the gamers to love it. And that's why you, well, I remember when I was smaller, that was a job I would have died for. It was just video game tester. I was looking anywhere that somebody would allow me to play games that haven't come out. If it would have been Pokemon, it would have been even better. But yeah, I know that is something that is so cool. and Pierre would you be able to also tell us a bit more than how you got to Ubisoft Bordeaux and a bit more about your background yeah yeah for sure for sure well fiction and video game

14:46Pierre Miazga:have always been part of me Pokemon I think helped me to build myself as a child file of fantasy build myself as a teenager and today games like Persona The Witcher Assassin's Creed Breath of the Wild they build me as an adult and as a father so video game has always been a certainty for me

15:05Andres Figueira:I started as an intern at Ubisoft a long time ago.

15:11Pierre Miazga:And I was on licensing product. It means expanding the franchise to consumer products, apparel, toys, etc. I loved it very much. I wasn't in games exactly. I was more into diversification. And I told myself, you got to be sure you want to work in that industry. So I forced myself to take a second internship into consumer goods. and I learned something very important. Consumer goods was not for me. I needed to go back to marketing. And you know, there's this legend that says good marketers can sell you anything. Well, I think it needs some debunking, right? I'm convinced that marketing shines when it truly respects and understands what it's selling, especially in entertainment.

15:56Pierre Miazga:But that was just a random thought. it was a stretch to go back to video game and I remember I was still like a very young adult I on purpose failed to submit one of my graduation school tests to fail and to still be able to do one last internship and this internship I took was on Far Cry 3 it was in 2012 and I got lucky because a job opened right after this intention and I got hired. And there I was in Paris and I was working in publishing. Publishing is really your go-to-market tactics. It can be opposed to development in a studio, what I do today. Previously, I was more in the HQ of Ubisoft and we were granted with the responsibility of a game that was almost finished.

16:53Pierre Miazga:and our task was what campaign do we build for that game to shine who do we talk to on which channels uh what's the length of the campaign etc so i started working on watchdogs then i moved to other games like the division ghost week on wildlands i don't know if it rings a bell to non-players assassin's creed and other other titles both speaking to gamers but also speaking families and I inclined the ladder from an intern to a marketing director and three years ago I told myself I want to talk to these people that build the game, I want to talk to the narrative people, I want to talk to the artists and I want to work with them and that's where I decided to move from Paris to Bordeaux and join this development studio working on Assassin's Golden Mirage so my journey brought me from publishing and go to markets to development marketing much much much earlier in the development phase involving the actual creation of the game so i i got to see the entire um marketing uh factory line if you want to say in video games and that that's that's that's quite exciting yeah wow that is so cool man so

18:10Andres Figueira:you've been since the fact of advertising and and creating that go-to-market strategy when the game is ready to be published and then you went more into the early stages of development then. And what have you noticed or could you be able to provide some insight in the differences between marketing a game that's almost ready to be published and one that is more in the development strategy?

18:30Pierre Miazga:Well, both profiles work in hand at Ubisoft. It's a mutual benefit relationship. You need marketers early in development of the game to ensure that the audience has been thoughtful when developing the game. to ensure that it syncs the ambition of a company. Let's say, for instance, a game has been worked on, is almost finished, but hasn't been connected to specific player needs or audience. You're taking an incredible risk because you have the risk for your game to simply not talk to anyone. And that is the main difference because it's more designing and promoting. They work hand in hand. that remains marketing but there is a part that is more in development in making sure that what you do has potential and the other is making sure that that potential is revealed to players but you can't do a great marketing campaign on a game that has been poorly designed when it comes to audience because you won't talk to the players and you can release a great game without a well thought through marketing campaign, it can fail to find its audience.

19:46Pierre Miazga:I will go back to my 20 ,000 games released every year. You need your game to be exceptional. You need your game to be well designed when it comes to audience needs and you need your game to be well promoted. So it reaches out the awareness of that specific audience, which is why both of these marketing collaborate in creating games and releasing them, if that makes sense.

20:10Andres Figueira:It totally does. And Pierre, also in terms of like everything you're doing, do you have a team that is backing you up with all this creative and like strategizing of how the marketing should go at the early development of the team? Like how many people do you have helping you out?

20:28Pierre Miazga:Yeah, I'm lucky to have very talented people working with me in addition to the developers and the other job titles that are collaborating with me on a daily basis. But when I was in Paris on GoToMarket, I had between five to six brand managers working with me, essentially very focused on brand and product marketing.

20:50Andres Figueira:And today I have a team that is more diverse.

20:54Pierre Miazga:I have marketing people but also artists working in my team artists, video artists and what we call static artists it means people that are building images of your game so it's a different kind of relationship and that was what I was looking for actually having an expertise that is shared with other profiles, artistic profiles tech profiles rather than talking to players that have the same background as myself because when I was in the publishing HQ, I was working with people coming like me from business college or business schools. And today it's a joint collaboration between data people, tech people, artistic people.