Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we add an interview to our series on Batman: Arkham Asylum. Karl Stewart, Director of Marketing for Eidos at the time joins us to talk about the importance of the role and how it contributes to a product's success. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.
Podcast breakdown:
0:54 Interview
1:03:18 Break
1:03:51 Outro
Issues covered: a full year, the early history of Karl, drawing anatomy, getting the fundamentals of brand and retail, listening to the team and developing the language and brand, breaking the assembly line, blurring the line between team and publisher, differentiating different types of creative director, developing trust, the usual separation of the two, how the marketing tells a story, translation without the input of creators, avoiding games that were moved too quickly, bringing confidence to the team, showing the publisher what they've got, creating a bond with the studio, publisher working with studio more closely, the superhero stigma, seeing the playable demo, the game influencing the brand, changing how people think about superhero games, maybe giving it back and arguing against, getting two covers, canning a Dark Knight game, discussing and selecting a logo, wondering about an opportunity, moving floors, controlling social from the studio, building a studio-centric model, working in the same world, handing your teenager over, having a push as a team for marketing, working to create the brand identity, going down the rabbit hole, taking a big expense, an Asylum ARG, challenging what we do, going different with the logo, a press event on Alcatraz, a ghost story, being immortalized, stuck in a cell, struggling to get marketing on board, bombing out Washington DC, everything is intentional, making a character relevant again, collaborating with other people and mentioning them by name.
Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Merchant Retail Group, Signature Brand Inc, Eidos, Square Enix, Crystal Dynamics, Petrel Marketing, Pure Imagination Studios, BAFTA, Thunder Child, 124, IGN, Tomb Raider (series), Lara Croft (Guardian of Light), ZX Spectrum, John Lasseter, James Song, Bob Lindsey, IO Interactive, LEGO, Bionicle, Ford, Age of Conan, Jamie Walker, Sefton Hill, Urban Chaos, Unreal, Phil Rogers, Andrew Reiner, Andy McNamara, Warner Bros, Rob Dyer, Loony Tunes, 300, Lee Singleton, Mini Ninjas, Battle Station Pacific, Jurgen Goeldner, Nathan Burlow, Matt Geyer, Remi Sklar, Carlos D'anda, Insomniac, Darell Gallagher, Rockstar, GTA, Tim Miller, Blur, Noah Hughes, Meagan Marie, Lars Winkler, Janet Swallow, LucasArts, Todd Howard, Phil Rogers, Yoichi Wada, Rich Briggs, Halo, I Love Bees, Lee Singleton, Trevor Burrows, Sarah Hoeksma, Philip Ser, Geoff Keighley, Spike TV, Star Wars, Republic Commando, Chris Williams, Bethesda Game Studios, Pete Hines, Fallout, Dr Dre Beats, Batman Begins, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.
Note: Apologies if I misattributed any names cited in this episode. There were many of them, often only with a firs tname, and tracking them down was quite a project. (Even so, I know I missed a couple.)
Next time:
Spooky Season Game
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