By Dom Dzik, Brand Designer at Ragged Edge. Dzik has won numerous awards from major publications and clients include Wise, Monzo, Meta, and Marshmallow. His personal project “Ephemera,” a channel for narrative essays spanning books/films/games/art, has received 250,000+ views. He also writes fiction books under the pseudonym Julian Dušan and is involved in political activism.
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From the very beginning of the medium, game marketing imitated the movie and television industries. Renders of polygonal protagonists mimicked actors on Hollywood posters, and trailers tried to evoke the hype of a summer blockbuster. A DVD cover and half a colour palette were enough for a brand.
But games have outgrown their parents, becoming the biggest entertainment industry, and their reach has dwarfed anything seen before. Books don’t get brand partnerships and movies don’t maintain Discord servers or content updates: but games do, and their organic half-brands can’t keep up.
The reality is that the industry has changed; from Total War’s typography system to Valorant’s motion identity, all things unheard of not long ago. A disjointed identity or strategic positioning isn’t just a missed opportunity – it will actively weaken a game’s ability to build lasting player relationships.
Today, branding is fundamental to ensure long-term success in the increasingly competitive industry. So what are the common ways games fall behind?
“The brand not only restored what made the series unique to its original fanbase, but also cemented a path for its future.”
Firstly, they lack a purpose. Big franchises often suffer crises of identity: sequels have less and less cohesion until no one’s sure what the game is even about. Ubisoft’s Anno, a decades-spanning series, was no different and struggled against its better-defined peers. Ubisoft solved this with a rebrand that started from scratch and looked back at the past to find what made Anno such an iconic game.
The resulting brand eschewed typical strategy aesthetics, instead creating a world of cut stone and oxidised metal forged with expert craftsmanship. They arrived at a clear brand idea that defines the series: “crafted with care”. By finding this core purpose and putting it front and centre the brand not only restored what made the series unique to its original fanbase, but also cemented a path for its future.
As games grow, brand consistency starts to slip. Riot Games’ League of Legends, one of the biggest games ever, has ballooned from a free MOBA to a franchise with dozens of sub-brands that include the largest global esport: and none of them look alike. Each of the studio’s endeavours mutated off as it grew, and when the original product’s brand buckled under the weight, the sub-brands took on their own confused identities.
That is, until Riot’s recent effort to define LoL’s identity. By collaborating with branding studios on their core brand, championship and tv series, a cohesive visual style is emerging that can support whichever new project the studio decides to dream up next.
“They managed to create a brand that feels as distinct on the battlefield as it does on a billboard.”
Studios often fail to seek out experts. When brand is seen as an afterthought, left to be drawn on the fly by the developers, the result is something that works in the game but fumbles outside it.
The Call of Duty series has become iconic for many of its elements, from the Zombies soundtrack to its perk icons, but it never had cohesive assets that would be recognised by someone who isn’t already a player. The solution was a consolidating rebrand. By collaborating closely with a design studio and cross-pollinating their knowledge, they managed to create a brand that feels as distinct on the battlefield as it does on a billboard, from the logo to the tiniest HUD details.
Finally, they undervalue words. For decades, copywriting in game brands boiled down to dry press releases or hasty paragraphs at the bottom of magazine ads, but studios are starting to see the value in describing their games as much as showing them.
11 Bit Studios’ This War of Mine faced a marketer’s worst nightmare. The war-refugee-survival game featured innovative gameplay with an emotional narrative and impactful choices: but visually it resembled a pile of menus that could never work in a trailer. They found the solution in a tagline: “In war, not everyone is a soldier”. This communicated the meaning of their game to the audience faster and more clearly than any screenshot could.
“Gamers increasingly want to connect with their media and the studios who make it, and they need an avenue to facilitate that.”
It’s undeniable that the industry is quickly reaching branding maturity. Games like Fortnite manage a unified identity across more applications than most giants of other industries. Brand partnerships, large, centralised communities, and global advertising campaigns are all becoming commonplace. Gamers increasingly want to connect with their media and the studios who make it, and they need an avenue to facilitate it. To sustain all that, a game needs a strong brand at the centre that can define what it is, what it means, and where it’s headed.
