Lessons in game marketing from the Ubisoft guy whose team just won 27 awards for it (interview)

Every year, the French video game publisher Ubisoft convinces gamers to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on games like Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag and Just Dance 2014.

Tony Key, the senior vice president of sales and marketing at Ubisoft, is one of those people behind that clever marketing. At this week’s Game Marketing Awards — the equivalent of the Emmys for the people who make the ads and marketing campaigns that sell blockbuster video games — Ubisoft walked away with 27 trophies, including the game marketing company of the year. To push titles like the upcoming Watch Dogs, Ubisoft will do anything, including traditional advertising as well as livestreaming on spectator platforms like Twitch.