When Sony Online Entertainment wanted to tout H1Z1, an upcoming game where thousands of players can gather online as humans holding out against the zombie apocalypse, it didn’t take out an ad in a slick magazine or run a TV commercial. Rather, John Smedley, president of SOE, a division of Sony and maker of games like EverQuest, had his team promote the game on both Reddit and Twitch.
John Smedley of Sony Online Entertainment
Welcome to the new age of game marketing. By going direct to player broadcasters on Twitch and online commenters on Reddit, Smedley is going where the audience has moved. He wants to reach gamers directly with an unfiltered description of exactly what gamers will get with his game. And once they’re hooked, they will hopefully become the game’s best evangelists. Smedley himself is communicating directly with the fans.
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Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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