If you’ve been at Gamescom 2023 over the past few days, or are attending this weekend, keep your eyes peeled for a massive, life-size mechanical T-rex statue looming over Hall 6, right across from Top 50 winners MiHoYo and Crunchyroll’s One Punch Man World exhibit.
You can’t miss it.
But this isn’t just any giant inflatable dinosaur, this is Devil Dinosaur, and it’s one of the many iconic Marvel Comics characters featured in Second Dinner’s hit card-battler Marvel Snap. With its recent launch on Steam bringing the game to PC the game, which took our Game of the Year award at our Mobile Games Awards 2023, has gone from strength to strength.
Key to that success has been its marketing, and while Nuverse may be a subsidiary of Bytedance, Mohan is keen to point out it’s proximity to TikTok did it no special favours. Instead the win was won via a combination of their unique animation, the pedigree of its designers and ceasless work to revise and improve their community understanding that has catapulted Marvel Snap to stardom.
We caught up with Nuverse’s head of marketing Rishi Mohan at the Marvel Snap Booth to find out more about Marvel Snap’s winning marketing.
PocketGamer.biz: So what’s the secret to Marvel Snap’s success?
Rishi Mohan: We pay attention to the community, we’re constantly on Discord, on Reddit, in the forums – we’re listening to what players want, and we try to tell stories that we think will really appeal to them. And credit to Second Dinner they’ve developed a game that people love and we just try to uphold that same love-letter to the IP that they do in our marketing. And I think that’s what really drives success for us.
You’ve just released Marvel Snap for PC today. What would you say the key difference is between marketing for a mobile title and marketing for a PC title?
PC gamers are traditionally ‘real gamers’ in quotes, and their needs and desires are much different to the mobile player. Things like speed are replaced with the concept of easy-use UI, or a quicker-to-load screen. What we’ve done with PC is focus on what appeals to players, and, like a second screen experience, being able to jump in whenever you want, jump out whenever you want.
Streamers love it, because of the fidelity and the layouts, and matchmaking is a little bit easier because you can reach out to your friends using whatever chat clients you are at. So overall the benefits are completely different whereas the core gameplay remains the same.
I’m guessing you’re not going to be taking your eye off mobile anytime soon?
Absolutely not, mobile is where we started, Marvel Snap was initially made to be a mobile game. What we wanted to do was expand and make it available to new players going forward.
So in terms of your marketing when it comes to the Marvel Universe characters, how do you do justice to that wide, diverse universe from a marketing perspective?
On the marketing side, the best thing we can do is tell the marvel story through the Snap lens. And the way we do that is with variants.
So maybe you like one version of The Hulk, we can show you a different version that maybe appeals to you on a more personal level, so that when you’re creating your deck, it represents you somehow. Like, part of you is on the game board, and the best thing we can do is illustrate that you can personalise your story through Snap, as well as the Marvel story.
And you know, the cinematics that we make, the stories that we tell, we try to remain true to the source material, and I think that’s how we maintain that connection to marvel and the IP.
Have there been any breakout characters in your marketing that you’ve seen get greater attention?
People love Squirrel Girl. They’re a fun card to play in the game, and a fun character to tell stories about. In-fact, right outside the booth you’ll see a massive ‘anime dream girl’ Squirrel Girl.”
What can Marvel Snap mobile players look forward to next?
I really just want to invite everyone to check out Marvel Snap on PC. If you’ve played on mobile before, you understand the game, you know the speed and the mechanics. It could be the main thing that you’re doing, it could be a second screen. I can tell you this much, if you’ve got three minutes it’s worth your time.
