Turning Game Dev marketing into a real-life game

Agency: BaM | Client: Microsoft | Writer: Me

With a billion-dollar investment in Azure cloud services, Microsoft urgently needed to communicate the new acquisitions in their game development tech stack and convert developers. At the annual Game Developers Conference (GDC), we helped them do just that by speaking to developers in a language they understand – games. In comes Game Studio Stacker, an original tabletop card game pitting players as rival indie game studios working to publish the most killer games.

Strategy elements that gamify the development process and cards that riffed on decades of gaming culture, it was the most sought-after swag item of the show.

The cards covered retro classics, indie darlings and industry trends.

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And the reception was equally geeked

We followed Game Studio Stacker up with even more dev-facing content, and I rewrote the book on developing and managing live games.