The editors of Gamestar, Gamepro or Mein-MMO could not rely on many clicks through their E3 reporting this year, the games fair was canceled due to the global corona pandemic. Instead, the Webedia portals presented games highlights every day in June as part of the joint “Find Your Next Game” format. The online event was well received by fans, as figures now show.
No E3, no Gamescom - no highlights? Not so, the creators of the “Find Your Next Game” event format probably thought so and quickly set up an E3 alternative that could also be used as a test run for the new Gamescom formats can be understood, because there too, Webedia, as a media partner of the Cologne games fair, sends news, interviews and background reports directly to the players at home.
Find Your Next Game: Successful premiere
The new format "Find Your Next Game" has exceeded all expectations, Webedia sums it up in view of the number of hits from fans. With more than 4,8 million views of the online articles and videos on YouTube and a total of over 36 million sessions, the content debut was more successful than the traditional E3 coverage of the previous year, according to the Berlin Webedia office. The media group registered 3,16 million views on YouTube alone, and together with the program in the Twitch streams, around 275.000 watched hours came together.
Gamestar's editor-in-chief, Heiko Klinge, is also in a celebratory mood in view of the success: “We could hardly have imagined the premiere of Find Your Next Game better. Both our communities and the game manufacturers were there with enthusiasm from the first to the last day, which is anything but a matter of course in a new event format. "
There is work and commitment behind the project: over 76 hours of live programming on YouTube and Twitch came together. Plus 121 articles about more than 100 games - only in June, mind you. The writers and moderators worked thematically on various games: from small indie titles to triple A games.
A clear advantage of online events: news and information on triple-A video games such as cyberpunk 2077 there are no long waiting times. Photo: André Volkmann
How intensively fans have dealt with the content is shown by the length of time they spend on the articles. According to Webedia, it was an average of four minutes, a 40 percent increase over normal day-to-day operations. In addition, there is the reach in social media, which Webedia measures with 10,8 million reached users.
According to Webedia, praise also comes from the publishers, for example from Kalypso's PR boss Bernd Berheide. "We are very proud to have been part of FYNG and express our congratulations and respect to the Webedia team for the great planning and execution."
A comment by Leya Jankowski, who is responsible for the “Mein-MMO” brand, illustrates how great the challenge must have been to get the event off the ground: “Exclusive stories, game presentations, videos, podcasts every day for a month and live programming, as well as postponements of announcements that threw our plans upside down.” She is proud of the team's accomplishments and is pleased with the positive feedback from the community. “It is precisely the variety of the program through our three brands that is emphasized and also that small games have received attention as if they belonged to the really big ones,” says the brand manager.
The new online format was well received by the fans. The makers now know what works when physical trade fair events break away in a pandemic emergency and creativity is required in the games editorial team. And they also know that the need for information and entertainment is high among fans. In the Corona year, many organizers feared that users could be bored with an oversupply of online events. The opposite seems to be the case: millions of times gamers have tuned in, watched videos or read articles that have been prepared by the editors of Gamestar, Gamepro or the Mein-MMO web portal.
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