Speaking at ICE, Thunderkick Chief Commercial Officer, Svante Sahlström, shared his perspective on the future for innovation.
He emphasised that innovation is ‘a word that is often thrown around with very little thought of its effectiveness and relevance to the issues at hand’.
Reflecting on his time at ICE and the showfloor, he stated: “I just walked around the floor here and, to be honest, I don’t see that many new things in games themselves, as opposed to when crash games came out, for example, and it was like ‘wow, this is new’,” he continues.
“I still see a lot of sequels with game number five or six and so on. I think that franchises are still the major trend. This is what we are doing as well. We have the third in the Wildos series coming up, one of our bestselling examples that has more features added into it and so on.”
He also underpinned the role that Sequels and franchises play in the modern gaming space as their role continues to evolve.
“It’s like in the movie business, for example,” Sahlström explains. “If you like the first then you will want to see the second, and so on. You get a lot closer to the characters, you are getting more deeply familiarised and you want to get more out of it.
“It’s a natural thing, and it also raises an eyebrow when number two or three is coming, et cetera. It’s an easy step or threshold in marketing as well.”
Balancing Familiarity and Novelty
Despite the appeal of sequels, Sahlström emphasised the importance of balance. “For us as a B2B supplier, you need to balance that with new titles. You can always do another sequel if you want to, but you can’t always go for sequences.
“I don’t know if this is a trend or not, but more narrative games get you deeply involved with characters, new worlds, new games.
“3 Wildos is a little loosely based around a collection of popular movie characters, such as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The first one was based on characters that were like good villains, but now they’re being a little more personal with the character.
“When you have the chance to go to the next game, you need to balance that.”
Timing is critical in knowing when to retire a franchise. “We have to do something new, but for me personally, I would like to see cameo roles like in the movies,” he adds. “A kind of easter egg of something that would be rewarding for your truly loyal players.”
