The £25m blueprint: what your next gaming stunt can pinch from the esports crowd

Experiential marketing in gaming, let’s be honest, can often feel like trying to light a single match beneath the glare of stadium floodlights.

On one side, you’ve got the major esports events with arenas jammed to the rafters, pyrotechnics that’d make Guy Fawkes blush, global live streams, and prizes that could fund a respectable provincial council. On the other hand, there’s your crucial, high-stakes product launch or the in-store activation you’ve been sweating over. It’s terribly easy to look at that glittering spectacle and think, ‘well, I simply can’t afford that palaver.’

The truth is, you shouldn’t have to. You don’t need to copy the budget of the esports big leagues, but you absolutely must nick their blueprint.

Esports events aren’t successful purely because they cost a king’s ransom; they’re successful because they are masterclasses in orchestrated audience progression. They treat the fan experience as non-linear, hybrid, and deeply, sometimes worryingly, connected.

Here are three core strategies any gaming brand can, and frankly, should, borrow from their stadium-sized siblings.

1. Stop building events. Start building a saga

Most experiential stunts are a single, static destination. You rock up, have a good gawp, get some swag, and toddle off home. This violates a fundamental law of modern gaming fandom: players demand progression.

An esports fixture isn’t just one day of shouting at a screen; it’s a tiered, non-linear saga that spans a good few months.

• Tiered access & perks: The utterly dedicated fans (the ones who’ve shelled out for the flight or the premium streaming package) receive something the passive viewer doesn’t: unique digital bits, first dibs, exclusive merch drops, or a VIP viewing area so plush it probably serves artisanal matcha as part of a ceremonial ritual.
• The unlocking mechanism: Every interaction is given value. Watching the pre-show coughs up a code. Attending a fringe event unlocks a digital badge. This makes the whole shebang feel like a seamless extension of the game itself, not just a glorified trade stand.
• The Spark approach (human-centric & connected experience): If you want an unforced share on the socials, you have to design the experience to be human-centric first. We shift the focus from ‘What do we want to shove in front of people?’ to ‘What role can we give the player?’ By designing a connected experience, your booth isn’t a stand; it’s a quest with rewards that span the physical, the digital, and the inevitable social channels.

As an example, we didn’t just build a birthday party for the Minecraft 15th anniversary experience in London, NYC, and Sydney; we created a collective world-building quest.

For the Squid Game ‘GAME OVER’ activation, the real reward wasn’t just turning up in NYC, but earning a coveted, individually numbered controller tied to the show’s mythology. That is how you turn an exhibition into a truly connected journey.

2. Tech should do a job, not be the star of the show

The most exciting technologies – AR, generative AI, persistent worlds – are frequently deployed as outrageously expensive, ‘look-at-us’ stunts that distract more than they engage. They’re just shiny, pointless baubles.

In esports, technology is the scaffolding, not the centerpiece. It enables the hybrid experience without clamoring for attention like a desperate comedian, in these ways:

• Seamless integration: In the arena, the tech enables voting, live statistics, player comms, and dazzling light shows, all integrated instantly into the physical moment of high drama. The fan isn’t sitting there thinking about the code; they’re thinking about the sheer, gripping drama.
• Context over capability: They deploy high-end broadcast tools, AR overlays, and real-time data feeds, but only to deepen the existing narrative – the ridiculously high-stakes match. If it doesn’t serve the story, it’s binned.
• The Spark approach (contextual craft & powered by design): Technology should never be the punchline; it should be the efficient, reliable delivery mechanism. We ensure contextual craft by asking: ‘How does this piece of kit genuinely serve the player’s emotional journey?’ Everything must be powered by design to feel smooth, intentional, and utterly inevitable. If the tech is noticeable, it’s probably a pointless gimmick.

Take the Tony Hawk Pro Skater x Alpine F1 at The Outernet, London, or the Forza x Jordan interactive display. We used digital display technology, but it wasn’t about the screen; it was about seamlessly fusing two very different worlds into a shared, immediate experience.

Similarly, the detailed, multi-layered environment for Compulsion Games’ South of Midnight experience was a triumph of design, using tech to immerse the media in the game’s atmosphere without ever shouting about the tech stack.

3. Treat the launch as a sustained conversation

Most gaming activations live for about 72 hours, tops. The comms strategy is typically a ‘blast marketing’ frenzy right before and during the drop, followed by a deafening silence.

Esports events thrive on a continuous, pre/live/post communication strategy. The event itself is just the noisy crescendo of a multi-week, multi-platform story:

● Pre: Hype is meticulously built through exclusive content drops, player interviews, bracket predictions, and early access offers that actually reward anticipation.

● Live: Content is constantly being churned out; behind-the-scenes naughtiness, fan reactions, social polls that actually matter.

● Post: The story continues with deep-dive analysis, winner interviews, legacy content, and, crucially, digital drops or benefits tied to having actually shown up or participated.

● The Spark approach (expertly delivered): By treating the project lifecycle holistically, we ensure everything is expertly delivered and measured. We turn a complex, multi-touchpoint rollout into a predictable process – because we’ve already sweated the hard stuff – and we deliver the long-term metrics you desperately need to prove ROI across all phases, not just the two days that the glorified shed was open.

This approach is why we develop everything from the long-lead narrative arc of the Doom: The Dark Ages x Hell’s Kitchen launch – teasing the game’s brutal medieval aesthetic through exclusive culinary content and on-the-ground, visceral experiences.

In a market saturated with flimsy experiences, the winner will be the brand that designs their launch with the tactical intelligence of an esports major. 

If these strategic levers resonate with the headaches you’re facing next year, perhaps it’s time we had a quick cuppa.

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