Open World reveals Game Dev division, offering market strategies and support

Open World, the gaming-focused arm of talent management and marketing firm Loaded, announced today that it’s opening a Game Dev division. With this new division, the firm offers marketing strategies and launch support for game developers who are readying their campaigns. The new division has already partnered with several game studios, including Phoenix Labs, Scopely and EA, and it’s rolling out new campaigns with additional partners throughout the year.

Open World originally launched in 2022 with the goal of guiding brand partners through the gaming space. The new Game Dev division works somewhat in reverse, offering audience analytics tools and social media/community management platforms in addition to its creator-agnostic approach to influencer marketing. One of Open World Game Dev’s marketing campaigns was Scopely’s Monopoly Go, which recently hit $2 billion in revenue.

Josh Swartz, Loaded’s CEO, told GamesBeat in an interview that the game dev division plans to offer a full-service marketing solution for the games industry. “What we ultimately want to do is to offer publishers and studios a turnkey solution. We already have it for creators, but we want to do it for the entire lifecycle of their game.” He added that the creator-agnostic approach serves the best interest of the game company. “Our data sets are very robust. We understand platforms — that Twitch is different then YouTube, which is different than TikTok … To design a multiplatform strategy is easier said than done.”

Irina Shames, Open World and Loaded’s CCO, also told GamesBeat, “One of the things we say is, ‘You bring games; we bring players.’ That’s the core of what we do — we know how to tap into communities and how to create that magic when you do it correctly. We’re here and we’re so excited to be able to work with more publishers, helping them with either successful launches or retention. How do you keep people engaged? We know how.”

Shames added that, while they have several larger brand partners, they also offer equally (or more) comprehensive support for smaller indie developers and publishers. “We work with some of them a year or more before launch, explaining marketing to them. Triple-A publishers, which have their own marketing teams, come to us with more specific briefs. Our work with indies and startups starts much earlier in the lifecycle and that’s exciting too.”