When the live service shooter High Guard was unveiled to a rough reception and struggled further after launch, it became a case study in how not to introduce a game to a skeptical audience. It’s also exactly the kind of situation Chase Colasonno, Senior Vice President at fortyseven communications, a Keywords Studios agency, was asked to unpack on The Game Business Show podcast.
His answer wasn’t a quick fix. It was a fundamentally different approach to how live service titles should be positioned from the very first announcement.
Players Are Already Guarded Before You Say a Word
Colasonno’s starting premise is that any new live service announcement lands on an audience that’s already burned. Between an over-saturated genre and a track record of games not delivering on their promises, he argues that developers need to assume distrust as the default, not the exception. As he put it, players today are dealing with a market where “trust is low,” and where the burden is on the studio to prove itself rather than the other way around.
Reveal Trailers Alone Don’t Move the Needle Anymore
There’s a version of live service marketing that leans entirely on the moment of the big reveal: an ambitious trailer, a wave of press coverage, momentum carrying through to launch. Colasonno suggests that formula has run its course. Big cinematic reveals still matter, he says, but treating hype as the whole strategy rather than a supporting element is what’s failing studios again and again.
“From the Makers Of…” Isn’t the Hook It Used To Be
One shift Colasonno pointed to is particularly striking: the fading power of studio pedigree as a marketing tool. A game being framed as coming from veterans of a beloved earlier title used to do a lot of heavy lifting with an audience. Now, he argues, that framing works fine in boardrooms and investor pitches, but players have grown numb to it, particularly as multiple teams from the same studios ship increasingly similar-feeling projects around the same time.
Let the Audience Be the Hype, Not the Marketing Team
Perhaps the most actionable idea Colasonno raises is a shift in who’s actually generating excitement. Rather than a studio declaring its own game is going to be great, he argues the far more effective path is getting real players hands-on early, whether through playtests, creator previews, or slow-building community access, and letting their genuine reactions do the persuading. Games that have thrived recently, he suggests, succeeded because players told each other the game was worth attention, not because a marketing department said so first.
He extends this to the increasingly outdated tactic of paying streamers for guaranteed day-one coverage, which he frames as a short-term move that no longer pays off across a game’s actual lifespan.
Bold Promises Set Up Their Own Disappointment
Colasonno is candid that overselling a game almost guarantees it will feel like a letdown once real gameplay footage or hands-on impressions arrive. His advice runs counter to the instinct many marketing teams have under pressure to make a splash: dial back the grandeur, and let a more grounded pitch hold up better once the actual game is in front of players.
Community Feedback Should Reshape the Roadmap, Not Just the Messaging
When backlash does happen, Colasonno’s view is that the response can’t be purely cosmetic. He describes community pushback as something close to a gut check for the whole project, not just its marketing, arguing that both the communications plan and the actual development roadmap may need to shift if players are reacting badly to a stated direction. Sticking rigidly to an original plan once it’s clearly not landing, in his framing, is a mistake studios keep making.
Know Your Own Studio’s Voice Before You Try to Sell It
A subtler point Colasonno raises is about internal consistency. He suspects a lot of developers aren’t naturally inclined toward the bombastic, everything-is-amazing style of marketing that so often gets applied to live service launches anyway, under pressure to compete. When a game’s external messaging doesn’t actually reflect the tone of the studio making it, he suggests players can sense the disconnect, and it undermines trust rather than building it.
The Bigger Picture
No version of this skips the hard work, according to Colasonno. Slow community-building, real transparency, and a willingness to change course when the feedback says to are what separate live service launches that recover from missteps like High Guard’s from the ones that don’t.