WARDOGS Devs Explain Why The FPS Games Show Is Here: ‘This Is Not Worth It’

At Gamescom, I was lucky enough to sit down with BULKHEAD to discuss the upcoming early access release of WARDOGS, easily one of the most highly anticipated first-person shooters coming to the market in the very near future. I caught up with CEO Joe Brammer and CFO Mark Pinney, but before we started talking about their game, I wanted to learn more about The FPS Games Show.

On September 3, The FPS Games Show debuts worldwide, with a stellar line-up of first-person shooter games (and some special guests) presenting new trailers, upcoming content, and big changes. It’s a brand-new offering in the showcase space, and I just had to ask Brammer and Pinney why BULKHEAD was leading the charge by producing the entire broadcast.

Traditional Gaming Shows Aren’t Worth The Cost

In case you’re out of the loop in the gaming space, there are more than a few showcases that take place every year. The largest ones, such as Summer Game Fest, Gamescom’s Opening Night Live ceremony, and The Game Awards, pull in millions of viewers.

But they also cost extortionate amounts to get your game seen.

In some cases, we’ve heard of developers or publishers paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for spots in these showcases, pricing out the little guy and decimating marketing budgets for a minute or so of airtime.

That’s the cost of advertising, but it can feel extremely unfair. It’s why we at Insider Gaming hosted our showcase in May to promote a slew of incredible indie games for free, all of which were looking for funding or a publisher.

Now, BULKHEAD, the studio behind WARDOGS, an upcoming, large-scale shooter, is hosting The FPS Games Show, another free-to-access broadcast focusing specifically on the first-person space. It boasts some huge names in the lineup, including Gray Zone Warfare, Rainbow Six Siege, Escape from Tarkov, and Hell Let Loose: Vietnam.

But I was eager to learn about the intricacies of the show, so I asked Brammer and Pinney, the core of the leadership team at BULKHEAD, why they felt the need to assemble and produce the showcase, and why now was the right time to present it.

Brammer dived in first:

Our specialty is FPS games, and when we were trying to market out game, when we were trying to get out there, we talked to quite a few different, big shows, trying to get a spot on them.

We can do it, but they’re asking for ’50k’ for you know, a minute? And you think, ‘Maybe that’s worth it.’ And then they’ll go up as far as 300, 400, 500k, and we’re like, ‘That isn’t worth it.’

When you speak to some of the bigger guys, the big studios, they’re saying the same thing: ‘This is not worth it.’ Especially when it comes to FPS games.

But Brammer then expanded, explaining how it’s not just the cost of getting a slot on these shows that’s the problem. It’s how irrelevant that slot might be. Typically, these broadcasts are diverse, presenting an array of titles that try to appeal to as many people as possible, but that can result in some confusing, convoluted streams packed with all kinds of genres.

That’s what Brammer was talking about:

You’re on a stream next to an Asian MMO, and then XBOX’s new single-player game, and it doesn’t really translate to sales, promotion, getting people looking at your game properly – the right people looking at your game.

It just wasn’t worth it, it felt like to me.

We have, as developers, felt quite taken advantage of by the industry for a long time. The fact that there are people and big companies (and individuals) taking huge chunks of money off us, just trying to create the very thing the industry revolves around… It felt a bit like… ‘This is bulls***.’

BULKHEAD then decided to send out feelers, see who would be interested in setting up an entirely new showcase to represent only first-person shooter games, and the response was, by all accounts, entirely unexpected.

Before long, some of the most important players in the genre had thrown their hat in the wrong, enticed by the notion that this broadcast is entirely free for developers to take part in.

Pinney, the company’s CFO, explained why BULKHEAD had pioneered The FPS Games Show:

Especially now, recently being independent, our philosophy is quite forward-thinking. We don’t like the norms of how games have been made or developed or how marketing happens.

We’re always looking for ways to improve how it works. I think you just need a leader to do it.

That shows not only in The FPS Games Show and how we’re marketing it but in the game itself, as well.

The FPS Games Show is set to broadcast on September 3 at 7 PM UK Time, and it has one hell of a lineup. Let us know on the Insider Gaming Discord server if you’ll be checking out the stream, and check back after the event, because we’ll have a full breakdown of everything revealed.

For more Insider Gaming coverage, check out the news that the Savvy Games Group CEO has stepped down. Also, don’t forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter