The Success of Hi-Fi Rush

In today’s gaming industry the marketing for AAA games has been massive with setting up trailers, hosting events, various forms of advertisements and sponsoring influencers these have significantly impacted the budgets for game development as more capital is going towards the marketing aspect of game development. Which has overall been negative with backlash of Cyberpunk 2077, Fallout 76, and Battlefield 2042 proving this issue. While some AAA games have managed to market their games without hurting the development of the games this has become a constant frustration with gamers as their expectations are constantly being shattered with disappointment after buying these games which have tarnished the Studio’s brand image. However, one game has done something interesting with their marketing by doing no marketing, Hi-Fi Rush was released minutes after being revealed at an Xbox event which would generate a small revenue due to the small audience size at the event but with the word of mouth, its overall quality and the content made by social media influencers who are not sponsored by the studio have generated a massive revenue.

With numbers of players reaching 2 million as of March with a mix of Xbox game pass and digital sales (Carter, 2023) and having over 90% of Steam reviews being positive (Valve, 2023) and the Metascore being 89/100 proving its successful release (Metacritic, 2023).

While it may seem like less marketing was done for this game in actuality the studio has heavily relied on Earned Media marketing which is inexpensive and more effective than other types of media marketing the only issue is the risks as it can also generate massive loss by boycotts conducted by those influencers However these risks can be solved through the products quality which in this case would be the gameplay. This is mostly possible due to the age of the internet which makes Hi-Fi Rush a perfect case study for Earned media marketing but also sets an example to the industry for prioritizing development over marketing. 

Carter, J. (2023, March 2). Hi-Fi Rush rocks out with 2 million players. Retrieved from Game Developer.com: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/-i-hi-fi-rush-i-rocks-out-with-2-million-players 

Metacritic. (2023). Hi-Fi Rush. Retrieved from Metacritic: https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/hi-fi-rush 

Valve. (2023, January 26). Hi-Fi Rush. Retrieved from Steam.com: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1817230/HiFi_RUSH/