Borderlands 3: Marketing Strategy Case Study

Happy 2020! Something big that happened last year was Borderlands 3. Most people ended up hearing about this 10 year old game in some form or fashion. This happens to be one of my most defining inspirations, as well as very good case study in how to market hype. Let's delve in to the background a bit.

Borderlands is a video game, which in it's 10th year got particularly popular, that came out in 2009 with the first in the series-Borderlands. I personally picked the game up, being a gamer girl since I was little, and have found it to be not only a very good game but something that has continued to inspire me since. Borderlands is a first person/couch coop/open world/RPG. For anyone not into video games; it means when you play it you see things in first person point of view, able to play multi-player with other people in the same room on the same device, a completely roam-able world, role playing game. Along with these things, there are a couple of things that defined the game (even if other circumstances caused it) such as its art style, story, and characters. This was released October 20, 2009.

Next to follow was Borderlands 2 on September 18, 2012. They expanded on character classes, adjusted certain features (like Fight For Your Life), and expanded on the story of one of the greatest video game villains-Handsome Jack. This was also the start of loyalty and rewards for loyalty. Now, Gearbox could totally do a 3rd sequel now, or they could do a pre-sequel. Following this was Borderlands The Pre-Sequel on October 14, 2014. There had been so much love built up for these characters, that a sequel was made that told the story of these characters in the timeline before even the first game. Telltale, at this time, was creating story telling games with famous IP's (intellectual property) such as The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, and Batman. So Borderlands and Telltale met up to release Tales from the Borderlands on November 25, 2014.

Now, if you can imagine being the gamer that is following the franchise- you go from 3 Years to 2 Years and then you have nothing going on for 5 Years. In reality, behind the scenes things were happening during those 5 years that would slowly come to light. Major hiring had been going on, game engines were being updated, and soon things would be "leaked" to specific influential agents in the video game industry. At PAX East 2019, Gearbox confirmed Borderlands 3 on March 28,2019. Preorders were announced in April for a Release date of September 13, 2019. Now, it is what happened between March and September that was truly case study worthy.

Once you preordered the game, you could join the VIP: Vault Insider Program to build up supplies to use in said game. They would drop a code you could use to rank up points starting in July 2019. Oh, and if you happened to be at E3, you could find Borderlands 3 and take home some sweet exclusive loot. Come July, there was DLC released for Borderlands 2 that bridged the gap between 2 and coming 3. Bring on the trade shows, dominating them in some way like in this tweet at GameCon. Utilizing trade shows, the next major announcement was PAX West on August 30, 2019. You can see from this tweet, that not only were the activities and display insane, but so were the about game updates.  Borderlands 3 went "Gold" on September 9, 2019-which in the gaming world means the game is completed and ready for manufacturing. From there things just got crazy. You started to see a "Borderlands" invaded version of most normal ads pop up on your feed: pizza, hotdog, shampoo, fashion, and beverages. See some of them here.

And good marketing never truly stops. Since the release of the game, they have had a great 10 year anniversary celebration with shooting and looting during October 2019. During all of October, there were campaigns with Bonus Loot, Rare Spawns, Eridium, and Mayhem. Leading to the first event called Bloody Harvest, a Halloween themed event. To be followed by Maliwan Take Down and DLC 1 in Fall/Winter of 2019. Did I forget to mention the Borderlands Show? No game is complete with out it's own show now.

Besides content, you will actually find Borderlands in stores and Malls near you. You can find SPLAT hair colors inspired by some of our favorite female characters, Cosplaying Rubber Ducks, Official Costumes at Spirit, and clothes not only online but at Spencer's! I would also like to add, with no two similar products in these stores and sites, allowing each vendor to create value with their customers.

So what is the take away of this rant? Use the power of the fans, trickle your content, brand and sell everything and reward customer loyalty. From a technical point of view, they created fans that not only followed them online but in person as they traveled all over the world and ended up growing their fanbase while finally answering the prayers of the existing fanbase.

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