The Slow Burn
Some games are playing to win the long...game.
Some games go viral, others take time to build a following. And the industry isn’t paying enough attention to the second kind.
In gaming, it’s easy to get swept up in day-one metrics: big launches, instant buzz, viral clips, etc.
But I’ve been thinking a lot about the games that don’t start that way.
These are ones that quietly build momentum, slowly grow a loyal player base over time, and end up sticking around long after the noise has died down.
To me, it’s like the difference between a sugar rush and a slow burn. One roars out of the gate only to crash soon after, while the other sustains.
At Twitch, we used to talk about this too. Some creators went viral overnight, while others just kept showing up until one day, their audience followed. It’s a pattern that shows up again and again in gaming and entertainment
And yet, so much of the attention and investment still flows to the quick hits.
So what if we spent more time studying and supporting the steady growers?
In a hits-driven business, there’s no single formula. And maybe that’s exactly why we should pay closer attention to the outliers. They might take time, but they stand the test of it too.