RocketRide Games: Helping Companies Create Games

Releasing games is not an easy task. Aside from creating games, studios need to make sure they'll reach their audience and successfully market their products. RocketRide Games is a consulting agency for the video game industry that helps companies navigate every stage of their journey, from refining concepts and proposals to targeting key opportunities and partners through optimized production and game launch planning.

We asked RocketRide Games' CEO Louis-René Auclair about the company's work and its collaboration with Netflix.

Introduction

RocketRide Games is a team of 15 industry veterans with over 230 cumulative years in the gaming industry. We have expertise in all facets of game development from production to business development and publishing/marketing, and we try to share that experience with our partners to create better products for the gaming market. At the end of the day, as gamers ourselves, we hold certain standards for what games should be and we strive hard to reach that with every product we work on.

From building up the gaming industry in Colombia to working with major publishers like Gearbox, we did it all over the past two years. Sometimes, our partners required production house support for game development and others used our marketing and publishing team to help create go-to-market strategies for the actual execution of campaigns. For most of the deals, we helped our partners find funding and publishers to build out their projects and successfully launch to market. It may sound cliché, but as we are always product first, we are equally proud of every one of them as we feel they all provide value in their own unique way.

The Netflix Collaboration

We started our collaboration with Netflix just about a year ago, and it was a very natural partnership as both companies really value content. When you have two companies aligned in the way they think with similar goals, it always sets a great foundation for a good alliance. Netflix has never been shy to invest in great content and so it is our job to make sure that the games we bring provide a lot of value and entertainment.

It always helps when bigger, more established brands put their trust in us as it brings much more validity to what we do as an agency. Sure, over 230 years in gaming and working on many multi-billion dollar franchises sounds great, but each product and partner is different and we pride ourselves in bringing value tailored for each of them. For a company with as much brand power and success as Netflix to see that value means a lot for our agency. Luckily, other teams see that too and we are able to expand our business globally.

Releasing Games During COVID-19

We have always been a remote team that comes from all parts of the globe, even before it was “cool” to be remote. The pandemic never affected our ability to work as a team or our output as an agency, and so we plan to keep it that way even after the pandemic. One of the advantages of building an agency around gaming veterans is that we are able to manage projects and teams efficiently and there doesn’t need to be any hand-holding.

The Roadmap

The industry is going through a huge growth phase, meaning games are being signed and released at an extremely fast pace. On the RRG side, we will continue to support our clients and partners to find them the best games possible for their platforms. We will continue to work with Netflix to bring more games to their platform and work with our studio partners to find funding or publishing deals for them. Last but not least, we will continue to work with our publishing partners to help them release their games on the market. I would say that it will be business as usual, but there's nothing usual about the video games business. You can count on RRG to continue to work on great games with great partners.

Louis-René Auclair, CEO of RocketRide Games

Interview conducted by Ana Kessler