How Odyssey found their home in the VTuber community with Omega Strikers Odyssey InteractiveInfluencer marketing is everywhere nowadays as streamers promote the biggest games on the market. Odyssey Interactive took a different approach with Omega Strikers though, going all in on VTubing to build their future alongside the growing medium. When Odyssey Interactive first started work on Omega Strikers, there were a smattering of ideas. The developer, made up of former Riot Games members, had the arduous task of mind mapping dozens of concepts and honing in on something new and exciting. The 3v3 Rocket League-meets-anime game, with MOBA elements added on top, was eventually what they settled on. But it wasn\u2019t enough to launch this game into the wild and hope for the best, especially when competing with big developers and other indie titles. That\u2019s where VTubing came into the picture, according to Odyssey Interactive President Dax Andrus, as they tried to drum up hype and build their community. \u201cWhen we were thinking about all the things we could do as an indie developer and get our game out there into the world, VTubing seemed like one of those spaces everyone was sleeping on,\u201d Andrus told Dexerto. \u201cA lot of developers take a weird approach of viewing it as some weird anime thing. For us, at the core of the game is this anime aesthetic so there\u2019s this natural connectivity with VTubers even from the beginning.\u201d Developers are always looking for ways to market their game, especially at launch. VTubing is this ever-expanding form of content to tap into with a hyperactive fandom. It ties into the anime feel Omega Strikers was leaning towards. The thing about the animated streaming medium is, from an outsider\u2019s perspective, it\u2019s hard to understand. An inauthentic campaign will capture headlines and raise some eyebrows, but wouldn\u2019t necessarily keep Omega Strikers in players\u2019 consciousness. Enter Cloud9\u2019s cosmic dragon and VTuber herself: Vienna. She had always wanted to work in game development \u2014 while she was a Zoology major at college, Vienna had a massive interest in the data and science behind game design. Her love of League of Legends drove her to apply to work at Riot, but she fell short at the final hurdle. \u201cAt Riot I was interviewing to be on their Gameplay Analysis Team, which is the high elo team where they play the game, giving feedback on how to improve it competitively with balance changes,\u201d she told Dexerto. \u201cI spoke to some friends, and they let me know a Rioter was leaving to create a studio in Canada. I was super interested and I contacted Richard [Henkel, another Odyssey founder] if he had any positions opening [at Odyssey] for that in the future. \u201cA year later he actually sent me an inbox and said \u2018hey, we\u2019ve got this position opening but it\u2019s a complicated one as a jack-of-all-trades with a lot of focus on marketing, community, general gap-filling.\u2019\u201d Omega Strikers didn\u2019t appeal to Vienna on paper, she admitted. The MOBA-style aspects appealed to the inner League of Legends fanatic, but Rocket League? Soccer? That wasn\u2019t her jam. But she could have never been more wrong. \u201cI hopped in for a playtest before I accepted the position, and when I tried the game, it was one of the most fun things I ever played. It looked like sh*t at that point, it was the most janky thing, but it was incredibly fun. That\u2019s when I said I\u2019d work with the studio.\u201d Things weren\u2019t 100% set in stone there, but this chain of events led to Omega Strikers fortifying itself into the consciousness of the VTuber community. Now with a live open beta, Odyssey have revealed a VTuber of their own, Sonii, and hosted an invitational tournament to highlight the space. They also integrated those virtual content creators with their \u2018flesh\u2019 counterparts with the Creator VS event, giving crossovers between the mediums and also engaging communities in a new way. Creating a virtual face for a game studio Odyssey and Omega Strikers\u2019 integration of VTubers is not a ground-breaking concept. Other companies have virtual characters to promote their products and services. Hime, Crunchyroll\u2019s mascot, even streams on Twitch and collaborates with other stars in the space with anime watch parties and general gaming sessions. Applying that to a game studio was something new though. Vienna\u2019s role at Omega Strikers was primarily working on community engagement and marketing, and this all coincided with her own VTuber debut. She was organizing playtests and helping grow a presence for Odyssey. She had the background as an influencer, and also had this new and exciting thing going in the VTubing space. The success of that got the gears turning on how it could help Omega Strikers. \u201cWhatever I could think of that would help the company, I was allowed to do,\u201d she explained. \u201cBefore they hired me, they knew I was planning my VTuber debut. I went into it telling them \u2018I have this big thing coming up I\u2019ve been planning for a while, it won\u2019t affect my work but I\u2019ll be doing this on the side\u2019. \u201cI was living two separate lives \u2014 working for Odyssey while pumping out TikToks, doing my projects for my VTuber debut, and streaming every day. When they saw I had a proficiency in that, having amassed a large following on TikTok, that\u2019s when they were like \u2018we should be thinking about that stuff.\u2019 That fleeting idea, more than one year ago, eventually turned into Sonii, the \u201cenergetic and loveable bat who works very hard at her new job for Odyssey.\u201d The path to getting to Sonii, however, wasn\u2019t as straightforward as just commissioning an artist and rigger and getting the model together. It required a lot of teaching and learning, and experimentation within the game itself. \u201cFrom the very beginning I was trying to bring VTuber culture in,\u201d Vienna said. \u201cThere\u2019s a character, Ai-Mi. Originally she was named Eleven but I pitched it\u2019d be cool if we explored a character similar to Ninomae Ina\u2019nis from Hololive \u2014 a really beautiful, sexy octopus girl \u2014 and that was the first time they heard about VTuber stuff. I was like this could fit for this type of character. \u201cIt was funny to hear some of the older people at the studio be like \u2018what the heck\u2019, but Dax was the one person I think that is why Odyssey has ever done anything different. He doesn\u2019t know VTubers perfectly, but he knows VTubers are important. He\u2019s engrossed in anime style, and from the beginning, he wanted to create something that felt authentic to youth and not pretending to make things they\u2019d like. \u201cA couple of months into it, I was thinking about how no one else has a VTuber and we should do one. I thought we could transform one of our characters, or do one that was separate, and one of the projects I worked on was moodboarding it, figuring out the role they\u2019d fulfill.\u201d Odyssey collaborated with Live2D group Iron Vertex to bring the project into fruition. Led by Vienna, they explored what a VTuber to represent the company would look like. They would have a work uniform, obviously, and be \u201ckind of nerdy\u201d. However, there was a real drive to make her feel tangible within the Omega Strikers universe, without actually being in the game. Over time that idea got finessed. They gave Sonii some animal elements inspired by bats, one of Vienna\u2019s favorite animals, because \u201cin my research of VTubers, a lot of the most successful VTubers have an animal counterpart or part of them,\u201d she stated. They didn\u2019t want Sonii to just be a character though. Sonii was as much a part of Odyssey Interactive as any of the developers. Not only that, but the developers could see little bits of themselves in her. \u201cThat thing about how having a VTuber model can mitigate some of the downsides of always having to be on camera, or feeling like you have to present yourself in a specific way to your community all the time, that also exists as a developer,\u201d Andrus said. \u201cNone of us at Odyssey are the type who wants to get in front of a camera and be like \u2018Hi! Here\u2019s the patch update!\u2019 and talk you through all these things. \u201cWe had to do it a little bit at Riot, and for all of us who did it it was like \u2018oh you know players are going to slam you with all these memes.\u2019 When I did one for TFT, I had been working a lot so I was super tired and I was almost falling asleep in the thing. The meme was like \u2018they\u2019re locking Dax in the dungeon to give us the best player experience possible and he\u2019s so tired he can\u2019t stay awake.\u2019 \u201cFor us we thought a much more interesting way to create a face for the studio and then handle things like event updates would be through a VTuber which feels more aesthetically tied to the game and the world we\u2019re building, and you can get the opportunity to do tie-ins with the character and the game, but then also as a developer take a bit of pressure off of putting everyone in front of a camera all the time.\u201d It also gives Odyssey the chance to grow alongside a medium which is thriving: \u201cVShojo, NIJISANJI, Hololive \u2014 the whole ecosystem is going to grow and we want to be there alongside it.\u201d Treating VTubers like every other streamer Odyssey\u2019s commitment to the VTuber space doesn\u2019t stop with just creating their own mascot. They want to help elevate existing creators. The support came very early on. Due to Vienna\u2019s ties to the VTuber community, naturally playtests were full of virtual creators. The anime-inspired art tied nicely into it all thematically. But it wasn\u2019t just the big Twitch and YouTube stars getting in early, it was creators of all shapes and sizes. \u201cI pushed to invite players, and while a lot of them weren\u2019t on our influencer radar, I made sure they were added because I was managing a lot of that,\u201d Vienna said. \u201cWe had someone on the inside who knew the VTuber community and knew all the people in it \u2014 even the smaller ones. \u201cIf you think about it, the only VTuber exclusive thing in [our marketing plan] was Sonii and the VTuber Invitational, and those happened well after release. Before that, there wasn\u2019t anything VTuber-y but they were excited about it, and that\u2019s from integrating them pre-release in the community and trying the game.\u201d What they did do was give them the chance to shine alongside their fleshy streamer counterparts. The Creator VS event on the open beta launch had a smattering of content creators from all backgrounds. It allowed streamers to harness their fan bases to play for them. A win in Omega Strikers counted as a point, with the top three at the end of it all earning a skin in-game. \u201cIf it\u2019s a leaderboard where I\u2019m telling my fans to go out there and play games on my behalf, that\u2019s fun,\u201d Andrus said. \u201cYou can see that with creators like MoistCr1TiKal where the reaction from his community was like \u2018this is the closest I\u2019ll ever get to playing for Moist Esports so get me in there.\u2019 \u201cBy getting everyone involved in that kind of way, you can create these much more interesting and engaging stories. It makes it much more fun to be a part of the community rather than watching and consuming content.\u201d There was Sykkuno and MoistCr1TiKal, but then there was also Onigiri, a VTuber known for her cooking content. The fact it wasn\u2019t just a \u201cTwitch Rivals competition of sorts\u201d and something she could engage her community, Onimart, in was interesting. She saw first-hand how the integration in-game brought her closer to her fans, and vice versa. \u201cI was actually really touched that my Discord community held a few game nights for the event,\u201d she told Dexerto. \u201cI played on stream once, and held a community game night where I played with everyone and I think they enjoyed the bonding time and just having fun with everybody. \u201cIt\u2019s a known fact I\u2019m not much of a gamer, so I totally understand if it\u2019s hard to rally a community behind a content creator that\u2019s not in that space, so that\u2019s why it felt especially special when we placed eighth in the whole tourney. \u201cI liked this creative approach to not just find content creators to push this new game, but also to get their own respective communities involved like it was a big group event.\u201d Having those VTubers brush shoulders with regular streamers does help break down the barriers though, and it\u2019s something Odyssey wants to continue doing. \u201cWe don\u2019t see the VTuber creators as fundamentally different to the other creators that were in the event,\u201d Andrus said. \u201cThey\u2019re creating content, they have communities who love them and their content. There are some differences in terms of them having to set up a model and rig and sit in front of a phone to do all the capture, but it\u2019s a relationship that exists between a creator and their community, and we didn\u2019t see that as fundamentally different to someone like Moist.\u201d This then led to things like the aforementioned VTuber Invitational, with eight teams of VTubers getting together in a competitive setting and duking it out. It\u2019s nothing special \u2014 it\u2019s just a tournament and VTubers just happen to be the players \u2014 but it\u2019s a significant moment for the space to be recognized in that capacity. It had some iconic moments too. When you have Selen Tatsuki and Finana Ryugu piloting their teams of NIJISANJI talents against each other, the trash talk is immaculate. But it also gave a chance for the community to interact with each other, with Omega Strikers facilitating that connection. \u201cWe didn\u2019t just get the top end of the VTuber ecosystem,\u201d Andrus said. \u201cWe tried to get some indies who have been a core part of our community for a while, pulled people who are up and coming stars, and put them alongside the bigger organizations to really show we\u2019re interested in building this community for the long run \u201cWhen the NIJISANJI teams played each other that\u2019s one thing, but then you\u2019ve got Zentreya playing against Vienna \u2014 they have a relationship so you have interesting back and forth \u201cI wish the community could have seen the Discord chat where we were facilitating the tournament and all the crazy sh*t talk.\u201d The response to the event was surprising too: \u201cOne of the interesting things we have found is the communities behind VTubers are some of the most dedicated, engaged communities you see in the whole gaming space. The fandom that exists for specific VTubers is wild,\u201d Andrus said. \u201cIt\u2019s funny because I\u2019ve seen from developers a whole gamut of different reactions to VTubing generally. You get the developers like us who are super excited about it and see it as an awesome new avenue for the content creator space to take that we want to explore. Then there\u2019s the far other end of \u2018what\u2019s this weird anime stuff going on?\u2019 \u201cThe distribution of that is shifting more over time, even in the developer space, in seeing the value and being supportive of VTubers.\u201d That\u2019s the future power in VTubing creators want developers to see, and something Odyssey will continue to highlight. VTubers are just streamers at the end of the day, just virtual ones. There might be some resistance from a minority who aren\u2019t 100% accepting of this new style, but that doesn\u2019t invalidate their existence, Vienna says. \u201cI was on the LCS broadcast twice, and a lot of people were averse to it and thought it was weird and creepy. Doublelift was co-streaming and he said something like \u2018even though this isn\u2019t something I\u2019m personally interested in, you guys are sounding like boomers. You guys are like the people your grandparents were who look at something and hate it because they don\u2019t understand it. This is the future, this is going to happen, and you can either try to understand it or you can continue acting like this.\u2019 \u201cI was thinking of that when I was working at Odyssey \u2014 it doesn\u2019t matter if some people are turned off by this, they can just not participate in that one small aspect of it if they don\u2019t want to, but the positive aspect of doing this is we get to appreciate and capture a market no one else seems to understand or try to cater to.\u201d It\u2019s a growing space, and there\u2019s plenty of potential. There just needs to be an understanding of that, and a way to get the foot in the door, to make it beneficial to all parties. \u201cI think this was a great direction to take especially when the VTuber community is slowly growing, and slowly becoming more commonplace and \u2018mainstream,\u2019\u201d Onigiri added. \u201cIt\u2019s nice to see we\u2019re not just a niche, and it was fun to see other streamers\u2019 stickers pop up during games, and have all the different chats and communities mingle while being brought together over a fun game. \u201cThis kind of style of combining fleshtubers and VTubers together is a really great way of introducing new content creators in general to more people; as opposed to viewers who only watch fleshtubers because that\u2019s all they know, or VTuber watchers who only like anime waifus. \u201cI have high hopes that eventually our communities will be able to mingle and we can collaborate with whomever we want. Anybody can be a vtuber, anybody can be a fleshtuber, and there are no hidden boundaries between anybody.\u201d Omega Strikers is a case study of that potential: an authentic way of integrating VTubing into a game\u2019s community, breaking down the barriers between streaming mediums, and just seeing it as another form of content creation. It\u2019s not an easy realm to understand, but they\u2019re committed for the long term. \u201cIf you\u2019re a developer and you do not work normally in the VTuber community, you should find someone to help you navigate it and do something that feels authentic,\u201d Andrus explained. \u201cIf we had done this on our own without the advice or guidance of a lot of members in the community, Sonii would not be as awesome as Sonii is. The collaboration we had with Iron Vertex may not have happened. \u201cWe wanted to put our best foot forward, go out there, and say we\u2019re serious about supporting the VTuber community for Omega Strikers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How Odyssey found their home in the VTuber community with Omega Strikers Odyssey InteractiveInfluencer marketing is everywhere nowadays as streamers promote the biggest games on the market. Odyssey Interactive took a different approach with Omega Strikers though, going all in on VTubing to build their future alongside the growing medium. When Odyssey Interactive first started […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83866\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}