When the PlayStation Network was first founded, it was mostly filled with games and gaming content, but the promise was there for much more. As time has gone on, more and more features have been added, including PlayStation Home and a video download service, that expanded it beyond standard multiplayer offerings. Now with features like PlayStation Plus, the free service has clearly become an important part of Sony’s porfolio, so engaging customers with original content like The Tester is key. We talked with Susan Panico, senior director for PlayStation Network, about the development of PSN and the making of The Tester 2.
What’s your background in SCEA?
I’ve been at PlayStation for a long time, for all the PlayStation systems, and so that’s a gaming background; almost four years ago when we decided to work on PSN, I’d very much say the vision was to build an entertainment destination that offered content.
Tell me a little bit of backstory behind creating original content for PSN.
For PSN, we started a small original programing team with the objective of reaching people [who are] consuming media digitally, getting things anytime on a variety of devices. It becomes important, then, to offer things you can’t have anywhere else, and that was the crux behind creating original programming, and almost half the gaming content [offered on PSN] is exclusive. For original entertainment content, we started with Qore, a digizine with game creator interviews and previews, then moved onto Pulse, which is our equivalent of a TV Guide telling you what’s on PSN and then we launched into Tester.
What was the impetus for The Tester?
We worked with 51 Minds production, who have a successful track record with VH1 and Rock of Love, on the Tester. Between all of these, we wanted to create programming that still touched on the gaming lifestyle and there were a lot of things we learned — we still had a lot of success with 2.5 million downloads but can’t accurately track viewers because there might be multiple viewers on each screen. We’re hoping to increase viewership by double.
Tell us about the Tester 2 and why you think it will be larger and more successful this time.
There were 28,000 participants trying to get on the show, so there was a lot of involvement in the development of Tester 2. We got an overwhelming amount of people that wanted to see content of this type. We got great feedback too; they wanted the episodes to be longer, so instead of 16 to 20 minutes, we shift to 22 to 26 minutes long with more emphasis on the drama, things like the player alliances and romances, beefing up the reality part of it. We strengthen the things we did well, like, we brought in guest judges which legitimizes the opportunities for the contestants and seeing the Spielbergs of their category.
Our panel of judges.
What prompted the idea to have more integrated marketing in Tester 2?
A couple of things — last year, we wanted to focus on doing the show right. We’ve been in the business of making games, so there’s a lot of shifts we had to make from a game company to a media company, but now we’re more willing to dip our toes in the water.
We don’t want overtly “in your face” sort of advertising, and we look at it as ‘branded entertainment’ and I think our audience appreciates that.
Could you give an example of the ‘branded entertainment’?
Ford is a good example, providing Ford Flex as a means of transportation between events and it was integrated into the show. That angle works well for us, I think.
Was it easier to sell the show to advertising partners now that it is established
Definitely, but one of the things that… it’s really interesting for us, because brands in general they look at advertising from a CPM perspective. We’re very much an emerging media that is less about CPM and is more about engagement and there’s a lot of great brands out there that get that and see where interactive media is evolving to.
We might not bring the mass marketing numbers of TV, but we have a highly engaged, highly concentrated, primarily male demographic, like in Home who are spending 70 minutes each, and that’s a lot of time.
Why is original programming important to building PSN?
On PSN, we have 50 million registered accounts, a little over half of which are in North America. Our main competitor isn’t people you think about, it’s time. When there’s a proliferation of content, it makes it hard to get their attention. You look at HBO, they originally delivered movies on TV in a different window than normal, then they evolved some original content, then you’re started to see Emmy winning shows like Sopranos; we’re not their yet, but I do hope our long term plan will have lots of great original content.
Why do you think the Tester matches the fanbase of PSN so well?
It could be easy for us to make a skateboarding show or extreme sports, but we wanted to start close to gamer centric content. It’s not just about an entry level position that universities have built degrees around, it’s about the challenges they go through. There are judges that are their heroes from the gaming industry and that really excites them and the audience.
I don’t know how long ago it was, but I was sitting in the Q&A department in the lunchroom, trying to come up with content ideas. Then all the Sony game testers came into the lunchroom for a break, and they had no idea who I was. And there were all these guys and it was interesting to listen to them and hear them talk and they were an interesting cast of people and I thought, “This is how our audience talks when they’re online or on their campus quads” and I thought it was something that had potential.
So creation of The Tester was a bit serendipitous then?
Yeah, it was a little! 51 Minds really helped shape the show into something that’s entertaining too — I give them a lot of credit.
Susan, thanks for your time.
