Video Games PR
Nathan Mills is a Senior PR and Marketing Executive for KOEI TECMO GAMES, one of Japan’s leading video game development studios.
He travels the world attending the industry’s biggest events, promoting hit games such as the Nioh series and Dead or Alive, among many others. He speaks with journalists, YouTubers, and Twitch streamers daily, building up excitement around current releases, and he gets to test drive upcoming games well-before they hit the market.
He said: “I love this company and working on these games. I’ve worked on so many big games over the past few years and been to all the biggest events in the industry. There’s never a boring day. No two days are the same.”
Design to Promotion
Nathan found his passion for promoting games while designing them on the Computer Games Design course at Staffordshire University. Originally from London, Nathan visited several universities after finishing school, before settling on Staffs.
He said: “To be honest, I thought I’d be a teacher when I was in school. But I sat down with my dad and decided to look at games design courses. We went to two university open days and the teachers just didn’t seem to know what they were talking about. Then we went to Staffs, which was one of the highest rated for games design in the country. The facilities were great and the teaching staff all seemed really knowledgeable. I chose it because of that.”
He started his degree in 2012, when the gaming industry was amidst a rapid and ongoing growth, as the UK market alone more than doubled in value from 2007 to 2019, according to the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA). During his time on the course, Nathan discovered an interest in promoting games, and started gravitating away from design.
“The animation side of the course was a really fun part for me,” he recalled. “In our second and third years, we worked in teams to make complete games. We made a music-themed survival first-person shooter called cHORDES – a game that mixed combat and music together. But I didn’t follow the course exactly. I was less interested in actually designing the games and was more passionate about promoting and building excitement for them amongst traditional press and content creators.”
Career in Gaming
Nathan got his first job in the industry within weeks of graduating in 2015. He said: “I got a job pretty quick after graduating, when I started at a PR agency, as a PR intern, at Stature PR, in London where I got to learn the core PR skills while working for a range of different gaming and non-gaming clients.”
A few months later, he joined KOEI TECMO GAMES, based in Hertfordshire, as a PR and Marketing Executive, and has since been promoted to Senior PR and Marketing Executive. The company is responsible for games such as Nioh, DEAD OR ALIVE, PROJECT ZERO: MAIDEN OF BLACK WATER, DYNASTY WARRIORS, and more. While its European subsidiary is based in the UK, KOEI TECMO employs over 1,800 worldwide and is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Nathan said: “I’ve been here for six years now. I’ve noticed quite a change in the industry just in the time I’ve been in it. When I started, we were much more heavily targeting magazines and now we have a much heavier focus on YouTubers and Twitch streamers.
“Some of the biggest games I’ve worked on are Nioh and DEAD OR ALIVE. We run our own private hands-on events, but I’ve also been to E3 in the US, Gamescom in Germany, and Tokyo Game Show in Japan, among others. With the games, we get to play them at every step of the development process and provide feedback. I also get to see my name in the credits of games series’ that I have loved since I was a kid – there’s a lot of fun perks.”
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