In 1994, Spider-Man was down on his luck.

His various comic book lines were being slowly consumed by the infamous “Clone Saga,” which would come to represent Marvel at its height of desperation and excess. James Cameron was developing a feature film based on his adventures, but the project was destined to collapse. And while he remained synonymous with ’60s camp in the television world, Batman and the X-Men had been adapted into massively successful and thoroughly modern animated shows.

But on Nov. 19, the Web-Head’s fortunes finally began to change. After months of development chaos, Spider-Man: The Animated Series premiered on the Fox Kids Network. Immediately, it became a hit. A new generation had been introduced to the iconic character and his universe.

“It’s hard to believe now, because now I drive down the street, I see little kids with Spider-Man backpacks and little Spider-Man hoodies,” showrunner John Semper tells Inverse. “But back in ’93, young kids didn’t know who Spider-Man was.”

Thirty years since its debut, Spider-Man: The Animated Series’ influence remains profound. Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man film trilogy drew heavily from its interpretation of pivotal characters and storylines. In its final story arc, the show pioneered the “Spider-Verse,” which Sony Pictures has now expanded into two major box office hits. More recently, at the end of Marvel’s X-Men ’97, the show’s incarnation of Spider-Man appeared in a surprise cameo.

But how did such a seminal vision of the webslinger come together in the first place? To answer that question, Inverse spoke to the show’s creative team.

In August, PlayStation unleashed a massive marketing campaign to get its live shooter, Concord, in front of millions. Streamers who played the game on their channels mostly gave positive reviews. Weeks later, the game shut down, and in October, Sony announced it was closing the studio down. Concord now faces overwhelming dislike from users on Metacritic. Were the streamers so wrong? And if so, why do game marketers continue to turn to them first to get a game off the ground?

When a video game company is looking to push sales of a game, the go-to option is no longer to show a presentation at an annual convention (RIP E3), to place a splashy poster at a retail store, or even to buy traditional online ads (though that is clearly part of the strategy). A lot of companies now are going straight to individual enthusiasts to push their games. In many cases, getting a large influencer to play a game is enough to have it trend for days.

The “For You” page sitting at the top of your feed has become the new vanguard for determining which video games are fun to play. It’s a huge departure from a decade ago when companies would approach consumers via traditional forms of advertising.

“Now creators are brands, and rather than creators trying to leverage a brand for financial gain or some promotion, I feel like that is reversed, where it’s brands that are often trying to leverage the power, influence, and relevancy of a creator, who are themselves their own brands,” Twitch’s chief marketing officer Rachel Delphin tells Inverse. “The streamer knows their community, they know their aesthetic, they know what’s going to resonate.”

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