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Why is marketing so damn expensive and so highly prioritized in game development?

G

GlassBox

Banned
Point of warning, a lot of what I say is influenced by admittedly anecdotal situations I've found myself in.

I often wonder why do game developers, especially the bigger publishing houses, put so much emphasis on marketing, and by that, I mean resources, money and time, to the detriment of actual production. On the face of things, I've read about marketing budgets for games and how huge those costs are and cannot help but think how that money would have been better spent on things like manpower (in-house talent vs. outsourcing), tech (been in some devs where artists have worse machines than producers) and other costs towards actual development.

Then I think about the marketers themselves, usually a bunch of overpaid (they definitely earn more than most regular developers, not counting the "Senior" staff) overindulgent types who think their ideas are the greatest thing under the sun (for the most part, they're pretty much crap). They're given incredible power to go in and interrupt game development by issuing the most ridiculous tasks to the team to produce marketing materials for them, or game demos, etc. or other kinds of requests, usually unrelated to a developers current milestone.

I often wonder if "AAA/HD" is just a euphemism for "lets see how much money we can blow on marketing and advertising!" instead of the quality of the actual game. :(
 
1

1-D_FTW

Member
A lot of marketing for the right game will sell it. I still remember all the ads for GTA 3. You could tell right away that UBI was going to crush it with AC 3. Advertising is generally a waste, but if you have the right hook, it's how you get the mega sales. AAAA publishers are all about lotto IPs. Go big or go home.
 
K

KHarvey16

Member
Unfortunately it's like the fuel that powers the rocket. Its weight prevents you from bringing everything you want and the things you do bring from doing everything you want them to do, but without it you don't leave the pad.
 
P

PFD

Member
I don't mind marketing, but it's absolutely ridiculous to halt development in order to work on a ton of assets for an E3 demo that will not be used in the main game.
 
P

Pyronite

Member
KHarvey16 said:
Unfortunately it's like the fuel that powers the rocket. Its weight prevents you from bringing everything you want and the things you do bring from doing everything you want them to do, but without it you don't leave the pad.
Click to expand...

This is a very good way to put it.
 
J

Jedi2016

Member
All the production budget in the world doesn't mean anything if people don't know your game exists. Your marketing has to be big and brash and make people want to go buy your game sight unseen.

We get a bit spoiled being on a forum like this, where we can know everything about a game long before it launches. Despite the numbers here, we're the minority. Most people won't know much beyond the game's title and how "cool" it looks in the commercials, and a lot of them don't care to know any more than that.
 
A

akira28

Member
They wanna make money, and can't unless people know about what game they're selling.


Also, at some point, companies figured out you could push a shitty product, just as long as you had top notch marketing for it. You would sell enough units. Practical, craven bastards. Avoid at all costs.

and yeah, I always took AAA titles to mean the ones that would have adverts on Buses and billboards, and that's basically it. It would receive the blockbuster movie treatment, and have a high production value. It wouldn't necessarily mean it was fun, or a good game.
 
M

Manmademan

Member
release a good game to retail with no marketing and you get shadow of the damned.

release an average game with a fantastic marketing campaign, and you get FF7.

Lack of marketing killed the Dreamcast.
Click to expand...

the dreamcast had plenty of marketing. The problem was that the campaign ("it's thinking") was terrible, and no amount of marketing would have kept it from getting obliterated by the hype for the PS2. it should have launched a year after, not before.
 
D

danthefan

Member
I don't really see the need for huge marketing campaigns for the likes of COD or Battlefield tbh. They'll sell regardless.

Then on the other hands you've games like Dark Souls or Ni No Kuni with no marketing at all which spread by word of mouth/internet communities and they sell really well too.
 
N

number47

Member
It depends on the game itself. AAA titles like GTA,cod,sf. Franchises that made it after the first series launched well don't really bother. Most sequels hardly do. Darksiders 2 required marketing because the first barely did well. We can blame bad or lack of marketing for the wii u for its terrible sales.

Basically marketing and ads develop the road to its consumers.
Also AAA titles are known to throw money at everything. Like that one thread about how cod has like 5 writers,just to avoid heavy responsibility. Don't quote me on that. Fuuzy memory
 
E

EatinOlives

Member
On the other hand, you have Sony published games for the past year or so pushed out to shelves with nearly zero marketing, to the point where not even enthusiast gaming forums even realize that certain first/second party games are either coming out the next day or already did.

Marketing at times might seem like useless fluff but it's most definitely needed.
 
M

Manmademan

Member
danthefan said:
I don't really see the need for huge marketing campaigns for the likes of COD or Battlefield tbh. They'll sell regardless.

Then on the other hands you've games like Dark Souls or Ni No Kuni with no marketing at all which spread by word of mouth/internet communities and they sell really well too.
Click to expand...

COD and Battlefield sold well in part BECAUSE of their marketing campaigns. they're at the point now where they can just coast though...sort of.
 
G

GlassBox

Banned
I certainly have no problem with getting the word out. The problem I have is when marketers start to impede production by either requesting irrelevant materials, or worse, when they start to demand changes to the game to try and "get a broader audience".

For instance, Darksiders 2 had a ton of marketing to try and reach the broader audience (TV, Billboards, bus ads, etc.), yet it sold below expectations anyway.
 
T

theytookourjobz

Junior Member
danthefan said:
I don't really see the need for huge marketing campaigns for the likes of COD or Battlefield tbh. They'll sell regardless.

Then on the other hands you've games like Dark Souls or Ni No Kuni with no marketing at all which spread by word of mouth/internet communities and they sell really well too.
Click to expand...

I think you overestimate the average consumer. Without the commercials constantly blasting release dates for Halo/CoD/BF, most of the guys I know who buy those games wouldn't know there was a new game coming.
 
P

Persona7

Banned
danthefan said:
I don't really see the need for huge marketing campaigns for the likes of COD or Battlefield tbh. They'll sell regardless.

Then on the other hands you've games like Dark Souls or Ni No Kuni with no marketing at all which spread by word of mouth/internet communities and they sell really well too.
Click to expand...

Can you link your source on Ni No Kuni sales?
 
Z

ZaCH3000

Member
Video game marketing is actually pretty easy. Communicating the product through advertisements is the most difficult challenge for publishers.

Sony is probably the only publisher that is poor at marketing. Not for all of their products. The niche games are usually poorly marketed. That's a big problem because even Sony published niche games receive big budgets and have high production values. Another drawback are their advertisements. They typically fail to get the message across. I'm left with the impression that Sony tries wayyyyy too hard with some of their advertising campaigns.

It's definitely Sony's primary shortcoming.
 
L

liquidtmd

Banned
Its not just marketing - studios are going under or titles are being deemed flops if they dont sell millions of copies in a week.

Forget the arguments about 'b-b-but thats what AAA games cost' - this gambling mentality is INSANE. Great experiences can still be made and not have to bet the house on.

As to marketing specifically, I dont know its worth anything. Aggressive advertising usually turns me off a product, as they tend to be COD/Dudebro titles.
 
Fox Mulder

Fox Mulder

Member
Everything AAA is the same and you need a slick campaign to stand out and get people to spend $60 on something now.
 
S

SapientWolf

Trucker Sexologist
Sales-wise, it can be better to have a mediocre game with a ton of marketing than an awesome game with no marketing. That's how powerful marketing is.
 
R

RedWaltz79

Neo Member
If people don't know about your game, and have a favorable impression of a game, then they won't buy it. Games aren't cheap and it takes a lot of convincing to get someone to shell out $60.00, especially upfront for a preorder, for something they haven't played.

Plus, there is a strong temptation for people to wait till a game comes out and then try to buy it used.

Marketing is super important.
 
G

GlassBox

Banned
liquidtmd said:
Its not just marketing - studios are going under or titles are being deemed flops if they dont sell millions of copies in a week.

Forget the arguments about 'b-b-but thats what AAA games cost' - this gambling mentality is INSANE. Great experiences can still be made and not have to bet the house on.

As to marketing specifically, I dont know its worth anything. Aggressive advertising usually turns me off a product, as they tend to be COD/Dudebro titles.
Click to expand...
Totally agreed. I can't stand the mentality behind some companies and their "forecasts". A lot of their forecasts just seem so freaking unreasonable and WTF.

"We sold only one million copies in a month! We suck!"
 
G

Gintamen

Member
Exr said:
I thought that if SEGA did anything right with the Dreamcast it was that they had a strong marketing campaign for it including big price cuts.
Click to expand...
Not in all regions it seems. Ten years ago the blame was on the lack of advertisement, since time will tell lies, I will rather keep with that reasoning than some "bad" marketing."
 
O

outunderthestars

Banned
It an easy question to answer: the larger the budget for the game, the wider of an audience it needs to find. The percentage of that audience that willingly self engages through sites like this and Giant Bomb is really quite small. This requires a marketing campaign to get the game in the minds of a consumer population that isn't actively looking for it.

It's easier for hardcore and niche games because they only need people like us.
 
diffusionx

diffusionx

Gold Member
You can't buy what you don't know about.

I do think, though, that people tend to over-emphasize it, in that they think more marketing would have saved games that probably didn't have much of a chance in the first place (like PSABR).

GlassBox said:
Totally agreed. I can't stand the mentality behind some companies and their "forecasts". A lot of their forecasts just seem so freaking unreasonable and WTF.

"We sold only one million copies in a month! We suck!"
Click to expand...

A million is a big number, but it's also just a number. Just because it hits that doesn't make it successful.
 
Q

Qurupeke

Member
I'm not sure if I'm the only one that thinks this, but when 3DS started to sell, Nintendo had stopped promoting it as a machine that has 3D without glasses. Sure, it sold better because games started to appear and there was a huge pricecut. But the change on the marketing has certainly affected it as well. Many people believed it was a DS with 3D and nothing more. And the first commercials were about the 3D and not the games.
 
G

GlassBox

Banned
faceless007 said:
It's almost 9 years old now but Jason Rubin's 2004 talk at DICE about the changing state of the industry is still pretty relevant and predicted a lot of things about the way the AAA industry was heading. TLDR: Publishers see their product as packaged goods and commodities, so they give marketers more power than developers. Developers allow this to happen. The cycle continues.
Click to expand...
Holy crap I remember this! The guy really was a prophet! I wish others would have the balls to say what's really on their mind like this.
 
R

RibMan

Member
Marketing is prioritized because marketing can make or break a product. Marketing involves not only looking at a large set of data, but it also involves processing that data and making smart decisions based on that data. The audience, branding, pricing, positioning, advertising, distribution - these are typically decided and finalized through marketing.

A miscalculation in marketing can do a significant - and often irreversible - amount of damage to a products perception and reception. For example, an often forgotten marketing miscalculation was the original iPhones price. The iPhone would have suffered a very different fate had Apple not revisited their marketing decisions. A more recent example of another marketing misstep is the Wii U - or more specifically, the Wii U advertising campaign. The people who typically buy a product in its launch window (early adopters) are people who have disposable income and a higher level of interest in the product than the average consumer. The current Wii U advertising campaign does a very poor job of attracting early adopters.

Marketers are usually paid very well because their job is very difficult. That's not to say a marketers job is more difficult than say, a programmers job, but it's still a very tasking job that requires a lot of time. Time is money.

Think of marketing as the middleman between a product and a consumer. If your company has a revolutionary product and really knows its audience then your company may not need a middleman. However, the reality for the majority of companies in the world is they do not make revolutionary products, thus they need someone to take what they have and find an audience for them.
 
M

Mesoian

Member
GlassBox said:
Point of warning, a lot of what I say is influenced by admittedly anecdotal situations I've found myself in.

I often wonder why do game developers, especially the bigger publishing houses, put so much emphasis on marketing, and by that, I mean resources, money and time, to the detriment of actual production. On the face of things, I've read about marketing budgets for games and how huge those costs are and cannot help but think how that money would have been better spent on things like manpower (in-house talent vs. outsourcing), tech (been in some devs where artists have worse machines than producers) and other costs towards actual development.

Then I think about the marketers themselves, usually a bunch of overpaid (they definitely earn more than most regular developers, not counting the "Senior" staff) overindulgent types who think their ideas are the greatest thing under the sun (for the most part, they're pretty much crap). They're given incredible power to go in and interrupt game development by issuing the most ridiculous tasks to the team to produce marketing materials for them, or game demos, etc. or other kinds of requests, usually unrelated to a developers current milestone.

I often wonder if "AAA/HD" is just a euphemism for "lets see how much money we can blow on marketing and advertising!" instead of the quality of the actual game. :(
Click to expand...

Because it's the only way to get the word out to the non-hardcore gamer legion. People like us know everything as it's announced, we know why it's important and we know why we choose to ignore or pay attention to it. The people who only buy Madden or Call of Duty do not. And the marketing is specifically for them, because if you do it right, you stand to gain millions on millions.

But it's a crap shoot, as we've seen.

Willypiggy said:
It's sold out everywhere in the UK, was first in the charts overtaking DmC, BO2 + FIFA 13. They had to sort out new shipments to help sort out the shortage.
Click to expand...

But it won't be next week. The hardcore sect has spoken. The drop off will be dramatic.
 
N

number47

Member
Who advertises other than Activision and UbiSoft.

2k hardly did with this current gen and they are making bank.
 
T

Tookay

Member
number47 said:
It depends on the game itself. AAA titles like GTA,cod,sf. Franchises that made it after the first series launched well don't really bother. Most sequels hardly do. Darksiders 2 required marketing because the first barely did well. We can blame bad or lack of marketing for the wii u for its terrible sales.

Basically marketing and ads develop the road to its consumers.
Also AAA titles are known to throw money at everything. Like that one thread about how cod has like 5 writers,just to avoid heavy responsibility. Don't quote me on that. Fuuzy memory
Click to expand...

No, those series do it too. COD blows a lot of money on big names in its commercials every year (the one with Kobe and the other celebrities fighting each other springs to mind).

The fact of the matter is that we live in a world of constant distractions, where people are bombarded with all sorts of entertainment options. You need huge marketing resources for the big guns to stand out, capture the audience beyond forum-dwellers (who are already in the know), and recoup dev costs.
 
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