Ben-DutkaI still remember a time when the idea of seeing a video game commercial on TV was just plain silly. I.e., it could never happen. I still remember thinking a full trailer for a game shown in movie theaters couldn't happen, either. But these days, gaming is big business, and commercials and ads are commonplace. The question is, should we worry about over-marketing?
Look, it's great for the industry. More money means more resources and more opportunities to recruit the best artistic and technical talent in the world. There's no doubt we've benefited from the vastly increased popularity and overall sales, as development studios have continued to expand and impress in most every conceivable way. But there is one major difference between then and now: back then, I'd say at least 90% of those who participated in gaming would consider themselves "hardcore." It was a primary hobby. It was geeky, but we got into it. It was like being part of your own underground little club and that "little club" is very, very mainstream now. Recent analyst and publisher estimates say about 80% of the market is "casual" now.
The "casual" market, as we all know, is easily swayed by in-your-face ads and marketing. They're not frequenting game forums and doing a ton of research and chatting with hardcore followers of the industry. Almost by default, the casuals are not exactly arbiters of top-notch quality. It's great that gaming may very well be the only industry left that rewards quality; i.e., the best selling games are often the best received by critics. On the flip side, the worst tripe in the movie, music and book industries seem to top the charts. But how long can this last for video games if the casual market begins to dominate what we want…? They will readily respond to the aforementioned in-your-face advertising and the circle will begin: big advertising for game that isn't so great; casuals respond; game sells great, developers create another "meh" game.
Fortunately, I don't believe the situation is quite so dire just yet. And this is because the developers are gamers themselves. They want to create the best, most memorable product possible. They do care about sales, of course, but so many are so unbelievably dedicated and their #1 priority is quality. So long as game makers remain this way, and overall, consumers continue to reward quality on the whole, everything should be fine. I just worry about the day when the casual market makes everything go topsy-turvy and the masses turn gaming into the other entertainment venues…where chick lit dominates books, the most processed, artificial "music" tops charts, and "Hot Tub Time Machine" is #1 at the box office.
The straits of the gaming industry is not yet anywhere near as dire as that of films. At least we still get good quality products on a farily regular basis. I've only been interested in seeing about a half dozen cinematic releases this past year.
Also, Valkyria Chronicles is a great game, and Yakuza 3 is also supposedly. The same goes for Bayonetta. Sure they've had bombs in AvP, the Sonic games and Alpha Protocol, but that's just the way things are.
Peace.
First and foremost, gaming was never "geeky" to begin with. If its geeky, its obviously so because gamers see themselves as being so.
Secondly its not over-markting which shouldn't be of concern(since that its a non-issue and have been as staple of the industry ever since the 80's), but game butgets. To it quite frank, game developmet get is getting out of hand, its getting usustainable and at the same time its killing the video game industry just as high budgets is hurting hollywood. Even the leftist news magazine Slate(who I never tend to agree with) and CNBC both agree agree that high budgets are hurting game industry:
http://www.slate.com/id/2210732/
http://m.cnbc.com/id/35932496/As_Video_Game_Development_Costs_Rise_So_Do_Risks
As for the issue of over-marketing, regardless of industry marketing would always be a central feature as its how businesses(and politicans) sell themselves.
Last edited by A2K78 on 10/2/2010 6:53:28 AM
not sure if anyone will see this but o'well.
I can see your point Ben, its very valid and I think one day it will happen. However we must ask ourselves how much of the "casual gamers" would have brought these amazing triple AAA titles of this generation if thats all they are is casual gamers.
It stinks that great games won't receive as much representation via commercials and promotions especially when they lose it to garbage. However they still will revive some of they attention they need and in a medium where they will be payed attention to, ie. this site, kotaku, and other gaming news places. One game that comes to mind is Demons Souls. That game had no promotion and the only reason I knew about it was because of psxextreme. I learned about it because I'm a hardcore gamer and I want to play stuff that I choose not stuff that is chosen for me, as well as play games that will interest me.
Basically what I'm trying to say is amongst the hardcore gamers, we will find games that are amazing and tell others (who actually want to play them) about them.
It's not ideal but it is somewhat effective. But its what we've got as of right now as I feel what you described in the article is inevitable to some extent. Granted I think people tend to think more about a $60 game purchase than a $10 movie ticket so hopefully it never gets as bad as just buying what you see previews for.
Good point. Great games hype themselves through word of mouth. And it's a good system, as it is a way of sharing information.
I too think that people will always consider the purchase of a game more than a movie due to the massive price difference, but there are a lot of, shall we say, less than reasonable people in the world. Ah well, c'est la vie all that.
Peace.
Well, i agree.
But, the dark day will inevitably come.
This generation, i have been enthusiastic to few games compared to the last generations. It's becoming rarer and rarer to see a truly well thought out, intelligent game. When i say intelligent, i don't necessarily mean deep and articulate, i mean a game that doesn't INSULT my intelligence such as a mind numbing, hand holding, eye candy game.
I couldn't name 5 games that i desperately want recently and that's never happened. I have bought probably a quarter of the games i had this time last generation.
Not many are challenging my imagination, giving me that magical feeling and being permanently stamped on my mind.
Someone posed the notion to me that maybe we're now spoiled, thanks to what we can now achieve with these consoles or that i am simply suffering from nostalgia. I told him it's entirely the opposite.
I gave him the example of Demon's Souls and LittleBigPlanet, two this generation games at either end of the stick that both leave an ever lasting impression on me. They give me THAT feeling.
This generation will probably be my "What if?" generation. We have a console that can hold the key to the next great innovations, and we're using it little. The creations we could of had this generation is enough to make me upset. They still come thanks to a certain stance on innovation etc by Sony and few others….and we get the Heavy Rains, Demon's Souls, Last Guardians, LittleBigPlanets and The Another Worlds….but they're few and far between now and i think it'll get fewer.
But, as i said, i also agree. The game industry is still in the OK despite it being hugely commercial now. A great example is Red Dead Redemption, a hugely commercial game, critically adored, sold by the bucket load and actually IS an intelligent game with tons of depth.
The only sad thing is that i hear the clock ticking.
Last edited by Lotusflow3r on 10/2/2010 10:25:40 AM
Weren't we just crying las year about Sony's lack of marketing?
Any fool who wants to sell something has to do marketing. Games, currently being as popular as they are, are bound to be marketed up the wazoo. In my opinion it doesn't kill anything, it brings it to life.
Or are we so elite that our minds do not allow for any other form of gaming? It always has to be what's "great" to us and there's no room for the perceived casual, twitch or whatever other degrading label we can come up with next.
I say if you game because of a commercial, then good for you. If you game because you own a Wii, then good for you. If you game because you think the games you buy are the best on the market, then good for you. There's room here for all of us.
At the minute, this is true.
What we're are worried about, is it going too far ala music or film industries which has basically killed the mainstream areas of said industries (see last bit of editorial).
So far in gaming, you have correct points, but there are worries and i try to explain mine above.
The Beatles used to be "maintstream." You know what? The old fogies didn't like them. They thought RR was destroying music. They were wrong. That mainstream music was brilliant and is still enjoyed to this day.
I'm practically convinced that people just like to separate themselves from what's popular in order to look and sound superior. As if "their day" was better and what you get "these days" is just crap. It's called taste and creativity, and it comes around in all generations of mankind.
I think marketing is necessary for any form of entertainment, but I don't believe the majority of people are blind to it.
No, the Beatles are crap, imo. And I'm sure I'm not the only one who doesn't like them.
There's something you're missing, Alienange. The popular games ARE the great games. And if you admit that the popular products in other entertainment venues are NOT always the great stuff, the only conclusion one can reach is that extended marketing and advertising to the masses can in fact result in lesser-quality products because…well, because the casual masses aren't none too bright, as history has proven again and again.
This is true, Ben.
Marketing 101 shows that sales drastically improve with more exposure to various media outlets. In fact, they say you might sell to someone if they see 2 or 3 ads, they'll seriously consider it after seeing 7 or 8 different ads, and the general consumer population will 85% of the time make a purchase if they are subjected to 15+ various advertisements.
Now, I'm no business major, but that's also certainly the case in fundraising campaigns as well!
C'mon Alien, you gotta face it, the wider the appeal the crappier the product. If we lose niche developers like ICO because of the easier to sell crap that your precious Activision makes then we have suffered a major loss.
Yes because majority of gamers are,dare i say…sheeple?What makes it even worse is the fact that the most hyped games tend to be games like halo and call of duty and that annoys me.
People need to stop complaining about Activision. Yes Sony has some of the best games out, but they don't make Activision money because they don't advertise their exclusives. The most advertisements I have ever seen for a sony exclusive game was GOWIII. Anyway, I don't think over advertising will occur because only big companies advertise the sh*t out of their games compared to developers who make games like Red Faction, Just Cause 2, etc.