I'm glad to see a marketer who tries to perform his job honorably. Please believe me when I say that what's to follow is nothing personal and not directed at you, but at marketers (and the people who hire them) in general. I mean this as constructively as possible.
Now, as a gamer, let me tell you why I don't like marketing.
Marketing is about manipulating us, the customer, into buying stuff. As gamers -- people who desire the ability to control our actions -- we don't take kindly to that idea. I don't know any self-respecting human who would. Isn't agency central to being human? Then why would we ever want to give that up willingly, or worse yet, unwillingly and subconsciously?
But it's not even just that. If it was in our best interests, we would allow ourselves to be directed. But it isn't always in our best interests. Marketers have a job to sell stuff -- that stuff may be pure gold or pure shit, but it's their job to sell it. Screenshots, trailers, sneak previews and early reviews give gamers the sense that a game is going to be great. Maybe too great. Marketing tries its hardest to raise our expectations as high as possible so that we'll value it as highly as possible. It tries to make us think that we need this game no matter the price.
Then the game arrives and our expectations are thoroughly let-down. It could be because our expectations were set too high or, quite likely, the game is just out-right terrible. Whatever the case, we get angry at ourselves for being deceived and angry at the marketers and publishers for deceiving us.
Yes, we want to be marketed to, because we want to be excited for the next great game -- we like games and want to play all of the best games -- but we don't want to be lied to. Marketing is looked down on because it's often misleading, and many times, it is intentionally so. Nobody likes being lied to.
Now, my take on this might be a bit extreme. I'm all about free agency and I despise marketing of any kind. I don't like commercials, pop-ups, unsolicited emails, or even billboards. If I want something, I'll go looking for it, and I'll trust the recommendations of trusted friends and reviewers long before any publisher-sponsored advertisement. So it's entirely possible that I am an extreme case, biased by my own view of marketing and not representative of gamers in general.
But I think we all feel that hatred for marketing at some level. We don't want to be manipulated and we especially don't want to be mislead. We want to get excited about new games, but we want them to live up to their promises and we feel cheated when they don't. I don't expect that marketers will tone down their message when a game will likely suck, because that's not their job: marketers are paid by publishers to convince customers that their shit smells wonderful. But it's still shit and the customers will eventually realize that, and when they do, they will be upset and distrustful.
Everything else you said was also entirely true. The attempt to fit in and be one of us; the pandering to stereotypes that we, ourselves, despise -- we don't buy any of it. Publicity stunts like those for Dante's Inferno and APB only make us realize that marketers aren't on our side and don't know what we want.
You want to market a video game? Give us the goods: screenshots, gameplay videos, all the juicy details of what we'll see when we open the box. Don't try to spin it or make it look cool, just feed us the raw info that we crave. Our own imaginations and desires will drive the rest. As long as the gameplay videos and screenshots are real and what we can expect to see when we get the game, we'll be happy. Sure, you may not sell as many units if we see the real thing instead of the cinematic trailer, but we'll be a lot more likely to buy the next $60 game if we walk away from the ordeal with a positive experience.
I respect companies who don't sell their game, but let others sell it for them. Link to the major websites who are all posting rave reviews of your game (just don't pay them for that PR). Let me see the 7/10 ratings too, so that I know you aren't trying to pull a fast one on me (I'll buy a 7/10 game if it's something I find interesting; it doesn't have to be a 9.5). Give me the head's up when something new is coming out that I might be interested in. But don't ram it down my throat, don't mislead me into thinking it's something that it's not, and don't betray my trust by using underhanded tricks like paid "reviews".
Gamers want to be informed, not lied to. We want to love your game just as much as you want us to love it, but it has to be for real. Marketing isn't the problem; deceptive marketing is the problem. Unfortunately, nobody wants to pay to tell the real story: they'd rather tell the fairy tale with the happy ending. That's why we hate marketing: it's not trying to inform us; it's trying to deceive us.
