The Phases of Selling You a Videogame
How marketers find you, get you, and keep you.
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How marketers find you, get you, and keep you.
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So, you can market all you want, promise all you want, and plan on retention all you want, but a crap game is a crap game (*cough*Age of Conan*cough* *cough*Warhammer Online*cough*), and all the marketing in the work isn't going to close the loop if you don't provide something close to what you created in the players mind. Do you seriously put marketing above, say, Ken Levine's brilliant writing in determining the success of a game? I'm pretty sure marketers themselves, when you catch them being honest, which, seriously, is only after a bar tab the likes of which very few humans who don't OWN bars have ever seen, will tell you that they can't do anything sustainable or closed loop like you describe without, gasp, something that someone actually wants behind it all.Socrates said:I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man, public as well as private.
A few months ago I would've went and added to the count, for now I won't.Andy of Comix Inc said:Hmmm... I'm not convinced. Maybe I'm one of those people who say "hey! Hey! I'm not a sheep like everyone else!" even though I am, but I'd like to think my purchase is based solely off a game's quality, not because the marketing got to me. Sure, I keep one eye on the previews and the trailers and the Facebook page; but I also keep one eye on Metacritic...
I'm American, rarely see that sort of aggressive marketing. Youtube Generally will inform me, and publishers advertise a good deal on there.Telperion said:I see a game ad campaign on tv maybe two or three times a year. Honestly, do you think that's going to affect my decision making process? Beyond that your marketing doesn't seem to touch me, since I hear about games on this website or reading my favorite gaming magazine. And the magazine is the number one contributor to shaping my purchasing decisions.
Guess this whole aggressive marketing scheme is for Americans, because I have never seen it.
Part of a marketing strategy is reliance on gaming websites, youtube videos, and yes even your favorite gaming magazine. It's not just the press events or TV commercials. I don't think marketer's care how customers hear about the games, so long as they hear. I guess that's more of a second-hand marketing, but I'm sure they're aware of its impact.Telperion said:I see a game ad campaign on tv maybe two or three times a year. Honestly, do you think that's going to affect my decision making process? Beyond that your marketing doesn't seem to touch me, since I hear about games on this website or reading my favorite gaming magazine. And the magazine is the number one contributor to shaping my purchasing decisions.
Guess this whole aggressive marketing scheme is for Americans, because I have never seen it.
A marketer is hired to bring in customers and increase sales. It's their job and they pay for food and shelter with it. It's our job to be conscious of our purchase habits. I'd agree that a paradigm shift away from the overbearing corporation/consumer dichotomy would be helpful, but we don't need to imagine marketers as shadowy mind-controllers. Or may be we do? Damn, now I really don't know...3nimac said:I liked the third stage. The retention one. Makes us look like cattle being farmed formeatmoney. Which a lot of people are. The cynic in me loves this. Thank you for writing this article, more people should be aware of what they have become.
So do I, however without marketing you couldn't make an informed decision on the game's quality. Weather its trailers, screenshots or previews its all marketing and all about giving the customer as much info as possible so he/she will decides yay towards buying the game/product. The marketing thats a problem is when its not about what the product is about, its about trying to make it look 'cool', like Apple does with its ipods etc adds, it looks stupid and turns me away faster then faulty hardware.Andy of Comix Inc said:Hmmm... I'm not convinced. Maybe I'm one of those people who say "hey! Hey! I'm not a sheep like everyone else!" even though I am, but I'd like to think my purchase is based solely off a game's quality, not because the marketing got to me. Sure, I keep one eye on the previews and the trailers and the Facebook page; but I also keep one eye on Metacritic...
Personally, I don't reply often because of two reasons:3nimac said:Why do articles by this dude always get the least responses? This is some good stuff here. SCARY stuff, but good nonetheless. Maybe there's my answer...
2.) As opposed to the discussion value of "Hulk Hogan flashes his junk to the camera"... But about 1. i generally agree, there is no revealing of the man, but i think that this isn't something most people think about because they are used to advertising being passive, an ad on TV, a printed flyer etc, but nowadays someone is actively working to make you not just a customer but a tool at their disposal and i would think that something like that would provoke a response.StriderShinryu said:Personally, I don't reply often because of two reasons:3nimac said:Why do articles by this dude always get the least responses? This is some good stuff here. SCARY stuff, but good nonetheless. Maybe there's my answer...
1.) There's really no revealing of the man behind the curtain here. What's posted is generally common sense and, I would think, common knowledge. It's sort of like writing a column about the fact that oranges are orange.
2.) There's little actual discussion value outside of perhaps semi-feigned shock that this is what marketers do for a living.