Valve's Marketing

[Flying Dagger]

It's quite a basic question here - are valve screwing up their marketing plans by advertising in the wrong places?

Case in point - Gamespot and Escapist - both feature the trailer as a news article, with a plethora of comments, and yet have Portal 2 ads on them.

A lot of the criticism I saw on the thread concerned whether or not anyone did not know already about the game, which was countered by people saying that there were people out there.
However, you'd have to keep your head firmly in the sand to frequent these sites and not know about portal two, who's every development move gets front page news coverage.

Now I love valve and I enjoy the escapist, but this decision just seems like money wasted.

Is this a show of Valve's lack of marketing experience?
Is the thinking "oh it's a game site our game will be bought by gamers"?

Or conversely, to prove me wrong has anyone actually found out / been persuaded by the portal advertising on large gaming sites?

edit for clarity - I'm talking about putting ads on gamespot, ign, and the escapist, which will mostly fall on the ears of the converted

 

[Jack and Calumon]

It's quite a basic question here - are valve screwing up their marketing plans by advertising in the wrong places?
Case in point -
A lot of the criticism I saw on the thread concerned whether or not anyone did not know already about the game, which was countered by people saying that there were people out there.
However, you'd have to keep your head firmly in the sand to frequent this site and not know about portal two, who's every development move gets front page news coverage.

There are people in the WORLD! Not The Escapist, THE WORLD! Quite alot of people in the world don't know what Portal is. Some people don't even know what StarCraft is (THE FIENDS!)

The purpose of the adverts is to get THEM to buy it. Not us.

Calumon: I know about it! It's the game that makes me dizzy.

 

[pretentiousname01]

I think alot of valves idea is low key. Things like the valentines portal video will get posted by them. Then find its way across the whole of the internet. Probably more so than most of the other big name titles due to the innate cleverness. Its also not as though everyone who uses steam doesn't know its coming out. With a majority eagerly awaiting it.

That being said I also don't think the majority of gamers have alot of interest in portal. I can't see most of the call of duty bro's really getting into it. I am truly curious as to how well it will do on its own merits.

 

[shandy]

It does seem somewhat redundant to advertise Portal 2 on gaming sites, as there is already enough hype without the glossy ads.

But they are smart to focus the recent campaigns on the co-op portion. Characterising Atlas and P-Body will go further with drawing new customers than talking about the single player narrative. Those already familiar with the Portal/Half Life universe will need little convincing to pick up a copy in April

 

[shandy]

It does seem somewhat redundant to advertise Portal 2 on gaming sites, as there is already enough hype without the glossy ads.

But they are smart to focus the recent campaigns on the co-op portion. Characterising Atlas and P-Body will go further with drawing new customers than talking about the single player narrative. Those already familiar with the Portal/Half Life universe will need little convincing to pick up a copy in April

 

[Signa]

It does seem somewhat redundant to...

oh the irony that you chose to start your double post with those words...

 

[Nightcraft66]

Well they advertise on sites that gamers like to use, but I know that a lot, if not most people on gaming forums use Steam. So they already know that Portal 2 is on the way, so it seems slightly pointless imho.

 

[lazzars]

valves marketing is to put hats in TF2

 

[kuyo]

There's marketing on this site for portal 2?
Anyway, I always feel valve does marketing just for giggles.

 

[Zayren]

valves marketing is to put hats in TF2

This!

The fact they marketed the MannConomy on Steam when it came out made me laugh a hearty chuckle.

 

[Kwaren]

Valve's marketing actually has dissuaded me from buying Valve games.

 

[BENZOOKA]

It's quite a basic question here - are valve screwing up their marketing plans by advertising in the wrong places?
Case in point -
A lot of the criticism I saw on the thread concerned whether or not anyone did not know already about the game, which was countered by people saying that there were people out there.
However, you'd have to keep your head firmly in the sand to frequent this site and not know about portal two, who's every development move gets front page news coverage.

There are people in the WORLD! Not The Escapist, THE WORLD! Quite alot of people in the world don't know what Portal is. Some people don't even know what StarCraft is (THE FIENDS!)

The purpose of the adverts is to get THEM to buy it. Not us.

Calumon: I know about it! It's the game that makes me dizzy.

Exactly. And marketing is nowhere as one-dimensioned as that. In fact, the whole original post doesn't make an awful lot of sense.

A brand like Coca-Cola is one of the most well known brands in the world. Yet they spend millions on advertising and commercials. Not solely to make more people know about Coca-Cola, but to make people think of it, create an image, entice customers to buy it, and loads of other things that a marketing guru could point out. The same goes for the quantity, quality, placement and timing of advertising.

I think, Calumon, that you're confusing it with something else, perhaps Beat Hazard[footnote]
<spoiler=Seriously>
http://zerot.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/beat_hazard_007.jpg

[/footnote]. That game makes your eyes feel like squishy nectarines.

 

[Slycne]

I'm talking about putting ads on gamespot, ign, and the escapist, which will mostly fall on the ears of the converted

I think the problem is that the majority of your point is derived from the limited view of forum comments.

Yes, you are going to be hard pressed to find someone who's hardcore enough to frequent a video game site's forums that's not at least aware of Portal 2, but this represents only a sliver of our traffic. There have been 92 comments, thousands and thousands have watched it.

This is on top of the fact that merely being aware of something is not necessarily the same as creating a desire to purchase it. It's ultimately a balance game, big releases will combine coverage across more directed markets along with boarder reaching methods.

 

[timeadept]

It's quite a basic question here - are valve screwing up their marketing plans by advertising in the wrong places?
Case in point -
A lot of the criticism I saw on the thread concerned whether or not anyone did not know already about the game, which was countered by people saying that there were people out there.
However, you'd have to keep your head firmly in the sand to frequent this site and not know about portal two, who's every development move gets front page news coverage.

There are people in the WORLD! Not The Escapist, THE WORLD! Quite alot of people in the world don't know what Portal is. Some people don't even know what StarCraft is (THE FIENDS!)

The purpose of the adverts is to get THEM to buy it. Not us.

Calumon: I know about it! It's the game that makes me dizzy.

... what's a starcraft...? Is that like a space ship?

I kid, i kid but yeah i'm going to have to agree, the point isn't to tell us about the game, no matter how popular I think it is, i'm probably really far off the mark, i think as a company, Valve has many statistics that give them the perspective they need to put their adds in the right spot.

 

[Choppaduel]

I live in Canada, so I don't see any of these ads. The escapist only runs site related ads here, for example the banner is for the escapist store, and the box ad is for Extra Credits.

I went to the U.S. on holiday this past December and this is what I was confronted with...

(in case you can't tell, theres a 30s video ad for cataclysm in front of EVERY video I watched while I was in the U.S.)
(also, the banner ad at the top expands on mouse over and streams a video ad)

So unless it gets like this, I don't think Valves made mistakes in marketing even close to the level of money wasting that veterans marketeers do.

 

[deathbydeath]

i wish they put the tv spots on tv. this could get a lot of people into gaming with p2's cuteness and humor.

 

[aeroz]

I think bigger point right now is to keep hype up about the game, and to inform consumer of when its coming out. I frequent game sites, love portal, I want portal 2, I have no clue when its release date is.

Back in the day I was alot more passive, ad came on TV, knew it was out, or atleast near release. Now its abit of information saturation. I try not to follow things religiously because I often spoil things. Super Smash Bros Brawl was alot less exciting because I knew all the characters already, for example. So I intentionally avoid updates. This however means the "its out" update can sometimes be missed. I still rely on mainstream ads for this reason.

Was like 2 weeks before I knew dragon age 2 was out