Xbox 360 Game News, Reviews, and Columns - XboxFocus

Marketing Madness

by Chris Holmes August 18th 2008 3:56 PM CDT2 Comments

This is the first column in what will be a tenaciously brilliant journey through my inner psyche, pushing the fourth wall between me, the dreamweaver, and you, the reader. This week, I am tackling the complete state of pandemonium that videogame marketing has found itself in now that we’ve finally settled into this generation of consoles.

Firstly, let’s start with these loud developers and producers who like rambling on about their games as if they are the messiah delivering us salvation. The likes of Denis Dyack, Peter Molyneux, Jade Raymond and Cliff Bleszinski (I think Steve will have me fired if I call him CliffyB) all love to just run into the media screaming “look at me, look at my game”, and this is incredibly annoying.

How many directors randomly run and proclaim the second coming at the media in Hollywood? I can assure you it’s not as much as the games industry. I think the problem is this new focus on community, and marketing directly to fans has morphed to a “false dialogue” stage, where developers reassure fans their certain features in sequels and forget to include others; promising the game will be just as good as past additions. I’m sorry, but why should sequels be “just as good”? Back in the day, sequels made games entirely better. The 2D Mario and Sonic series pushed the gameplay and design with each iterative release.

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See, I am one who likes games from quiet developers that don’t promise the end of the world, which is the reason why Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise is my most anticipated game of the year. When does anyone from Rare jump into bed with a few playboy playmates to discuss the innovation of their games? Never, but that’s just a normal part of Denis Dyack’s ever-bizarre one-man-band approach to marketing.

Moving on, the whole scheduling system for game releases is now dependent on marketing. I know I’m painfully stating the obvious here, but have you stopped to think what effect this has had? Games are being delayed just so they don’t clash with another big seller and to find a quiet week to themselves so they stand out more, which is understandable, but when a publisher starts exerting this much power on developers you’ve got to wonder where it’s going to end.

Games could essentially become vanilla-esque rehashes every year with bigger explosions and special effects just to grab sales. Innovation is certainly being crushed, what with the original Viva Pinata and most decent and refreshing Live Arcade titles like Space Giraffe selling just as well as salad in a fast-food restaurant.

The busy period for games being the last third of the year is all a marketing fabrication, GTAIV proved you can launch a huge blockbuster in the first part of the year and sell what can only be described as an obscene amount, but at the time it was a risk nonetheless even though it’s brand name is probably recognised by little green men on Mars.

What I’m saying is that games should not be inherently designed to come out at a certain date by marketers and publishers, but released when they’re ready. The amount of rushing developers have to do today to meet deadlines is ridiculous, and results in them having to release an endless supply of patches when the game inevitably goes out the door with bugs and quirks intact.

Many people in the industry love to moan about how slow it’s growing and that the newer crowd are merely “casuals”, but they’re not doing anything to reinvent the machine. Most other entertainment industries try to bite the hand that feeds them and while this can result in things going completely wrong, it keeps everyone on their toes and this is what the games industry must start to do more often. When a publisher can't dictate what age rating, what release date and what content a game must include, creative freedom is being annihilated.

All my faith for originality is now in the hands of smaller developers like The Behemoth or bigger, quiet devs like Platinum Games, but the community has got to want change and new, exciting ideas. Look at the over-reaction from the Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts unveil. Many people were horrified to see their beloved platformer now incorporates a DIY vehicle component, even though it looks well-developed and helpful.

I think us gamers have had the stick so long that we’ve forgotten what the carrot tastes like, and if anyone’s responsible for this chaos we’ve only got to look in the mirror. We shouldn’t have to put up with this and for all those that like how slick and shiny yet lacking in substance everything is and how we’re force-fed useless information, you’re part of the problem. We are an extremely new industry and we must not slip into a constant stream of over-hyped, over-marketed, recycled tosh so early into our life cycle and over-saturate the market with clones, franchises and sequels if we are to be taken seriously as a comparative form of media, instead of film and music’s geeky older brother.