Video Game Marketing Devolved After 2016 | Cold Take
Added 2024-07-29 15:05:10 +0000 UTCThis week's episode of Cold Take is now available!
Comments
I still stick to my opinion that the moment video games started making serious money, they were turned into an industry and taken over by business people who weren't interested in making games but in making money, and who believed that making money in any industry is pretty much the same process so it doesn't require understanding gamers or games beyond "what makes us pay in the short term". The rest is just a descent into treating art & entertainment like a factory with stock options. And the parallel between this and how Darren described Disney in the Backdrop about Fox is uncanny. But it's still fascinating to see the problem analyzed from multiple angles and dissected into its base components.
Maciej Myczkowski
2024-08-07 22:37:04 +0000 UTCI think (as someone who just plays games and pays more attention than average) it's a symptom of the executive obsession with first-week sales or similar; like how movies have that thing like opening weekend box office revenue is the only statistic that matters, especially now that home video residuals are basically nil. The ivory tower incumbents don't care about delivering a good product or garnering public opinion or making a mark on pop culture... they care about shifting enough units on day 1 that all the advertising was worth the spending. Microsoft shutting down studios regardless of popularity, of how many awards they win, of how positive the reviews are... Like how the folks behind Hi-Fi Rush got the old EA double-barrel treatment because they wanted more resources to make a sequel. Even gameplay trailers haven't been entirely trustworthy since at least 2012 with the infamous Watch Dogs example. 2077 also had a massive 40 minute gameplay reveal that showcased features, voicelines, a third-person cutscene view, and other bits and pieces that were replaced or removed by release. Need more demos. Movies have trailers and games oughta have demos. Interactivity is to video games what visuals are to movies; advertising a video game with only trailers is like advertising a movie with only text... and pre-rendered gameplay-free trailers are like that movie write-up being read out by the tiktok TTS.
CanadianGold
2024-07-29 17:26:28 +0000 UTCI'd argue that the gaming INDUSTRY started to devolve in about 2016, especially the AAA and AA gaming spaces. But marketing became more about vertical slices and selling the initial product for gatcha hells of one kind or another, which made things a lot worse.
z
2024-07-29 15:43:52 +0000 UTC
