Is Marketing More Important Than Gameplay?

FrontBurnr: Coming from a marketing background, I sometimes forget to enjoy the little things in life. I don’t see the new iPad Mini, I see the marketing ploy behind it. I can’t appreciate MOGA giving out controllers at PAX because I’m trying to estimate their return on investment. And most of all, I can’t watch trailers or look at advertisements for video games without thinking about things like production budgets, social reach, color schemes…the list goes on and on.
This being said, is marketing more important than gameplay?

[iGAM3R-VIII]

How are you supposed to market WITHOUT gameplay. If there is no gameplay then it would mean that consumers would base it of just images and info and then there is a bigger chance that the buyer will not like the game but with gameplay, they will be able to see the game and will have a better option

[agentxk]

It happens all the time. The story itself talks about these scenarios.

[Hambo]

I don't think it literally means "gameplay", more so can a crappy game do good if you have a million dollar ad campaign for it.

[iPad]

If Sony marketed Killzone like MS did with Halo, Killzone would be so much more popular.

[Skips]

Pretty much. lol

Halo 4 marketing campaign was like $30 million I think? And it managed to sell about 8 probably 9 million copies.

I doubt Killzone 3 even had a FRACTION of the cost it took to market Halo 4! But still managed to sell around 2.5 million. lol

And Master Chief doesn't exactly share the spot light with many other well known exclusive franchises other than Gears and Forza.

But Killzone literally has to share marketing budgets with the likes of Gran Turismo, Uncharted, God Of War, Resistance, LittleBigPlanet, Infamous, Motorstorm etc. etc.

Point is, if say God Of War and Uncharted didn't exist. And ALL the money it took to create and market those games went EXCLUSIVELY to market Killzone alone.

Killzone WOULD BE HUGE!!!!!!!!!

But that would mean less games. :(

[adorie]

I thought N4G didn't allow for questions to be in the title of articles?

*Sigh* Anyway... You might as well pack-it-up if your game plays like a rounded, hard poop. EA's hyping the scares for Dead Space 3 is an example of advertising something that isn't really true.
Good thing the gameplay was O.K or I'd have demanded a refund.

Back on topic though, I will say marketing and word of mouth can create a snowballed success for a good game. Advertise a good game, then it should be assisted in sales by word of mouth. Does that make sense?

The new MK seems to be such a game.

[pixelsword]

That's only if you're HHG; other than that, there is no rule, I reckon.

[pixelsword]

Obviously, Americans think so... ;)

[Why o why]

For the seller....marketing

For the gamer.....gameplay

[jdeane81]

Reading the article it doesn't appear that he is saying gameplay isn't important or that marketing is the barometer of what makes a game great but more that in order to be successful from a sales perspective it needs the right type of marketing support. Fairly simple.

[Hicken]

And yet there are many games that have seem respectable sales with almost NO marketing, while some games with huge marketing budgets in the "right" arenas haven't sold so well.

What the developer/publisher deems successful is a big part of this, and something almost NEVER considered. Catherine didn't sell 10 million, I don't even think it reached 5, but ATLUS was quite happy with its numbers. And it had almost zero marketing.

[Hambo]

Minecraft is a great example of your 1st point. Almost no marketing, but it went viral.

[chancethegreat]

I would say that Marketing is not more important than Gameplay, but in order to make the amount of money that would justify the cost of the game you just made, you have to focus more on marketing.

[clintos59]

Kinect is a good example of what this article is about. Its not my cup of tea but for a crappy device 500 million dollars worth of advertising money can do wonders.

[level 360]

It's about balance I think.. too much of one destroys the other vice versa.

[isarai]

It may sell well the first time, but make a shitty game and it doesn't matter how well your marketing is, no one's going to want to buy it anymore

[Lifebanisher]

Even if you spend a billion in marketing a game that has no gameplay people will not buy it if it's boring. now, even if you don't market a game, but has incredible, fun, super highly addictive gameplay. it will sell cause your consumers are the ones who will do the marketing for you.