Marketing to the Neo-Casual (Gamer 2.0)

"The ubiquity of advertising suggests that marketers aren't trying to sell you a product but rather something that you don't know you need, and to many gamers the rule of the road seems clear: advertise as much as possible. Consensus has judged that Wii consumers on the subatomic level aren't configured to stay up to task on all of the news that most gamers seem to passively digest through photosynthesis, and so the obvious answer to this conception is that publishers should advertise even more."

[Amadeo]

This was actually a really good article. I have to say, there has been a huge surge in video game marketing. I mean, it's coming mostly from EA, who happens to publish Boom Blox, but it's good that it's happening nonetheless. Eventually games will be marketed as heavily as movies are, and that'll be great.

I just hope that the commercials get better. Most game commercials are really bad. I work in advertising, and I must say, they must be getting really mediocre agencies to do the creative. EA's commercials are probably the best of the bunch, but most of them...they need work.

[Mgoblue201]

I've become more interested in commercials lately actually - why they're good when they work and the kind of message they're trying to portray. I enjoy some EA ads. The Madden IQ commercial in particular I feel is very effective. It takes the entire "the game adapts to you" tagline and turns it into some good awareness, as Madden belittles dumb players and generally projects Madden being Madden doing some weird stand up thing.

A lot of game commercials seem to either show straight game footage or go the rejected movie ad route with bad voice overs and all. It works because they're not really trying to sell a brand product per se. They're trying to sell a unique piece of software, and so showing what the game is about is important. But some game ads don't always get the point across in a good way. Not that every game can really be conveyed through a simple ad either. However, if a concept can be distilled and projected into something creative, then it gets the point across. The original Tiger Woods Wii ad, for instance, projecting the idea of the golf course in your room. Tiger Woods plays the game surrounded by a crowd as if he's on the course. That's good stuff. It conveys the entire idea of the Wii - that you're connected with the game.

[FilippoDinolfo]

I'd personally like to see a company go back in time for their game advertising. Mega Man 9 could be a prime contender for this since it's being designed to be as old-school as it can be on the modern Wii. A sharp shot of a couple of teens on a couch looking all excited about 8-bit graphics could be a really brilliant spot if it's done right.

[FreestyleBarnacle]

A side effect of the huge amount of advertising is that reviews become pointless. People will go and see a film because it has lots of ads and not because reviewers say it's any good. It's already happening but do you want to see reviews become even less relevant to games? Shouldn't people who know about these things and are able to write about the problems inherent with an experience do so? Shouldn't we listen, take their criticism on board and decide to buy something if we choose with this knowledge having been weighed up and discarded? Shall we let hype take us and turn us into unknowing zombiefied consumers intent on only consuming anything we see in ads?
Was that a little rambling?
Sorry

[FilippoDinolfo]

If reviews were to become even less relevant then we'd be out of a job. I mean really, when I write a review and put feedback into it I am hoping that some of that feedback will filter back to the developers. I certainly don't want to be made pointless by the hype machine. Marketing does have its place for sure, but I think there should really be a limit to how far the saturation should go.

[AlexQuevedo]

Yeah, I'm going to have to agree that commercial need to get better. EA had some solid ones for Bad Company and Mercs 2, and those have been the best I've seen... creative-wise at least. Some commercials can be alright because the product looks good, but they just show it off, they don't sell it necessarily. But hey, Gears 2 is coming out this fall; maybe we'll get another Mad World type commercial that will "rawk our sawks lulz"

[JayTee0902]

I have to agree with you there, EA is carrying the load but others will soon further. Video game marketing will keep getting bigger and more important.

[Silogon]

I bet half the people who use the word "NEO" don't even know what it means without A- looking it up or B - hearing it used wrong elsewhere. I am so sick of trendy buzz words to get people's attentions.

"neo casual gamers!!!!"

WTFEM!

[Mgoblue201]

FreestyleBarnacle - There is only so much an ad can do, and so there is a threshold when too many ads become useless. I don't think that individually reviews are incredibly important - they might not even be important as an aggregate - but reviews and previews and media coverage do create hype. People are affected by hype. They want to check out things they've heard of from trusted sources. The bigger the hype, the more people will talk about your product, the larger audience it reaches. If you push across an ad, it can be completely ignored. People don't feel a need to see your movie. And so it won't matter how hard the ad shouts.

I'm just saying that there are reasons people buy into something. Seeing a commercial over and over isn't going to ingratiate someone to a product if they don't care. The media, friends, the internet, all combined with ads, they can be powerful agents. It also depends on the aim of the ad. If you're pushing across a new product, it's about getting the word out. It's a little different if you're trying to maintain a brand or trying to create an image. A game like Twilight Princess I don't believe even had much of an individual marketing campaign, and that's the second best selling Zelda of all time. That game relied mostly on hype and perception, and a lot of it was deserved. So it isn't always about having a ton of ads. It's about trying to create awareness of a product.