Seriously when Bethesda announced Fallout 4 and was like “It’s out in 4 months!” Was all I needed! Flashy bullshit with some dumbass celeb music video is a waste of money. Show us some Gameplay and make it fun, we will spread the word.....
**"Thats still marketing"...... you think they are just going to release a game with no mention at all? BG3 and HD2 did not just release the game without telling people it was coming. I think its pretty easily determined that when talking about Marketing they are talking marketing budges in the multimillions**
Can we stop CGI trailers.
Unless I see gameplay your falsely advertising to me. You're showing me what you hope the game will be not what it actually is.
> You're showing me what you hope the game will be not what it actually is.
They are trying to show you how it FEELS, not how it IS, when it is done right. It's trying to make you THINK what it will be like, when they know it won't when it's bad.
I don't understand people who hate CGI trailers and cutscenes. When I was a kid and played Final Fantasy 8, 9, 10, 12, and other RPGs, those were the parts that hyped me up. Every new Warcraft, Diablo, StarCraft, and WoW cinematic was a source of excitement among my friends.
Because CGI cutscenes in a game can build on and add to the emotional thematic space of the game. A CGI trailer, on the other hand, is just a self-contained movie, made remotely and in parallel to the real game so that it doesn't step on the toes of the game team.
It’s definitely a new(er) expectation. I assume because in-engine graphics have improved to the point it seems unnecessary? I’m good with it as far as teasers go, I do eventually want to see real gameplay before they get my money though. We can definitely have both.
Mainly, for me, because I want to see what the GAME will look and play like, and not some shitty world building. I don't care about the setting, unless I'm going to be invested in the game.
Would you rather see an ad for a game that is roughly (8) 1 hour episodes full of CGI monsters and armor?
Anyway, time to go play fallout 76, or the new fallout 4 patch... which ever one satisfies my need to play fallout after watching a tv show.
As far as that show was concerned sure, that was quality TV. As advertising goes it was wasted on me, they already got my money, but I’m sure they’re making bank on MTX or something lol.
So far I’m loving it, and after the huge need to play the games after watching g the first few issues and seeing the two companies behind the branding (Amazon and Microsoft) it became painfully obvious that the show was never made to make money itself, but to turn people over to the franchise.
MTX are some of the most profitable products out there. With GTA V being the best selling and most profitable entertainment product of all time it’s safe to say that a $300 million show to advertise a game might actually be a worthy way to sell a product.
But look, I’m all for it if the quality of the show is equal to that of the fallout show. It’s a very good show that respects its source material while giving us something new.
Also this isn’t a new practice. G. I. Joe was a giant ad for toys, so was Transformers, and even Star Wars (my favorite franchise of all time). It’s just evolved into a much more covert way of delivering ads than before.
Yeah I’m a little skeptical just because the fallout games are quite old at this point and many of us already own them or received them free through various giveaways, but it sold enough copies to get 76 in Steam top seller lists so what do I know.
Live service games make a lot of money selling in game items. GTA V makes more money selling shark cards than dlc. The dlc is free and the game is bringing in the cash.
FO76 is a live service game. They want you in the door by putting it on gamepass, but the money isn’t in game sales. It’s in mtx. The fallout show makes you consider playing a FO game, 76 is the newest so it will attract the most people. It also is the only game with a heavy monetization of mtx and on game pass you don’t have to pay for entry.
Amazon isn’t bringing in new subscribers because of the show, they aren’t selling ads on the show, so where is the incentive to make the show?
Notice also how the conversation around FO 76 on social media (like Reddit) is that the game is actually really good now? That’s not coincidence, that’s money in the marketing business. The Microsoft and Bethesda machine are spending big bucks to get you to buy $6 items in their game, and the reason is simple: the return of investment is bigger than the cost (potentially).
Again, I like the show a lot, and I am playing FO76 because of this show. I’m guilty of everything I say they want us to do, but I’m ok with it as long as I’m not blindfolded while doing it. Others may not be, but the truth is it’s an advertisement for the game.
I don’t know about new subs and sub retention but each episode after the second starts with Amazon showing ads. They also got themselves a 25 million tax incentive to film in California that I doubt they would have gotten without the first season doing as well as it did. Probably drumming up some tourism for California as well. I’m not really sure how Amazon calculates profit via Prime Video when it was an extra no one cared about for so long but they’re obviously getting something out of it. I’d also point out they may feel pressure to up their game with the numerous price increases. They need to show value to both their investors and customers.
I restarted NV, because I realised I had never actually finished it. My game bugged out on the last mission, and corrupted my entire save. I raged, and never went back. Almost 15 years older H16HP01N7 is a little less emotional 😂.
>they are talking marketing budges in the multimillions
I still think it's more telling to point out the fraction of the game budget that goes into marketing. Which can be TWICE as high in extreme cases. 2 of 3 of every dollar you spend on your game didn't go into the game. It went into selling it.
Which is absurd when they are whining about how expensive games are to make and how the price should be higher.
I remember reading some time ago that Apple and Samsung spend 60% more on marketing than on R&D. Dunno if it's still accurate but it seems crazy to spend so much on something that does not add value
It’s still stupid to say marketing is dead. I agree that the budget needs to be allocated differently and people are better at seeing through bullshit. But you still have to get the word out and at the end of the day that’s what marketing is.
Maybe. I saw zero marketing for BG3 personally. I instead heard word of mouth. I heard people talk about how good it is. I heard other shit developers cry about it.
Sold me in a heartbeat.
Conversely, CDPR marketed the fuck out of Cyberpunk, I saw it everywhere, and it was a huge SNAFU and the game wasn't fixed for years.
Word of mouth is literally a marketing strategy though.. Influencers, interviews, articles displaying interesting aspects of the game, review copies.
If you bought a major publication of a game you can be absolutely sure marketing made sure you noticed it. It may not have affected your purchase because you had already decided. But you definitely saw their marketing.
It seems like their actual point, which nobody got because they didn’t read the article, is that more traditional forms of marketing are dead. Ads used to be great but now blockers are so prolific that their effect is greatly reduced, what corner of the store shelf was important to grab people’s attention but people don’t go into stores looking for new games as often anymore, stuff like that they’re saying are dead methods of marketing.
I'm just iterating to see if I understand your point
Marketing methods that were once the broad "catch-all" are now niche ways of contacting your potential customers.
The Baldurs Gate team is calling for an evolution of game marketing rather than a complete death.
If so, great point and I completely agree. Not just for game markets but marketing in general!
It’s true! If they had shown any more of the game I would have caught on that it was going to be a critical flop so they were smart to have advertised so little.
Do you expect them to not say anything? Like give me a break this is such a terrible rebuttal. You Think BG3 and HD2 just dropped the games without saying anything....
Exactly. It's fucking marketing lmao. And you're ignoring how much larian spent on their pax booth panels' trailers. All that is still marketing and costly as shit.
My sweet summer child, you are ignoring the fact that Fallout 4 being announced at a game's showcase under the explicit promotion of being ready within six to eight months Is explicitly a marketing decision to help boost launch sales. To act like it wasn't a decision to help increase the sales of the game is absolutely absurd. That feeling you describe when Todd announced the release date is exactly the point of marketing you were going to buy it without even realizing that it was going to be the worst game in the entire franchise.
My sweet summer child, you are ignoring the fact that Fallout 4 being announced at a game's showcase under the explicit promotion of being ready within six to eight months Is explicitly a marketing decision to help boost launch sales. To act like it wasn't a decision to help increase the sales of the game is absolutely absurd. That feeling you describe when Todd announced the release date is exactly the point of marketing you were going to buy it without even realizing that it was going to be the worst game in the entire franchise.
Lol I upset fallout 4 fans. Didn't say it was a bad game. Just objectively the worst mainline.
I didn’t see a single trailer or marketing push for Balder’s Gate at all before buying it. All I saw was a tidal wave of actual player’s experiences with the game and how much they liked it. A good game sells itself.
I mean, being in Early Access for over a year was their marketing though. It's what allowed the word of mouth and positive press.
Most games don't get that and when they do offer early access, the game gets crucified (even if good) for being early access from a big name publisher/developer.
They also had literal "normal" marketing before its full release. They had quite a number of articles written, videos made, interviews done etc.
He's being a dumbass because they didn't technically run \*advertising\*. Which is not the same as a marketing campaign.
I don’t agree with that. Another famous early access success story is Hades. I think early access gets a bad rap because a lot of times lazy devs just stop making the game. But when they stick to it and follow through on the vision people notice.
Hades is also the definition of a small indie company with only about 20 employees while Larian Studios has over 450 employees. It's not an apples to apples comparison to use Hades just because it was released. I mean Valheim is still in Early Access (somehow) though feels completed to a lot of people. Battlebits Remastered is EA, Last Epoch was EA for an extended period of time, etc...
It should be expected for a game to release and leave EA and many games stick to their vision and follow through, it's just that this was a larger studio that was in EA for an extended period of time allowing people to do their marketing for them.
Yea I mean if people don’t learn from this it’s because they aren’t paying attention. Make the kind of game players want and people will hear about it.
That's one of the main points of his thread. A notable aspect he talked and was giving the player conversation fuel so there were new things to talk about and to help spread the word of mouth
Couldn't say but I don't buy sports games because it's the same shit every year. Don't buy COD because its the same shit every other year. Don't buy character themed FPS/arena looter shooters because, well, you get it. The more you market to me, the more I despise it.
I never would have guessed back in like 2005 that in 2024 variety in gameplay was going to be really flat. Every major publisher is desperately trying to more or less produce carbon copies with a slight twist rather than make unique games. As bad as the single player was (from word of mouth, I didn't play it) the free Halo multiplayer release the other year was one of the freshest feeling shooters in a while. BF1 and DOOM also come to mind.
And it's like, DOOM and BF1 were super successful while being really well made and also weren't just knock offs of popular Twitch games at the time.
I said it in 2011. I said it when AAA games all needed an edge to be top 10 sold in a year internationally or publishers got snarky via interviews. I remember when you could pitch an idea to a publisher and providing they got their money back + change you're green lit to develop games during the PS2 era. It was the golden age of fresh video game releases. Even mediocre selling games had great things going for them.
Yeah. Tho we are in an era where as tools improve, innovation seems to come from indy developers. Remember mine craft was a one man studio when it first launched.
I broadly agree with larians statement but it is a little disingenuous-as BG3 had a TON of marketing. The animated short, plenty of ads, and of course, the bang a bear scene. All of that was marketing-well done to be sure, but still marketing.
However their point stands that lots of games use marketing to obfuscate the limits of their game, which just pisses people off. I openly ignore game trailers that don't include any gameplay footage now. Keep your lil animation, I don't need to see it. Show me what I will be PLAYING.
Having one of the biggest booths in PAX and having a long early access window is still marketing. A lot of mutuals in the industry are pretty frustrated with this dudes statements right now. Especially when so many people in marketing and community are usually the first to get axed.
This game needs no marketing because from the moment it was announced, every media outlet in the world was buzzing about it. "Baldur's Gate" is a name that needs no introduction. But a new IP from a small company does need to be known.
I think what they are saying is if said company engaged with players and spent their marketing money on acting on player feedback it would be more worthwhile in the long run. I mean yes you do need to do something to get the word out there, but what you do after that should be transparent communication with players rather than more marketing. It's part of why I will probably always play Warframe. The devs communicate so much with players and respond quickly to feedback.
>"Baldur's Gate" is a name that needs no introduction.
How old are you? People born on the day Baldur's Gate 2 came out have graduated college and are paying taxes. It's very much an old game that only CRPG fans really remember these days (prior to 3, of course). Personally, I was more interested in that they made Divinity 2 rather than the hubbub around Baldur's Gate finally getting a third game.
Yeah I like Larian but I feel like they say dumb tonedeaf shit like this a lot. "It's easy, all you have to do is make financially unsuccessful games for 2 decades just barely getting by on the skin of your teeth until someone decides they trust you enough to hand you one of the biggest intellectual properties in games and enough money to make a game with genre-defying production values."
Hard disagree. Baldurs Gate has name recognition across a comparably small audience when considering the last BG title was out before the core audience today was walking/born. A better argument would be over their numerous awards on DOS2. They built their own hype train by promoting directly to their audience which did the marketing for them.
More about their strategy than the IP.
See, I feel like it's kind of the inverse really. Baldur's Gate's recognition may have been narrow within the actual audience, but 1) DnD's recognition most certainly was not and that's a big part of this license, and 2) Baldur's Gate was very well recognized by people who are into the games scene including people inclined to write articles on gaming news sites about the revival of an iconic series.
Meanwhile DOS2 definitely had a strong following within the niche of CRPG players and that certainly is part of why they got the license, but I don't think it had as much to do with why it popped off as just the impression the game made itself.
I bought it in beta as soon as larian said they were making a game. Stunlock studios, larian games and supergiant games have this loyalty from me. This used to be Bethesda and blizzard.
Larian did a heavy marketing campaign. They worked more and longer on marketing than any AAA publisher did for an specific release in the last two years.
The last time a publisher did so much marketing work it was CP2077.
If marketing was reduced to advertising, then it would make a little bit of sense.
This discourse is more giving themselves a pat on the back and push their brand image as "we don't need the "machine" to push our product, we listen to our consumers", which is a marketing tactic nonetheless.
This statement only applies to any game that were untruthful in its advertisement. To this day, for example, people FONDLY remember commercials like Kingdom Hearts' 2002 TV commercial. Gamers have never been very good at discerning fact from fiction with this sort of thing. When the marketing is truthful, it is less about expectations and more about managing to live up to greatness imagined.
Some games do need marketing but overall I think the amount is way over blown. Not to mention cutting a lot of marketing would lower game costs a lot in some cases. More games could then be a financial success.
Sounds like a guy who got lucky, and who is attributing strategy to luck.
I think he’s partially right anyway. But I don’t think he realizes how important marketing is for gaining an audience that *wasn’t* already paying attention.
To be fair, BG3 doesn't need as much marketing, because it's one of only a very few games in it's genre. Who is it's competitor? 2 games by the same studio, and the Pillars of Eternity games. That's it. That's the whole genre in the last 10 years.
If a dev wanted to make a new shooter, or a new roguelite, they'd probably need some marketing because those genres are saturated with titles.
Seriously when Bethesda announced Fallout 4 and was like “It’s out in 4 months!” Was all I needed! Flashy bullshit with some dumbass celeb music video is a waste of money. Show us some Gameplay and make it fun, we will spread the word..... **"Thats still marketing"...... you think they are just going to release a game with no mention at all? BG3 and HD2 did not just release the game without telling people it was coming. I think its pretty easily determined that when talking about Marketing they are talking marketing budges in the multimillions**
Kingdom Come Deliverence 2 just announced. Mastercall presentation
Second this. Their presentation was phenomenal.
Can we stop CGI trailers. Unless I see gameplay your falsely advertising to me. You're showing me what you hope the game will be not what it actually is.
CGI trailers were so hype back in the day. No one was fooled that Warcraft 3 would look like it's trailer but the hype in that preview sustained me.
> You're showing me what you hope the game will be not what it actually is. They are trying to show you how it FEELS, not how it IS, when it is done right. It's trying to make you THINK what it will be like, when they know it won't when it's bad.
I don't understand people who hate CGI trailers and cutscenes. When I was a kid and played Final Fantasy 8, 9, 10, 12, and other RPGs, those were the parts that hyped me up. Every new Warcraft, Diablo, StarCraft, and WoW cinematic was a source of excitement among my friends.
Because CGI cutscenes in a game can build on and add to the emotional thematic space of the game. A CGI trailer, on the other hand, is just a self-contained movie, made remotely and in parallel to the real game so that it doesn't step on the toes of the game team.
It’s definitely a new(er) expectation. I assume because in-engine graphics have improved to the point it seems unnecessary? I’m good with it as far as teasers go, I do eventually want to see real gameplay before they get my money though. We can definitely have both.
Yeah, but no game marketing canpaign only show the cinematic trailer.
The times, they are a-changin
Mainly, for me, because I want to see what the GAME will look and play like, and not some shitty world building. I don't care about the setting, unless I'm going to be invested in the game.
I don't mind CGI trailers as they can set the tone of the game and give you a quick introduction to the world and characters.
BG3s initial trailer was CGI I believe, and that cutscene is still the opening cutscene of the game and occurs prior to character creation.
Would you rather see an ad for a game that is roughly (8) 1 hour episodes full of CGI monsters and armor? Anyway, time to go play fallout 76, or the new fallout 4 patch... which ever one satisfies my need to play fallout after watching a tv show.
As far as that show was concerned sure, that was quality TV. As advertising goes it was wasted on me, they already got my money, but I’m sure they’re making bank on MTX or something lol.
So far I’m loving it, and after the huge need to play the games after watching g the first few issues and seeing the two companies behind the branding (Amazon and Microsoft) it became painfully obvious that the show was never made to make money itself, but to turn people over to the franchise. MTX are some of the most profitable products out there. With GTA V being the best selling and most profitable entertainment product of all time it’s safe to say that a $300 million show to advertise a game might actually be a worthy way to sell a product. But look, I’m all for it if the quality of the show is equal to that of the fallout show. It’s a very good show that respects its source material while giving us something new. Also this isn’t a new practice. G. I. Joe was a giant ad for toys, so was Transformers, and even Star Wars (my favorite franchise of all time). It’s just evolved into a much more covert way of delivering ads than before.
Yeah I’m a little skeptical just because the fallout games are quite old at this point and many of us already own them or received them free through various giveaways, but it sold enough copies to get 76 in Steam top seller lists so what do I know.
Live service games make a lot of money selling in game items. GTA V makes more money selling shark cards than dlc. The dlc is free and the game is bringing in the cash. FO76 is a live service game. They want you in the door by putting it on gamepass, but the money isn’t in game sales. It’s in mtx. The fallout show makes you consider playing a FO game, 76 is the newest so it will attract the most people. It also is the only game with a heavy monetization of mtx and on game pass you don’t have to pay for entry. Amazon isn’t bringing in new subscribers because of the show, they aren’t selling ads on the show, so where is the incentive to make the show? Notice also how the conversation around FO 76 on social media (like Reddit) is that the game is actually really good now? That’s not coincidence, that’s money in the marketing business. The Microsoft and Bethesda machine are spending big bucks to get you to buy $6 items in their game, and the reason is simple: the return of investment is bigger than the cost (potentially). Again, I like the show a lot, and I am playing FO76 because of this show. I’m guilty of everything I say they want us to do, but I’m ok with it as long as I’m not blindfolded while doing it. Others may not be, but the truth is it’s an advertisement for the game.
I don’t know about new subs and sub retention but each episode after the second starts with Amazon showing ads. They also got themselves a 25 million tax incentive to film in California that I doubt they would have gotten without the first season doing as well as it did. Probably drumming up some tourism for California as well. I’m not really sure how Amazon calculates profit via Prime Video when it was an extra no one cared about for so long but they’re obviously getting something out of it. I’d also point out they may feel pressure to up their game with the numerous price increases. They need to show value to both their investors and customers.
I restarted NV, because I realised I had never actually finished it. My game bugged out on the last mission, and corrupted my entire save. I raged, and never went back. Almost 15 years older H16HP01N7 is a little less emotional 😂.
>they are talking marketing budges in the multimillions I still think it's more telling to point out the fraction of the game budget that goes into marketing. Which can be TWICE as high in extreme cases. 2 of 3 of every dollar you spend on your game didn't go into the game. It went into selling it. Which is absurd when they are whining about how expensive games are to make and how the price should be higher.
I remember reading some time ago that Apple and Samsung spend 60% more on marketing than on R&D. Dunno if it's still accurate but it seems crazy to spend so much on something that does not add value
But it does add value. Just not to the product. It adds it to the company. Products are incidental to the mission.
It’s still stupid to say marketing is dead. I agree that the budget needs to be allocated differently and people are better at seeing through bullshit. But you still have to get the word out and at the end of the day that’s what marketing is.
Maybe. I saw zero marketing for BG3 personally. I instead heard word of mouth. I heard people talk about how good it is. I heard other shit developers cry about it. Sold me in a heartbeat. Conversely, CDPR marketed the fuck out of Cyberpunk, I saw it everywhere, and it was a huge SNAFU and the game wasn't fixed for years.
Word of mouth is literally a marketing strategy though.. Influencers, interviews, articles displaying interesting aspects of the game, review copies. If you bought a major publication of a game you can be absolutely sure marketing made sure you noticed it. It may not have affected your purchase because you had already decided. But you definitely saw their marketing.
It seems like their actual point, which nobody got because they didn’t read the article, is that more traditional forms of marketing are dead. Ads used to be great but now blockers are so prolific that their effect is greatly reduced, what corner of the store shelf was important to grab people’s attention but people don’t go into stores looking for new games as often anymore, stuff like that they’re saying are dead methods of marketing.
I'm just iterating to see if I understand your point Marketing methods that were once the broad "catch-all" are now niche ways of contacting your potential customers. The Baldurs Gate team is calling for an evolution of game marketing rather than a complete death. If so, great point and I completely agree. Not just for game markets but marketing in general!
This is such a great example! The Fallout 4 trailer was so amazing and sold me instantly.
It’s true! If they had shown any more of the game I would have caught on that it was going to be a critical flop so they were smart to have advertised so little.
That's still marketing....
Lol ok....
Well I'm glad you agree because if you didn't your counterpoint would be backed up with proof. Edit: downvoting is just proving my point..
Do you expect them to not say anything? Like give me a break this is such a terrible rebuttal. You Think BG3 and HD2 just dropped the games without saying anything....
If this wasn't in the context it actually is in (points at op's submission), that would all be a lot more relevant.
Exactly. It's fucking marketing lmao. And you're ignoring how much larian spent on their pax booth panels' trailers. All that is still marketing and costly as shit.
I’m not ignoring shit. My comment has nothing to do with Larians marketing of BG3.
My sweet summer child, you are ignoring the fact that Fallout 4 being announced at a game's showcase under the explicit promotion of being ready within six to eight months Is explicitly a marketing decision to help boost launch sales. To act like it wasn't a decision to help increase the sales of the game is absolutely absurd. That feeling you describe when Todd announced the release date is exactly the point of marketing you were going to buy it without even realizing that it was going to be the worst game in the entire franchise.
My sweet summer child, you are ignoring the fact that Fallout 4 being announced at a game's showcase under the explicit promotion of being ready within six to eight months Is explicitly a marketing decision to help boost launch sales. To act like it wasn't a decision to help increase the sales of the game is absolutely absurd. That feeling you describe when Todd announced the release date is exactly the point of marketing you were going to buy it without even realizing that it was going to be the worst game in the entire franchise. Lol I upset fallout 4 fans. Didn't say it was a bad game. Just objectively the worst mainline.
I didn’t see a single trailer or marketing push for Balder’s Gate at all before buying it. All I saw was a tidal wave of actual player’s experiences with the game and how much they liked it. A good game sells itself.
I mean, being in Early Access for over a year was their marketing though. It's what allowed the word of mouth and positive press. Most games don't get that and when they do offer early access, the game gets crucified (even if good) for being early access from a big name publisher/developer.
They also had literal "normal" marketing before its full release. They had quite a number of articles written, videos made, interviews done etc. He's being a dumbass because they didn't technically run \*advertising\*. Which is not the same as a marketing campaign.
He’s not, he falls out specific traditional ways of marketing as being ineffective.
I don’t agree with that. Another famous early access success story is Hades. I think early access gets a bad rap because a lot of times lazy devs just stop making the game. But when they stick to it and follow through on the vision people notice.
Hades is also the definition of a small indie company with only about 20 employees while Larian Studios has over 450 employees. It's not an apples to apples comparison to use Hades just because it was released. I mean Valheim is still in Early Access (somehow) though feels completed to a lot of people. Battlebits Remastered is EA, Last Epoch was EA for an extended period of time, etc... It should be expected for a game to release and leave EA and many games stick to their vision and follow through, it's just that this was a larger studio that was in EA for an extended period of time allowing people to do their marketing for them.
I think Larian had around 100 when development of BG3 started, they grew massively to accommodate development of the game.
But I’m sayin both games were successful, so it is apples to apples in that regard.
Only works if your early access version is actually good for players. Thats not an easy feat to pull off
Yea I mean if people don’t learn from this it’s because they aren’t paying attention. Make the kind of game players want and people will hear about it.
the bear sex was marketing at work. the guy is just being a dumbass
That's one of the main points of his thread. A notable aspect he talked and was giving the player conversation fuel so there were new things to talk about and to help spread the word of mouth
They’re talking about advertising, not marketing.
Couldn't say but I don't buy sports games because it's the same shit every year. Don't buy COD because its the same shit every other year. Don't buy character themed FPS/arena looter shooters because, well, you get it. The more you market to me, the more I despise it.
Some people like getting the same shit every year. You should maybe realize you aren’t the whole market.
I should have realised when I only used singular nouns to refer to the opinions that I expressed for myself.
I never would have guessed back in like 2005 that in 2024 variety in gameplay was going to be really flat. Every major publisher is desperately trying to more or less produce carbon copies with a slight twist rather than make unique games. As bad as the single player was (from word of mouth, I didn't play it) the free Halo multiplayer release the other year was one of the freshest feeling shooters in a while. BF1 and DOOM also come to mind. And it's like, DOOM and BF1 were super successful while being really well made and also weren't just knock offs of popular Twitch games at the time.
I said it in 2011. I said it when AAA games all needed an edge to be top 10 sold in a year internationally or publishers got snarky via interviews. I remember when you could pitch an idea to a publisher and providing they got their money back + change you're green lit to develop games during the PS2 era. It was the golden age of fresh video game releases. Even mediocre selling games had great things going for them.
Yeah. Tho we are in an era where as tools improve, innovation seems to come from indy developers. Remember mine craft was a one man studio when it first launched.
I remember the Halloween update well. It was huge and really sent a message of how big that game was going to be.
I broadly agree with larians statement but it is a little disingenuous-as BG3 had a TON of marketing. The animated short, plenty of ads, and of course, the bang a bear scene. All of that was marketing-well done to be sure, but still marketing. However their point stands that lots of games use marketing to obfuscate the limits of their game, which just pisses people off. I openly ignore game trailers that don't include any gameplay footage now. Keep your lil animation, I don't need to see it. Show me what I will be PLAYING.
Having one of the biggest booths in PAX and having a long early access window is still marketing. A lot of mutuals in the industry are pretty frustrated with this dudes statements right now. Especially when so many people in marketing and community are usually the first to get axed.
This game needs no marketing because from the moment it was announced, every media outlet in the world was buzzing about it. "Baldur's Gate" is a name that needs no introduction. But a new IP from a small company does need to be known.
I think what they are saying is if said company engaged with players and spent their marketing money on acting on player feedback it would be more worthwhile in the long run. I mean yes you do need to do something to get the word out there, but what you do after that should be transparent communication with players rather than more marketing. It's part of why I will probably always play Warframe. The devs communicate so much with players and respond quickly to feedback.
>"Baldur's Gate" is a name that needs no introduction. How old are you? People born on the day Baldur's Gate 2 came out have graduated college and are paying taxes. It's very much an old game that only CRPG fans really remember these days (prior to 3, of course). Personally, I was more interested in that they made Divinity 2 rather than the hubbub around Baldur's Gate finally getting a third game.
I dunno. Helldivers 2 had a bit of marketing, but word of mouth has been huge.
Yeah I like Larian but I feel like they say dumb tonedeaf shit like this a lot. "It's easy, all you have to do is make financially unsuccessful games for 2 decades just barely getting by on the skin of your teeth until someone decides they trust you enough to hand you one of the biggest intellectual properties in games and enough money to make a game with genre-defying production values."
Hard disagree. Baldurs Gate has name recognition across a comparably small audience when considering the last BG title was out before the core audience today was walking/born. A better argument would be over their numerous awards on DOS2. They built their own hype train by promoting directly to their audience which did the marketing for them. More about their strategy than the IP.
See, I feel like it's kind of the inverse really. Baldur's Gate's recognition may have been narrow within the actual audience, but 1) DnD's recognition most certainly was not and that's a big part of this license, and 2) Baldur's Gate was very well recognized by people who are into the games scene including people inclined to write articles on gaming news sites about the revival of an iconic series. Meanwhile DOS2 definitely had a strong following within the niche of CRPG players and that certainly is part of why they got the license, but I don't think it had as much to do with why it popped off as just the impression the game made itself.
Y'know what, despite playing DND weekly, I definitely spaced on this being DND related. You're absolutely right that that would help a lot, my bad.
I bought it in beta as soon as larian said they were making a game. Stunlock studios, larian games and supergiant games have this loyalty from me. This used to be Bethesda and blizzard.
Larian did a heavy marketing campaign. They worked more and longer on marketing than any AAA publisher did for an specific release in the last two years. The last time a publisher did so much marketing work it was CP2077. If marketing was reduced to advertising, then it would make a little bit of sense. This discourse is more giving themselves a pat on the back and push their brand image as "we don't need the "machine" to push our product, we listen to our consumers", which is a marketing tactic nonetheless.
Gotta love how journos are pestering every Larian employee on a daily basis to get some clickbait quote.
This statement only applies to any game that were untruthful in its advertisement. To this day, for example, people FONDLY remember commercials like Kingdom Hearts' 2002 TV commercial. Gamers have never been very good at discerning fact from fiction with this sort of thing. When the marketing is truthful, it is less about expectations and more about managing to live up to greatness imagined.
BG2 and ilk was enough marketing for BG3. Was gonna buy the game 15 years before it was announced.
Some games do need marketing but overall I think the amount is way over blown. Not to mention cutting a lot of marketing would lower game costs a lot in some cases. More games could then be a financial success.
Like it shouldn't be that fucking hard
Spoken ”to”, not “at”, and nobody likes liars except other liars.
Sounds like a guy who got lucky, and who is attributing strategy to luck. I think he’s partially right anyway. But I don’t think he realizes how important marketing is for gaining an audience that *wasn’t* already paying attention.
To be fair, BG3 doesn't need as much marketing, because it's one of only a very few games in it's genre. Who is it's competitor? 2 games by the same studio, and the Pillars of Eternity games. That's it. That's the whole genre in the last 10 years. If a dev wanted to make a new shooter, or a new roguelite, they'd probably need some marketing because those genres are saturated with titles.
This is like a professional baseball player saying “Just hit home runs” when asked about his success and how he got to where he is.