Why Are Modern Marketing Techniques In Gaming Effective?

By Author: Damon Za
Total Articles: 80
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Gaming is huge business going into the second decade of the twenty-first century. With all the innovations and advancements in gaming that have happened since the internet became universally accessible, the market has bloomed in a way that rival media simply cannot keep up with. Gamers have gone from having two to three options during the days of the “console wars” to having a choice between consoles, computers, smartphones, and tablets. And rather than games being produced by a few big names in the gaming industry, accessibility to even the tools to develop games—and game marketing—has opened up possibilities for independent game designers to host their creations on platforms like Steam and Twitch for a nominal fee.

Of course, as with any market glut, there comes a share of problems. Among the most prominent of these problems is how to create a marketing campaign for a game that is riveting, compelling, memorable, and cool, not to mention outstanding in a veritable sea of competition. The growing popularity of the gaming industry has brought with it its share of ancillary markets, including game marketing itself. ...
... As with the bar consistently being set higher for the quality of games, so too must the bar consistently be set for the efficacy of marketing strategy to promote these games.

As such, game marketing stands out as a specialty industry. Game marketing can be similar to, and differs from, the marketing of other products in a few key ways:

Main Similarity Between Game Marketing and Other Marketing Strategies: Campaign.

With any new product that needs a pre-emptive “boost” in the marketplace, games rely on often elaborate game marketing campaigns to catch the eye, capture the imagination, and even to create a narrative surrounding the game that involves the characters, the storyline, and the situations.

A popular ad campaign by Activision to promote the game Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled did just that. Playing on the nostalgia attached to the character (a popular Playstation mascot in the late nineties), Activision’s campaign fleshed out Crash’s character, presenting a story of what he’s been doing since his heyday. The campaign, co-written with director and former SNL writer Jake Szymanski, featured the character of Crash serving as a rideshare app driver in a Go-Kart with flame-shooting exhaust pipes. The result of the game marketing strategy? Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled became the fastest selling title in the franchise’s history, a number one seller in Europe and Asia, and number two in America at its launch.

Main Difference Between Game Marketing and Other Marketing Strategies: Product.

As stated previously, games are an extraordinarily hot market right now among the millennial-and-younger set, those who have grown up with video games their entire lives and with whom video games have evolved alongside. Their tastes are razor-sharp, they are instantly connected with each other via online forums, and they will not settle for any imperfections—even in game marketing.

Ad campaigns for pickup trucks and handyman services that would have found sufficient purchase in the occasional television ad spot or yellow pages listing will not cut it for video games. A rapidly advancing market largely patronized by young people who have been exposed to an unthinkable array of non-traditional media requires a marketing strategy that can keep their attention above and beyond the latest meme or internet personality. For game marketing, it is necessary to know your competition for attention, and to be able to create something that potential consumers will find not only eye-catching, but also aesthetically appealing and cool. That’s a very tall order.

Fortunately, the game marketing industry features some of the brightest minds of the millennial-and-younger cohort, who have themselves been longtime consumers of video games, immersed in the culture, and who have the special training to parlay that experience into snappy ad campaigns.

Conclusion: Where Do We Go from Here?

If looking at the growing trends of innovation in the gaming industry, one is always inclined to ask, perhaps with some reservation, what will come next in the world of marketing. Will game marketing continue to keep up with the cutting edge of video game development? Will connections between the marketing world and the game development world contribute to a synergy where both industries help each other out? It is impossible to say, but with markets always in a chaotic flux in the globalized world of instant consumption, only time will tell.

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