11mo ago

'Marketing's dead, and I can back this s**t up': Larian's publishing director says players 'just want to be spoken to, and they don't want to be bamboozled'

www.pcgamer.com 'Marketing's dead, and I can back this s**t up': Larian's publishing director says players 'just want to be spoken to, and they don't want to be bamboozled'

In our State of PC Gaming roundtable, Larian's Michael Douse argues marketing isn't the right way to reach today's gaming audience.

'Marketing's dead, and I can back this s**t up': Larian's publishing director says players 'just want to be spoken to, and they don't want to be bamboozled'

Games @sh.itjust.works

nanoUFO @sh.itjust.works

10mo ago

'Marketing's dead, and I can back this s**t up': Baldur's Gate 3 publishing director says players 'just want to be spoken to, and they don't want to be bamboozled'

www.pcgamer.com /gaming-industry/marketings-dead-and-i-can-back-this-sht-up-larians-publishing-director-says-players-just-want-to-be-spoken-to-and-they-dont-want-to-be-bamboozled/

291 37

PC Gaming @lemmy.ca

alessandro @lemmy.ca

10mo ago

'Marketing's dead, and I can back this s**t up': Baldur's Gate 3 publishing director says players 'just want to be spoken to, and they don't want to be bamboozled'

www.pcgamer.com /gaming-industry/marketings-dead-and-i-can-back-this-sht-up-larians-publishing-director-says-players-just-want-to-be-spoken-to-and-they-dont-want-to-be-bamboozled/

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42 comments

It's not about what players want, it's about what they'll buy, and bamboozling works way too often.
- Agreed, pre-orders are a thing after all...but it's possible that it still works too often and also that gamers are becoming a bit more jaded about marketing. I don't buy anything till the Metacritic and Steam reviews are out, and I only watch gameplay videos any more cause who cares about the cut scenes? I'm sure I'm not the only one. Consumers eventually learn their lessons but then a new crop of consumers comes up.
  Counterpoint: Call of Duty 27 should be out soon.
  
  Yeah I hate that storepages have these videos that look absolutely amazing but show nothing of the actual game.
  Sure it looks fancy, but it won't convince me to buy the game until I can actually see what I'm buying.
  
  Call of Duty is a good game tho... I personally don't like it but there is a reason it's so popular. Outside of Battlefield there really isn't much else out there on the quality level of call of duty as far as arcade shooters go.
  Any other good quality shooters tend to be PC only and are a lot slower paced. Squad, hell let lose, escape from Tarkov are all great shooters but those games are very slow paced compared to call of duty.
  Halo is similar as is Destiny but those are in a fantasy setting and a lot of people like the realistic setting of call of duty.
- I think the issue is there's a constant influx of young gamers entering the market and all the old tricks are new to them. The teen to young adult age bracket is very lucrative and will never stop unless we stop having sex and procreating. If we all abstain for like 20 years, we'll finally disrupt big gaming and also have no one in chat insulting anyone's mother.
- Yeah. This is probably overly cynical but the high road can also be a marketing strategy
  
  Yes, but generally it's far less profitable.

I wouldn't say that past generations wanted to be marketed to, it's just that before the internet, marketing was the closest a customer could get to being spoken to by a brand.
And at some point in the history of marketing, I think companies used to see it that way too, marketing was a means of communicating with potential customers what your product offered. But as capitalism progressed, and media outlets expanded (print, radio, film, TV, etc.), honesty was optimized out in favor of "bamboozleism".
It's now easier than ever for a brand to have a direct, two-way conversation with their customers at any time, but marketers are still stuck in that 20th century mindset of "we just say whatever we want, and you just accept it". The internet is in the process of popping that bubble.
- I work in the industry, and yeah. Before, marketing was based on utility. "Buy this because it can do this and this and that", basically marketing how effective or what it can actually do for you. Around the 50s (in the US) marketing changed to be based around lifestyle. "Buy this so you can be this". Now nearly all ads appeal to emotion instead of reason, and it is very effective.
  Researching about what a product offers is so much harder than just buying on a whim because the ads and the product are colorful.
  You can see this change in old (really old) newspapers. Ad spreads were chock full of text about features. Now 3/4ths of the ads are an image of a happy woman if marketed for gals, or a stoic muscly man if marketed for guys.
  Gives me the ick.
  
  Limbic capitalism. The product will make you happy. Only the product will make you happy.
- Largely agree. I think the bamboozlers were there the whole time - after all, a lot of early radio was for propaganda purposes. But I do think most companies try to do things the right way, and there was a point when marketing was seen as simple outreach.

So...I've lost count of how many Mission Impossible movies they made. At some point between 2014 and 2016 I think they made one, because for hundreds of youtube videos in a row I was shown an ad that had this irritating song that went "Ready or not, here I come" in a really nasally voice? Apparently advertising a Mission Impossible movie.
I have refused to watch any Mission Impossible movie, or any movie starring Tom Cruise made before or since, and to a degree the spy/action thriller/guy intensely running genre ever since. Because of how much they chose to irritate me about it.
If part of your strategy is to beat me into submission, I'm going to avoid your entire market segment forever.
Meanwhile a lot of my favorite games I never saw actual advertisements for, even if those ads existed. I learned about them from word of mouth, watching streamers/youtubers, or searching for "games like [game I enjoy]"
I categorically rule out a lot of big business practices because the era when "Hey you could make a fun game about flying an X-Wing" is over and the era of "Our business strategy leverages marketable properties in a variety of monetization verticals" is coming to a middle. So I tend to buy from smaller studios or solo developers.
- Glorious American Capitalism. Enshittification is just a word for the financialization of everything. Finance Bros run the world, and they know you have another .0265٪ disposable income they can get to make their line go up another quarter.
  
  On a completely different subject which I think is related: My parents want a cabinet and hutch for their dining room. I'm designing and building it. Looking on the internet for ideas, I like how that cornice is done. Can't do those legs the way I'm going to build the side rails" type thing, I notice a trend: There is basically no documentation on the internet that anyone actually uses dining room hutches to store things they frequently use. Those that aren't just blank to market the cabinet itself are crammed with random knickknacks or worse the White Woman's Instagram tableau. A scroll sawn cursive word, some brand new ceramic containers with words printed on them in that thin tall font, especially a teapot with TEA written on it in which tea will NEVER be made, a statue of a pig, an old sifter, a fake plant...
  I hate the idea of such a large, complicated and expensive piece of furniture used as a trophy case or a diorama of basic bitchery. In the words of George Carlin, "spending money you don't have on things you don't need."

I was not a big fan of BG3 or even the divinity series, but I love Larian. Their products show clear passion for the budget they have, they don’t bad mouth other dev just to gain some brownie pts with gamers (CDPR) and their games are well supported.
- What didn't you like about it? I didn't like divinity original sin so I've been hesitant on buying bg3.
  
  As some who has played maybe 30-50% of DOS1+2 and currently the first of three acts in BG3: If you have issues with the gameplay mechanics in DOS1/2 you'll likely have them in BG3 too. Main difference is a vastly improved storyline, which kinda makes up for most of them.
  Issues I still have with BG3 boils down to only the active character can use its abilities in conversations and sometimes (mechanically) unexpected stuff happens that can only be undone by saves.
  If your issue with DOS was a boring story and lack of hidden/funny things to uncover you should give BG3 a try, if you disliked the overall experience you likely won't enjoy BG3.
  
  To me it just felt like divinity with higher budget. It has Proper cinematic cutscenes and different rules to the combat. I guess I just don’t like CRPGs, I never properly feel immersed in the world.

I wish this was true, but marketing is explosively effective. I have a top 10 VR app and it only gets sales when I market it despite the glowing reviews. Heck you cannot even sort by review on many sites as then you would not need to market if you title was great.

I'm at least an average intelligence guy, not a genius, but I'm not some compelete idiot. Big game companies treat me like an absolute dumb ass so I don't bother with their trash (the games are almost always mediocre anyway full of MTX). Just sell me a full working product at a fair price and then charge me for an expansion down the road if you want. Don't nickel and dime me or promise me.shit I know you can't deliver. Just talk to me like a human lol

I wonder what happens when the last whale has been milked dry. With the number of shitty cash grab games out there with heinous monetization, surely the ecosystem reaches a tipping point where there literally just isn't enough money to go around, both because the whales themselves run out and the remaining number gets spread too thin among too many Clash of Clans, FIFAs and Diablo Immortals. Do you think we're going to start seeing real effort in those spaces to appeal to players again, or do they just implode because nobody wants to serve a declining market?
- I wonder what happens when the last whale has been milked dry.
  I have some bad news for you friend.
  I work at a casino. There is no end of whales. There are whales that are rich enough to sustain their habits and spend more than you or I could morally spend if we had the means. Then, there are whales that spend outside their means, burn out, and are replaced by a new person who does the same thing.
  When a whale (highroller) stops coming, we usually assume they've gone to one of our competitor's casinos.
  I see no reason why this wouldn't apply to real-money transactions in video games. It's just another casino.
- I think we're still a ways off from this happening.
  Populations are still growing and many countries GDPs are increasing too lifting more people out of poverty each year.
  Eventually I think games will die off one by one as people age out and it's not popular for younger audiences.
  Finally in the end there will be 3 or 4 games owned by 2 companies fighting it out for complete control of consumers
  
  As long as there are people who want to make games there will be indy game development going on.

Meanwhile, FIFA players: "when can I pre-order the next edition of my game, and could I just pay for the cards in advance, or do I have to wait until release?"
Sadly, bamboozling players, dark patterns and nickle-and-diming work, and work VERY well at that - if they didn't, people would stop doing it a long time ago...

Marketing is far from dead. Larian themselves used it to great effect with BG3. Does no one remember the announcement trailer released for BG3 well in advance of any gameplay footage? That's marketing, though and through. And yes, it worked plenty well on me. A D&D game based around Mind Flayers, made by the folks behind Divinity Original Sin? Shut up and take my money. Also, when I noticed the outline of a Nautiloid ship in the background, I may have needed a change of shorts.
The difference with BG3 was that Larian didn't just pull an Edward Bernays style marketing as a con. They delivered a good product, worked with players to fix any issues and have gone above and beyond supporting the game after release. They have done everything right to build long term customer relationships. Maybe they don't reach the same level of profits some other companies might, by stuffing microtransactions in every orifice. But, I suspect they are profitable and seem to be better built be continue long term and not have to tear the company up and saddle one of those pieces with insane amounts of debt.
While I can't promise that I'll buy their next game, I'll undoubtedly keep an eye out for it. Larian puts out a quality product and doesn't fuck their customers. That's what makes their brand of marketing work.

Hundreds of millions of Call of Duty and Fifa games sold show that unfortunately marketing works

Uhh… that is exactly why marketing works dude….

I wish that was actually the case but we all know marketing works like gang busters on gamers looking for their next fix. It it wasn't they wouldn't be hiring psychologists and paying them mid to high six figure starting salaries.

simple as

That's not what Chet in Marketing says.

NO! Really?
Edit: sales and marketing don't exist to sell stuff that people want, they exists to sell stuff that people don't want. If you sell something with a high demand then you're not a salesman, you're a glorified cashier. Salesmanship involves getting people to buy stuff they wouldn't otherwise buy. Most companies don't have anything special that everyone wants, so they have to resort to sales and marketing to stay in business.

Marketing/PR is gross

42 comments