author: Zuzanna Domeradzka
'Players Just Want to Be Spoken To. They Don't Want to Be Bamboozled.' Baldur's Gate 3 Dev Says Traditional Game Marketing Is Dead
The developers of such games as Baldur's Gate 3 and EVE Online have spoken out about marketing in the game industry. They claim that gamers don't want to be tricked with ads.
The modern gaming market is so developed and vast that a player may have trouble choosing the perfect game for themselves. Developers want their title to be noticed and thus reach as many people as possible, satisfy them and bring profit.
Several game developers participated in a conversation with the PC Gamer service, who commented on the topic of advertising. Interestingly, the invited guests agreed that "game marketing is dead." Larian Studios' Director of Publishing, Michael Douse, emphasized that all "traditional" methods of advertising upcoming creations don't work in today's times, as players want to know exactly what product they are dealing with.
You used to have marketing, communication, and PR. Marketing was essentially a retail theory--you were trying to get your box on the right point of the store shelf, and you have partnerships with retail stores. Those pipelines are gone. Now you've got the internet. Nobody is looking at ads anymore. [...] Players just want to be spoken to. They don't want to be bamboozled --they just want to know what you're making and why you're making it and who it's for.
Eyrun Jonsdottir, VP of Publishing in CCP (the studio responsible for EVE Online), referred to the words of the dev of Baldur’s Gate 3, claiming that players want to be part of the emerging title. That's why many of them participated in the early access of Larian Studios' hit game. The Belgians know that this system works, which is why their next games will also be released in this form.
Rebecca Ford, the Creative Director of Warframe, observed that game development studios still hire people responsible for "marketing," but their main responsibility is to liaise with Sony or Microsoft stores to provide players with information about a particular game. Michael Douse corrected her, however, noting that this is simply the proper form of releasing a game, not marketing in the strict sense.
The best place to market your game is on the store itself. Everything else isn't worth it - we learned that with BG3, said Michael Douse.
Closing the topic, the developer of Baldur's Gate 3 and the director of Warframe joked that the best advertising for a game is winning the game of the year award at The Game Awards. Taking this seriously - some gamers might actually choose to buy a specific title when it achieves such a significant distinction, similar to how movie fans would prefer to watch a film that has won an Oscar, and so on.