Slay the Spire developer Casey Yano reflected on the natural human behavior that is avoiding ads like the plague. “From a very young age, when I saw an advertisement I was like, ‘why isn’t AdBlock blocking this?’” said Yano.
I think this is the prevailing attitude among anyone young with any amount of technical know-how. Ads are incredibly fucking obnoxious.
Huge agree. If ads weren’t so invasive or literal malware, I would probably still view them, but they couldn’t leave well enough alone so I’m waging my own Butlerian Jihad against advertising in my life using networking hardware.
I kept cable so I could watch sports, at some point I gave up sports because of the ads. Then I gave up cable.
I’ve installed a pihole, and pirate everything mostly because I do not want to see ads. The being free part is just a bonus.
If your gas pumps play ads while I’m filling up, I will not come back.
If you must have advertisements I will simply go without. Youtube is trying very hard to be next on the chopping block.
I don’t understand how companies don’t get this about the younger generations, we’ll twist ourselves into pretzels to avoid ads.
Instead of marketing simply acquire the rights to an old IP your audience will feel nostalgia for and do steam early access for 3 years.
Everyone says marketing doesn’t work, but they all still do it anyway, because it does work. Lest we forget most gaming media nowadays just regurgitate press releases from AAA publishers, and for all the piss and vinegar in their reviews, will not score them below some commonly accepted “ok” grade (or, heaven forfend for everyone’s bottom line, refuse to review the game at all).
Yeah, shitty ads don’t work, boo hoo. Meanwhile gamers will trip over their dicks to watch “The Game Awards”, Nintendo Directs, Playstation State of Play, and Xbox Showcase. All of those 4 are essentially just ads for games, they’re just game trailers, and they draw in the crowds. Did anyone tell them? Do they not know? Are they not aware these are just ads for games? Because clearly, if they knew this was just marketing they’d hit the X button and close the window.
Not only that, people will pay good money to be advertised to and even travel hundreds of miles or more to attend Penny Arcade eXpo, Blizzcon, etc, the gaming industry’s version of defense contractor expos
I still go back and watch the cinematic trailer for Wrath of the Lich King sometimes. I’ve never even played the old RTS warcraft games, but when I saw that trailer on our satellite TV back in 2008 I thought it was the most incredible thing I’d ever seen and had to play the game. Because of the strength of that ad I’ve given blizzard hundreds of dollars over the years. I even bought some the ancillary media. I saw the movie they put out like five times. I didn’t even like it that much. When they put out lorebooks a few years ago I bought those even though I hadn’t been a regular WoW player for a number of years and even though I’ve come to despise WoW’s approach to lore and storytelling. And all of that off the back of one incredible advertisement.
Hell, even as a long time D&D player there’s an alternate world where BG3 just isn’t on my radar if they never release a cinematic trailer. It’d just be a game that the slightly annoying gays, tumblr users, and the people who are too into Critical Role won’t stop talking about.
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when I’m forced to watch an ad by some dumb fucking streaming service I jusdt think “fuck you I will never buy your shit”
They had a ton of marketing on BG 3 over the years.
Normal web ads to be clicked are ignored as they are all bullshit. Ads that say “baldurs gate 3 is out, look it up” work.
Like a week or so ago I was looking at some trailer for a game on Steam. I watched the trailer thinking the premise sounded good, it was some retro FPS or whatever. Anyway, I got like 30 seconds into the trailer and I saw like 1 second of footage of the player backing up while shooting at like a dozen identical enemies, and my brain said “nope” and I closed the tab. Then I had a moment of self-reflection where I was like “Dang… that’s all it takes for me to say nah?” But I guess I’ve honed my sense of whether I’m going to enjoy a game so well at this point that that really is all it takes.
Game trailers should just show me a highlight reel of gameplay and let me decide for myself if it looks fun tbh
Ehhhh you still need to like find ways to make people talk about your game.
For Baldur’s Gate 3 that was a non-issue, but if you had a new franchise and no name recognition you absolutely would need marketing.
Larian will pretty much sell anything on name alone with the amount of good-will they’ve generated. They won’t need marketing ever again, plenty of other studios will.
Larian will pretty much sell anything on name alone with the amount of good-will they’ve generated. They won’t need marketing ever again, plenty of other studios will.
Unless they pull a bioware
Possible but not while Larian remains privately owned and its owner is actively hostile to the very concept of shareholders.
In this case we have the one good CEO that actually cares about the art they’re making.
When it sells I agree completely.
I’m really happy we got a CEO that isn’t trying to nickle and dime everything to shit, but really, when the going is good, that’s the easiest time to do the right thing.
I wish this were true
But the fact of the matter is that
are fickle mush-heads who go for shiny goo-gaws and familiar tonesThey love being bamboozled
They love cranking out $70 for the newest slop, then jamming another $100 bucks in for cosmetics
If they didn’t, the indie market would be seeing sales in the millions
Hell, even Helldivers 2, which is only $40, but way more fun than any of the last fifteen Call of Duty’s, will never sell as many copies as whatever CoD comes out this year
It’s just how the system is built
Finally
I really liked the panels from hell as a form of generating excitement.
“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.”
… so they want to be marketed to? i feel like he’s equating marketing with buying a bunch of banner ads and letting it rip. the ad industry hasn’t just been watching adblocker usage tick up with a frown, there’s sponsored content (like this song for BG3 or this video for BG3) and activations and media synergy (like this comic for BG3) and more ways to get your attention.
Warframe creative director Rebecca Ford opined, “actual players don’t want to be marketed to,”
I know she was formerly their community director so she probably knows more about this than i do, and maybe this is being taken out of context, but i just don’t think that’s correct. people want to be marketed to, they want to be shown stuff they might find interesting. people love watching trailers and eating up promotional slop when it’s something they like.
yeah i think this is the main point of contention, “marketing” being some hyper-specialised term they use that is just ad buys or some shit
I found YouTube links in your comment. Here are links to the same videos on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Link 1:
Link 2:
👍
Easy to say when your company already has a pedigree and is pushing a long-anticipated sequel to a popular series
I went to a retrospective of an old comedian the other day, and he talked about a book he released in 1984 with a little backstory as to why he and his friend wrote it. He then read a couple of segments of it which were hilarious. Then he put the book away and carried on.
My partner and I both thought we should buy the book after, so we looked it up. Turns out the 1984 copies are collectors items. So the only way to get his book was on his website, where a new edition of the book had been released, for new-book price.
It was then I realised he’d essentially done a covert advert. I didn’t mind, because the excerpts he read had me rolling, but also I felt much more likely to buy it because he didn’t say ‘buy my new book, it’s got X and y and X and it’s for the very reasonable price of XX.99!!!’
I hate being advertised to, is my point, I guess. Especially when it’s flashy bullshit. Just show me what is.
Ads don’t work. But if you can shitpost about lil chipmunks making AK47s in your new game and it turns out to be true, you will sell millions of copies.
Yes if i make a great game i dont need to advertise it much but if i make a cheap shitty game and i have no confidence in it or its a product of some corporations shareholders, then yes i need to advertise the dog shit out of it
