Games marketing has evolved significantly from early focus on box art over graphics to today's emphasis on visuals, new technologies, and social media. Early marketing sometimes misrepresented graphics, but now highlights them. It has expanded beyond TV to extensive online and social media presences. Emerging trends include augmented reality, social features within games, and downloadable content incentives for pre-orders.

1. Games Marketing
Initially when the games industry was in its infancy games marketing
tended not too focus on the game’s graphics – mainly as they were not as
eye catching as they are now.
Original Pong Box
Atari VCS2600 packaging

2. There was often a discrepancy between the box art and the graphics…
E.T. (1982)
Gauntlet (1985)

3. This ‘hiding’ of graphics still goes on today…
Call of Duty 2: Finest Hour was released in 2005 with this
advert that didn’t represent the game actual graphics despite
the fact that they weren’t that bad.
Then EA got into trouble by using Xbox 360 visuals when
adverting the Wii version of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09.
Wii version 360 Version

4. Then here’s the X-Men Legends 2TV advert and
here’s what the game looks like.
X-Men Legends 2
(2005)

5. Skyrim marketing campaign intentionally used live action

6. Then there was marketing directly aimed at the adolescent boy market that
existed during the 80s and 90s.
The beat-’em-up Barbarian came with a free poster of Page 3 stunna
Maria Whittaker with it. Also that’s Wolf from Gladiators on the front.
This wasn’t an inclusive way of marketing and perpetuated the idea that
games were only for a certain demographic.

7. Sexism in marketing was prevalent in the 2000s
And recently – this was the Hitman launch trailer

8. There also many instances of ‘synergy’ with spin off cartoons, movies and
pop songs.
Sonic had his own Saturday morning cartoon.
The Nintendo endorsed The Wizard starring Fred
Savage came out in 1989.
Pokémon became the phenomenon it was due
to the success of both the games, cards and
the cartoon series.

9. Today games companies are far more sophisticated and
eager to show off their graphics, often in abstract or
interesting ways such as this Gears of War advert.
Also you still get challenging and controversial adverting such as this Xbox
advert from 2002 and this 360 one from 2005. Both were banned.

10. Now however the console makers are keen to market their hardware as more than
just games machines. This is to expand the market and attract new consumers.
Nintendo’s marketing strategy is more
focused on the users and some feel
more like a denture advertisements.
Mario KartAnt and Dec do Wii Fit
Sony are pushing the technological
convergence of the PlayStation with their
The Game is Just the Start campaign.
Microsoft have done a similar
thing with for their 360
marketing.

11. Marketing has gone beyond conventional print and TV campaigns due to the
amount of time potential consumers spend on the internet.
There’s banner and
trailer advertising on
both mainstream and
specialist websites.
Most new games
have their own
website containing
new assets and
updates on
development

12. Social Media (new technologies, media convergence) is also playing a huge
role in marketing campaigns.
Most games have their own
Facebook page and twitter
feeds making contact with
consumers far easier and
more direct, such as this Call
of Duty page.
Apps are designed to
promote interest in the
game such as this Red
Dead RPG. This is a great
example of viral
marketing as consumers
actively gets their social
network to join up.

13. For the release of Splinter Cell:
Conviction publishers Ubisoft
created this Facebook page for
the Third Echelon, the fictional
black-ops organisation the games’
hero, Sam Fisher, works for. Fans
were encouraged to update any
‘sightings’ of Fisher.
Sam Fisher even has his own
‘spoof’ twitter feed so you can
keep up with his day to day
activities.

14. Other examples of this online viral marketing can be seen on the Just Cause
2 official website. Here you’ll find a banner ad for the fictional local paper
for the island of Panua, the setting of the game.
Scrawled onto the paper is a url
for the fictional journalist
Robert Carter’s blog.
This in turn leads to Carter’s
flickr site.
The idea is that as the consumers have discovered all this stuff themselves, they will feel
‘ownership’ of the information and be more inclined to pass it on to peers and friends.

15. There’s apps that can be downloaded for Facebook that inform your friends of
every new PS3 Trophy or 360 Achievement you receive in game, which is
almost automated viral marketing.
Then there’s social networking
appearing in actual games – racing
game Blur allows you to access
twitter in game so you can inform
followers about events or lap times.
In Just Cause 2 you can capture 30
second highlights and update them
to Youtube just using the in-game
options menu.

16. The latest marketing tool is called ‘augmented reality’. It’s a technique that
allows real world items interact with virtual items. This has been used in
several games magazines where a symbol is show up to a web cam that
activates the (downloaded) augmented reality software and suddenly still
images become animated.
Esquire recently did a whole augmented reality issue with a cover that
sprang to life and loads of advertising that became animated.
Esquire’s Editor explains how it all works here.
This is great example of old and new
media coming together (media
convergence) to create a new
experience, but there’s loads more uses
for augmented reality than just making
mags come to life.

17. Point of sale marketing is changing as well. Rather than offering free gifts such as
soundtrack CD or T-shirts, now consumers can get virtual items that can be used in
game. For Red Dead Redemption consumers can get several different items
depending on where they pre-order the game.
Pre order at Game and you get the
The Deadly Assassin Outfit – that
causes your Dead Eye meter to
regenerate at twice the speed.
Pre-order at Amazon to get the
Golden Guns Weapon Pack that gives
you more in-game ‘fame’.
And pre-order at HMV to get the The
War Horse which is stronger and
tougher than other horses.
This is all downloadable content that can be accessed by a use-once code, so if
consumers pick up Red Dead second hand they won’t be able to download the content
a second time. This is an attempt to get consumers to pay full price for new copies
rather than for pre-own items.

18. Downloadable content is becoming increasingly important for games marketing
as can be seen by the $50 millions Microsoft paid Rockstar to get exclusivity for
the GTA 4 DLC – Lost and the Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony.
In EA’s FIFA World Cup 2010 several
player celebrations can only be
downloaded using a code obtained
from certain Coca Cola products. This
is an interesting example of synergy.
Ubisoft are taking an interesting
stand point by allowing all DLC to be
available to both consumers who
buy their games new or pre-owned
as they see value on being on the
consumers ‘side’.