Is all fair in love and games marketing? - 3 nasty trends in games marketing

I'm sure that a lot of people have a distinct dislike for marketing people. A dislike that is only topped by their dislike for lawyers or having an ice pick wedged in their eye socket.
I myself have a fairly positive view on marketing workers and their trade in general. I understand the need to drive sales for a product and that this practice will sometimes create situations that can perhaps be a little obnoxious or a small hassle for me as a consumer.

But I must say that certain trends that I'm starting to see in video games marketing has made me question if we're starting to reach a point where the marketing decisions are starting to really hurt the games and the people that are going to play them?

Using highly advanced word alchemy, I have condensed my complaints into three main categories that I feel sum up fairly well, what my issues with the current game marketing situation is and why I think they are negatively impacting the games being made.

1) Preorder Bonuses

Getting a lot of preorders is great. Firstly, it's a lot of guaranteed revenue for your company that will come in as soon as you release your game, and secondly, it is also a great figure to brag about (if it's high) and show the world how great your game must be since so many people have already ordered it without it even being out yet.

One way of increasing the number of preorders that your game gets is by creating a "preorder bonus". Something in the game that will only be available to consumers that placed a preorder on the game.
If you look at it in a positive light it is the game company's way of saying thank you to the fans for preordering and believing in the game. If you take a more cynical view it is a way to sucker people into laying down a deposit for a game of unknown quality by promising them a slightly different looking gun/costume/hat etc.

Anyway, my gripe is not as much with the preorder bonuses themselves. I think that it's alright to reward your most dedicated fans a little. What I mind is the practice that is becoming more and more common, where every retailer has their own specific preorder bonus.
Want the silver machine gun? Preorder at Best Buy. Oh, you want the purple striped hand grenades? That's an Amazon preorder bonus.

This got completely out of hand with "Batman: Arkham City", which had so many different preorder bonus arrangements that there are entire dedicated web pages that explain where you need to go to get which preorder bonus!

So many... Batmen? Batmans?

Not only does this mean that some people that preorder may feel cheated when they discover that there was actually a much cooler preorder bonus at another retailer than the one they placed their order in. It also means that the people that care the most about getting all the content for your game will be unable to get it unless they place multiple preorders (now I'm sure some marketing people would actually like them to do just that, but I'd also like those same marketing people to spontaneously combust and go out in a massive fireball of aggregated greed and pure evil, but that's probably not gonna happen either).

Of course, you'll most likely be able to get your hands on all the preorder bonus content later...by buying it as paid downloadable content (DLC). That's right, kick those preordering fans right in the nutsack by taking away the one identifier they have of being dedicated fans.

2) "Buy new" incentives

The ever growing success of retailers like Gamestop's used sales business has been a proportionally ever growing thorn in the side of the game developing and publishing industry for a long time.
The first time a game is sold there will be money flowing back to the publishing and development industry. But if that game is handed in again at a later date and sold again, then that money is all going right down into the retailers pockets. This naturally creates great incentive for retailers to sell used games, and equally creates a great incentive for the publishers to make people not want to sell their games and/or not buy used games.

DLC is one way to keep gamers hanging on to their games. If they like their game and want to play more, you can help make sure it stays on their shelf by releasing new DLC every once in a while that people will want to play.

DLC in itself has turned into a sort of ugly thing, where some developers are now seemingly cutting out parts of their game for later use in DLC's. There's also the "season pass" DLC, which is a one time purchase that allows the players access to all DLC for a game that is being released over a specific period of time. Again, this will stimulate people to not sell their games, as they will obviously need to have their copy around to play that DLC they've already paid for.

But I'm not going to complain about DLC here (what's that? It's already too late? Bah!), since I have also experienced much DLC that adds significant value to a game and breathes new life into an already great title. And at least this is a method of dissuading you from selling your games by improving the games.

Or you could just start ripping out core functionality of your game. That sounds like a good idea, right?
Apparently more and more publishers agree with that sentiment, since the proliferation of "buy new" incentives is increasing steadily.

So far the most common way of using this method is the "online pass" routine. Basically every new game comes with an online code that you have to redeem before you can play the multiplayer part of the game. Since it is a one time use code, this will of course have the effect that a used copy of the game is not going to be as attractive, as it will not have this multiplayer pass code.

The EA Sports games were some of the first to start the practice of using an Online Pass

I think that this is an uncool thing to do since that's basically just ripping out content of the game because you don't like the way that your customers are using the product that they've paid for and own.
But at least you're only taking away the online experience, right?
It's not like you'd start ripping out pieces of the single player game as well, since that would really be crossing the line.

What's that? A call on the batphone?
Enter Batman: Arkham City (again) and its entire Cat Woman single player components. If you wanted to play the parts of Arkham City where you play as the sassy feline lass, then you'd better have a one time redeemable code, unless you want to pay $10 for a little leather and whip action (actually that's a lot less than what I normally pay for it, but still).

If this development continues, you'll end up being treated to an intro sequence, a tutorial and the end credits, with a friendly pop-up suggesting that you might want to buy a content pass if you want to experience the full game.

3) Shady exaggerations 

"Wait a minute", you might say. "Your third grip is "Shady exaggerations"!?", you continue. "Isn't that like 80% of marketing, right after making up completely random percentage statistics, you handsome devil?", you might conclude.

Indeed, I realize that blowing a little extra hot air into the balloon goes with the territory of marketing. However there is a special case that has riled me up and seems to be really cynical exploitation of gamers fears and love of a franchise.

Star Wars: The Old Republic had a very dubiously marketed preorder program (bear with me, this is not about how many different copies you had to preorder to get all the various colored Jar-Jar masks).
When the preorders were opened for Old Republic it was stated that EA wanted to ensure the greatest playing experience for players, and therefore would only sell a limited amount of preorders, in order to ensure they had server capacity enough to handle all players.
To further rile up the Force craving masses, EA then went on to reveal that there would be an "early access" program and the sooner you placed your preorder, the earlier you would be let into the game. Again, the justification was that people needed to be let onto the servers in controllable waves to ensure a positive gaming experience.

I have no doubt that there were actually some people in BioWare that figured out that it would be a good idea to limit how many people that bought the game so they could ensure a smooth launch. However, I am severely questioning whether the number they came up with was anywhere near the amount of preorders that EA could reasonably expect to get (so like, if BioWare wants to limit the number to 8.000.000 players... Probably not gonna be a problem, dude).

EA played on our fears like a true Sith Lord

But what seems likely to have happened is that a marketing guy in EA heard about this and steam blew out of his ears while dollar signs rolled across his eyes, ABBA's "money money money" playing in his head.
Extremely popular franchise + planting the idea into the rabid fan base that supplies are limited + telling them that the early bird gets the first shuttle to Tatooine + a shield of nobility to hide behind, in the form of being able to claim that it's all for the good of the players = $$$$$$$$$$$$$$

I'll confess right now and say that I fell for it immediately. On the very first day that preorders were opened, I scrambled to place my order and secure a place in a galaxy far far away. Relief flooded into my system as I got my order confirmed and redeemed my preorder code on the official site.
However, as the months passed by, with no further updates from EA about the limits of the preorders or the dangers of not being able to buy the game at retail on day 1, I started getting the vibe that maybe this "limited supplies, act now!" TV Shop scheme was not totally on the level.

I did get early access the first day, so I guess I can't complain about that, though I strongly feel that EA and BioWare could easily have allowed all preorder people into the game on the first day of early access, if they had so desired.
In any event, I am now stuck on a server that has a 1-2,5 hour waiting queue and I've been experiencing several disconnects from the game, some of which has thrown me right onto the back of aforementioned humongous queue. So... Whatever BioWare did to ensure a fantastic gaming experience at launch, it really didn't create a launch that was all that much better than the launch of a lot of other major MMO's in recent time.

Anyway, that's about all the ranting that I can wring from my bile infested gaming heart. Again, I understand that there is a real need to market games and I don't mind a little slight of hand to accomplish the job. I just hope that publishers and developers take a minute and consider the price that their games may end up paying in the service of squeezing a few more bucks out of them.



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