GCDC 2007 - Best Selling Games Panel
Marketing!The next topic of discussion was the concept of marketing making or breaking a big title. Everyone agreed that marketing is important, including Michael Capps: "Marketing is crucial - Gears of War got lucky." In the case of Gears of War, the game got a piggyback ride on Microsoft's Xbox 360 marketing, and sold a huge number as the console's official marquee title. That helped to drive Gears of War to the top of the sales charts. On the other hand, no amount of marketing will save a bad game. As Don Daglow put it: "Good marketing helps a bad game fail faster."
On the subject of reviewing games, the panelists agreed that games should always be reviewed based on who the game is aimed for. Journalists who are hardcore gamers tend to dismiss titles not aimed for them; you can tell a good journalist from "just a journalist" if they can review the game without that hardcore bias. Personally, I agree wholeheartedly with this statement. Although the topics discussed were serious, there was room for humor. A particularly long and elaborate question from the audience queried whether games companies should shift from big blockbuster "major event" games marketing towards a more viral and word-of-mouth game publishing. Epic's Michael Capps simply answered "no", to the delight and laughter of the crowd. Apparently, Epic is quite happy to keep making big titles like Gears of War and Unreal Tournament sequels. So, what was the secret sauce again?In the end, the formula for creating a best-selling game couldn't really be defined. We were left with the feeling that the number of ingredients is just too great and their mixing too intricate to make a fool-proof recipe. While you could talk for hours about the details, the trick is to actually put it all together when making that next upcoming hit game.
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