Every Monday (even though today is Tuesday) the LeftStickRight team will take on a different topic surrounding news or interesting topics about games or the gaming industry and open it up for discussion. Our three editors will give their perspective and you are welcome to give your own. Agree? Disagree?

This week we welcome Shaun Hatton of Toronto Thumbs for a special guest appearance.

The topic this week is: Do publishers over expose their games? When does marketing go a bit too far?

Shaun’s Take

It really depends on the publisher and the game. Some games that I really love I feel could have used a lot more publisher support. Zack & Wiki for the Wii comes to mind. Terrific game, but not a lot of people outside of games bloggers and readers really knew about it. If we step outside the macrocosm that is gaming media, very few games are in fact overexposed. These games make it into spots on the six o’clock news as packaged sound bites, oftentimes unfortunately to the detriment of the medium (such as stories where gaming is cited as a root of real-life violence or when someone is beaten or robbed of a gaming console).

Within games media, there’s no shortage of games that are being shoved in everyone’s face on a daily basis. Some are truly great while others fall short, but what it comes down to is consumer awareness. In a way the whole thing becomes a shouting match; it’s a popularity contest where the winner is the one with the most attention.

Zack & Wiki was a game that many feel did not get marketed enough

But this can also backfire. If we think back to the lead up to the launch of Too Human, we can appreciate why Silicon Knights has chosen to be so quiet about what it has in development. We’ve seen what happens when information is released piecemeal over too long a time and when something is said to be the next best thing but ends up being merely a decent thing. Expectations are inflated and although the final product may be good, it falls flat.

The media has a short attention span and moves on to other things – that’s all media, not just gaming media. If we hear about a game that’s going to be released in three years, we’re less inclined to count down the days unless of course we’re a rabid fan of either the developer or an already-established series (next Resident Evil? Count me in). So what we see instead is a slow and steady build. All these games vying for Triple-A status have a lot of marketing push behind them, and as the medium continues to grow we’ll only see more of this – more games not only competing for our attention, but also competing for our time. So it’s only natural there will be such a push.

Now to flip this, is it really the publishers overexposing their games? Doesn’t the games media have a huge role in this, too?

Ian H’s Take

For a very large portion of the games that hit the shelves I think that the ability for them to sell is astounding. Even some products that gain prominence within the gaming enthusiast environment often fall the wayside when it comes to the larger consumer base due to the fact that it fills a small void on a large shelf of other products. Aggressive marketing campaigns may seem like a desperate act at times, but when the battle for exposure is in full effect publishers will use all their tricks to make sure that you know this product exists and are ready to at least give it a try come release time.

Dante's Inferno has certainly earned the ire of some gaming press with their campaign

I do believe that a marketing campaign can negatively impact a game’s critical reception. If a critic has seen just about every element of a game prior to release to an extent where it has become obnoxious or passé, it does not carry the same weight as something which may pleasantly surprise. When it comes to Joe Consumer, though, the “over exposure” we all perceive may trickle into the one TV ad or one poster they notice on a wall of their local shop, they like how it looks and drop down their hard-earned dollars. I think marketing only goes too far when people who do not even have an interest in the medium are tired of seeing the advertisements and hearing about a particular game, which I’m not sure happens all that often. There is a risk in alienating a segment of your core audience by overstepping certain bounds, but that risk is likely mitigated by the fact that it will continue to get people talking about the product.

I don’t necessarily agree that there is no such thing as bad press, I just think that there is a competitive market for eyes and ears out there and companies will have to try and be creative and sometimes abrasive just to get their product noticed.

Tim’s Take

Honestly, I don’t think enough is done to market most games, and when big campaigns are initiated they’re targeted toward the wrong people. My mind boggles when companies choose to send game reviewers titles encased in rock (Fossil Fighters) or checks for $200 to demonstrate the deadly sin of “greed” (Dante’s Inferno). First of all, it’s against journalistic ethics to let gifts sway one’s decisions toward the quality of a game–not that we won’t still take the stuff and run, anyway. And second, whatever buzz is generated by these gimmicks will only be read by the people who frequent these sources of information. You’re just preaching to a cynical choir.

The point of advertising is to get your brand in the minds of people who don’t already know about it. I remember when Nintendo used to send out VHS tapes of upcoming games and systems. They were cheesy as a Velveeta shooter but I ate them up because, back then, there was not many other routes to get footage of games and Nintendo was delivering it directly into my hands. Today, of course, all you ever need is on the Internet, but that’s so swamped with information that most of the people who watch are those who directly searched for it and already knew your brand.

Looks unassuming on the outside, but inside it is filled with 30 minutes of video gamey goodness

TV is still the best way to market to people who do not study games as a hobby and more commercials need to be out there that show what playing the game is like instead of trying to be a movie (unless, of course, you’re a game like Mass Effect 2 and basically are a movie–in which case, good on you; your commercials are great). Nintendo has shown some initiative again in its line of DS commercials showing people actually playing titles. Not only do they give you actual gameplay footage, they also show more casual, uninitiated targets that hey, there’s not much to fear. You can do this, too! Unfortunately, I haven’t seen any of these commercials around anymore, and what I have seen is pretty lame.

Demonstrate your products, companies! Let people see what it’s like!

Ian Y’s Take

I don’t think publishers overexpose their games yet. But it’s true, nowadays anyone with the inclination can bombard themselves with a heap of Dev blog’s, trailers and previews on an upcoming game. But I think there’s an important distinction between this kind of exposure, which could be classified as “news” and plain old ordinary ads. After all, no one is forcing anyone to read Dev blogs or previews. They’re popular because people who are eagerly anticipating a game’s release actively seek out this information. And the only game in recent memory that had way too many ads associated with it was Red Faction: Guerrilla.

Our game will RUN YOU OVER! WITH A CAR!

That said, there are a couple of signs that game marketing is getting dangerously close to the ridiculous. Firstly, like the movie industry, game publishers are starting to abuse other mediums to create useless, throwaway products that few care for just to increase the amount of pre-release hype. Just look at the number of games that have comic book series spin-offs. Secondly, video game marketing is increasingly responsible for a lot of extra non-videogame related merchandise. I mean, God of War has its own Slurpee flavour at 7/11 (although I’ll let that one slide just because I love Surpees). But I’m pretty comfortable with the level of marketing going on at the moment, as long as I don’t start seeing weird crap like Record of Agarest War urinal cakes in the shape of girls’ bosoms