Kupek wrote:I'm not being snide: is it worth their money? What do they gain by putting on a carnival? Keep in mind that money spent on an event specifically targeting gamers (not the gaming press) takes money away from conventional advertising campaigns and game development.
It's more an allocation of marketing dollars than taking away from game development. They don't overlap the vast majority of the time.
Simply put, the type of products these companies sell benefit greatly from the hands-on interaction between the consumer and the product, especially if the product maker is involved. Games, similar to other electronic products, benefit greatly from hands-on time PRIOR to buying. It's a much more effective selling technique than a commercial IMO.
I have two sources of support for this theory:
1) My store - I probably sold more people on certain games by letting them try (rental copies) out at my store than with any other technique. Some games (say, Halo) only need the word to get out there to sell, there's no real "selling" of the game to the consumer mostly due to the fact the consumer knows exactly what they're getting into. But this represents what, 25%-50% of the software? And usually sequels/updates. For games/systems/peripherals that the consumer has no idea about (ie. Wii), hands on in the store was BY FAR the best technique.
2) E3 2001 and 2004 - at both E3s I witnessed first hand people's reactions (as well as my own) to games. Sure E3 on the 'Net was all about the hype machine and the big games but if you were there spending 10+ hours a day for 3 days, you're not just there to play Halo or Mario. You take a ganter and a lot of the games which are just sitting there with literally no one eying them and maybe one or two employees in the area...max. And you get to try the game out and see what it's all about. Games that I was sold on just from playing them there were Donkey Kong Jungle Beat (I thought it was ridiculous when I heard about it but after 20 minutes of playing it in Nintendo's booth, I was sold....and had a crowd of over 10 people just in awe at its sheer awesomeness around me), Ribbit King (would never have even given it a second thought normally), and Rome: Total War (I hate RTSs but I sat there on the show floor for 30 minutes with this game).
You also get it the other way too. There were a lot of games that died at E3 like, say, Auto Assault or Iron Phoenix, which was hyped big there but everyone's reaction was "meh" (literally everyone).
Without this type of interaction, what do you have left? Well, you have some kiosks with limited games selection in stores like EB (mostly untouched) or you have the magazines/websites/G4 to tell you what THEY think. Or you can ask your friends or try it at their place. That ain't marketing though, which is what this discussion is all about.
Gaming is an experience thing, You can't have someone tell you what they think and base your decision solely on that. And there's no better selling technique than actually playing it. Stipping aside all the hype and the side-show of E3, what was so awesome about it was being able to experience the games in a great setting with the developers right there to talk to you about it (I talked with Vic Ireland and his artist about Lunar for PSX for half an hour; I freakin' loved the Sega CD version before it came out).
As a gamer, there was nothing better and, IMO, nothing more effective. The industry needs it and needs to reach out to as many people as possible. A travelling roadshow would actually be best. Right now all they're doing is piggy-backing off of other shows (Comicon or PAX) since they killed their own. Very shortsighted IMO and shows that they don't truly understand how to market their own product (although Firaxis seems to get it; Nintendo does understand this one aspect of marketing to a degree which is why they showed up at EforAll IMO not to mention they kicked ass at both the E3s I went to and dominated with the Wii last year).