In a heavy-hitter's roundtable with an industry advertising blog, the man in charge of marketing Homefront doubts that television advertising does much for many video games, and would rather advertise on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live than CBS and NBC.
"One of the bigger questions we have to ask ourselves is how important is television?" Dan Bilson, THQ's vice president for core games, told the[a]listdaily. Bilson argues that marketing to television audiences a product like THQ's WWE and UFC games makes some sense, as they tie into events with a clear TV presence. "But our other stuff, I question it severely.
Bilson notes that he grew up with television and has experience producing it; "Some people love it, but I know I'm playing games, I'm not watching TV," he said. "You know where I want to market? I want to market on Xbox Live. I want to market on PSN, because every night that's the switch I turn on at my house. And that front end comes, and those windows come, and all that marketing's getting right to me because I'm a core gamer. That's where I want to invest. Television is a big question mark for me."
As an example, Bilson points to Homefront, one of the biggest games THQ showed off at E3. "I feel like it's a really effective campaign and it's not a really costly campaign," he said. On the other hand, "[TV is] incredibly expensive, and what I can do with two million dollars, which will buy a few TV spots on a big sporting event, what I can do in outdoor, or on the web, or direct-to-consumer is way more exciting."
When I think of how little I watch broadcast television, and how much time my television, if turned on, spends displaying something coming from a game console, I really can't argue with him.
Top Gaming Execs Talk Marketing Strategy [the[a]listdaily via IndustryGamers]