Perhaps what we need are NPRPGs - National Public Role Playing Games... I can see the pledge drive ad: "Have you noticed that you can bargain with Foozle instead of bashing him with that enchanted axe of yours? With your help, we can continue to bring you the choices and consequences that you have come to appreciate about RPGs..."
Anyway, don't you think that the publishing companies to some extent create the "popular taste" with their pre-launch hypes and advertising blitzes emphasizing flashy graphics and non-stop action? If Jeff Vogel or any other indie developers got a few more imaginative writers on their teams and then somehow, hypothetically speaking, launched an advertising campaign on Oblivion scales, is there really no chance that the trend may be swayed, at least sufficiently for the secondary maximum of profits to become commercially more viable? If not by altering the tastes of today's average gamer, then perhaps by attracting other segments of the population to computer gaming that are currently turned off by the prevailing perception of games as a quick, loud, and shallow thrill? Or am I overly optimistic?
I don't think so. Publishers and developers fund and develop what they do not because they make whats popular popular, or that marketing makes it popular, but because buying trends and hard data show it to be popular. The function of marketing is awareness and to try and create a need. But there has to be a need in the first place. A car add isn't going to work on you, no matter how devuous it is, if you have no need or desire to buy a car. Sometimes I get mixed up in all the hype and buy a stupid game that i know i won't like. I went to the store to buy a game a long time ago, and since there wasn't anything better i bought DS, which I knew i wouldn't like and I didn't. Was it the hype, marketing, great reviews, or lack of choice?
The PT Cruiser was released with out much marketing and sold like hotcakes. It went on backorder. Harley kept their motercycle popular without advertisment by restricting the sales. Same with like ferrari or some italian automaker that only makes 20 cars a year (and laughably has to crash one for the safety rating thing). That shows you how powerful want is, and how advertisment functions more as an awerness campiagn for people that aren't retarded. My thinking is that if you are stupid enough to be tricked by hype and advertisment then you, as all fools, will soon be parted with your money. And good for the advertisers. If people want to stop being tricked by ads, stop being retarded. Feeb your brain. I find it hard to believe the majority of people are stupid enough to just make purchasing decisions based on ads. I think people are stupid and have bad taste, or have bad tatse because they are stupid, but not stupid enough to see an ad and run to the store like a retarded zombie consumer.
And if you break it down, there is some sort of catagory that your tastes are mainstream in, and you make purchases like the majority of people in who spend money ion that market. For me its movies. I like popular movies. I like getting to the movies early so i can see coming atractions (ads) on future movies I will see like a lemming. I like the movies that get bad reviews. I don't even get mad when the ads were tricky and lies. Like with V for Vendetta. The ads made it seem like it was action packet. It wasn't. it was a talky film. But, i still liked it even though the ads were pure lies. It would've been better if it was far more actiony, but I'll take what it gives and enjoy myself.
Things are popular in a free marlket because the consumers make them popular, not the advertisers. I'm not saying advertisment isn't important, but there is far too much data to indicate that advertsiment isn't a deciding factor in financial analysis for the funding of a product. If it was more important it would have much greater weight in any formula I know about.
And ask yourself this: if spiderweb spent enough on an ad campaign, would it generate enough interest to justify the cost of the ads? I don't see it. How many people do you know that dismise games with far better graphics off-hand?
But, I heard the Wii is the best selling platform out of ps3 and xbox 360, and also has the worst graphics of all 3. That might be a ray of hope for the future of how people value games. Of course, I also heard one factor of why wii is popular is because it and it's games are very "accessible", which usually means "even retards can figure it out." So, who knows?
Maybe the staff here can ask Jeff Vogal what he thinks about this subject and get him to write an article on it, that is: do the game-buyers control the market and if his games would be a lot more popular if he had a top-knoch ad campiagn?