I agree it is a major factor, but in which regards? Maybe if Oblivion and Gothic 3 had the same marketing clout the would have seen similar sales, but would Spiderweb having the same marketing clout translate similar sales? Maybe people would be more aware of it, maybe a bunch of new people would try the demo, but would that translate into sales?
What spiderweb belongs in is a niche market, niche markets are usually filled with educated consumers and information seekers. Ads do not work on consumers in a niche market in relation to that market. Its like during an election in the us. You have the swing-voters which would be the consumer impacted by advertsiment. Are thes swing voters going to vote for the person running on the libertarian ticket, like bendarick? No. The will vote for a D or R.
Or another example would be lets say my daughter wants a pet, so I become a member of the petr buying market. Maybe if I went to a pet store and they had a horse I walk over and look at it, pet it, admore it, but I sure as hell ain't buying it. I'll buy her a gerbal or a mouse or something small and will die soon and won't cost a lot of money. Maybe, just maybe, if she is persuasive enough I'd buy her one of those filthy dog things, if it is small enough and doesn't have hair on it, and its old and will die soon. Cat? No. Not unless that will be dinner next week and our goal is to fatten it up until we eat it. Horse? Never. Its a niche product, and no amount of advertisemnt or anything will get me to buy a horse, even though I'm in the pet-buying market.
A lot of money is spent on advertsiment, and that money is spent to make you buy my widget 101 over that guy's widget 101, but if your in the market for dohickey 305's, my ads are wasted on you.
You're right for these games of course. I just thought you were saying advertisement and marketing didn't impact consumers.
However, ads do bring two other important things to consumers.
1) Awareness, as you said more people would know about the product. Doesn't mean more people will buy it, but let's say 10 people try-out the product and 1 likes it then it already helps towards making a product.
Ads don't only make people aware of their products they do bring in the element of desire which is the second thing ads do.
2) Desire: By showing ads people won't rush to the store to buy it, but let's say I have a five year old refrigerator and it's still working alright, but on tv I see an ad for a new refrigerator, it has a lot of new options, is bigger than my refrigerator has multiple places to store different kinds of food and drinks; it also has a water 'dispenser' (I don't know how it's called), it can also make ice cubes. So now you think (the consumer) : 'Oh, that's a nice refrigerator, If mine breaks I might buy that one!' (Awareness)
The next day your best friend tells you he bought a new refrigerator and he asks you to help hook it up and throw the old one away. You see it's the one you saw on TV and he shows you the refrigerator and it's even better than what you saw on the ad. You think : 'Wow, nice, never thought it'd be that large and there's even three temp adjusters...'
Then you talk to your wife and she says she'd like to refurbish the kitchen, you of course say it would cost to much and you don't have the time.
Then you read the papers and read an article about old refrigerators being bad for the health as they may not work properly as they may be a degree below what they're supposed to be which can spoil food.
At the same time your wife asks you again to refurbish the kitchen and then your mind snaps. You go and buy the refrigerator
I just noticed I wrote a very long article here. Sorry. I had a longer story in my head, but the post is too long as it is. Please don't start talking about refrigerators now
, this is about games... Older games sometimes are harder games