Marketing As Part of Game Development

Gamasutra has a piece looking at Incorporating Marketing into Game Development, how business demands can shape games. From the article: "As a game designer, it's easy to forget about improving the experience for the target market in favor of making a 'better' game for yourself. Small developers like Reflexive usually don't have this luxury, and in countless ways, the increased focus on the consumer streamlines the game design process. This focus can scale to larger teams as well: we argue that every element of commercial game design should be prefaced with the phrase 'With Respect to the Target Market.'"

Comments

Umm... No.

[vertinox]

Better marketing does not make a better game.

Re:Hmmmm...

[Lord_Dweomer]

Unfortunately, its the truth. As is the reverse. What happens typically is that both sides ignore the other because they think they always know best, and what happens is an utter lack of communication that results in promises to customers that can't be kept, thus, a disappointing product.