Marketing: the total of activities involved in the transfer of goods from the producer or seller to the consumer or buyer, including advertising, shipping, storing, and selling. Or in the most understandable terminology, ads. I've begun this discussion due to the recent influx of Skyrim's marketing, concerning small window ads, the more robust trailer-esque ads in the form of video, and even larger and grander publicity stunts such as http://www.1up.com/news/massive-skyrim-ad-graces-figueroa-hotel-la. I'm sure most of you have seen the latter of the three; but this isn't a discussion of the marketing itself, but the handling behind it and its tactfulness. I'm delving into this discussion with a healthy, constructive sort of criticism. I'm not a hardcoe fan by any means, but I appreciate the game thus far and I'm not intending to convey a condescending manner.

Although I'm already seeing this campaign with curiosity and intrigue, it isn't for the obvious reasons. I feel as though it's too early to be producing the types of ads in the form and quantity that Bethesda is doing so in; not too early to be marketing the game in itself, but in the manner it is being marketed. I'm not objecting the marketing in general, but the type of marketing itself. After a product's unveiling, certain measures should be taken to inform the general populace of said product. Contrasting this, I feel like the manner in which Bethesda is choosing to do so in is for naught.

Back to the prior examples in the introductory paragraph: the small window ads on certain websites. This ad is mainly seen with a facial capture our predetermined Dragonborn warrior partnered with the name of the game. As I said before, I believe this particular advertisemant is being rushed out too early. For example, even though we're all certain the game is going to be rated M for Mature, the ESRB has yet to plant this onto the product, and it's still being branded with the RP, rating pending logo. I personally believe this is counter-productive, for it raises questions to the viewer of the ad, not being sure to which audience or medium it's being projected to. I do agree, however, that it is deceptively simple to click the ad and be transported to the site where all the viewer's questions will be answered concerning the project, but most don't tread down that path.

The aforementioned problem is only minute, and doesn't pose much of a problem as the second example does: the location of these advertisemants. I like to be informed in the world of video games, so I visit gaming sites often, sites such as IGN, Gameinformer, Gametrailers, Gamespot, and Kotaku. I cited the sites because I can only vouch for them, seeing as I don't branch out to other popular sites often. To first understand the problem, we first have to anolyze the sites, and the social sphere pertaining to them. Only a select minority, however large may it be, regularly visits these sites. It's never safe to assume, but I'm willing to entertain the notion that most people who regularly visit these sites know of Skyrim already, and the Elder Scrolls series as well. So why pay hefty sums of currency to present advertisemants to a specific audience that is already informed, this early? If, however, it was September or October, I would be fine with this, but it's not. It's the start of summer, and I personally feel as though this isn't being too smart.

Every instructed debater should always anolyze both sides of the argument, and offer rebuttals in order to tactfully counter them if they are presented. Continuing with this, I'm presenting an early marketing action I believe that has been executed correctly: Call of Duty's "annual" debut reveal in the midst of the NBA Finals. I quoted annual for the simple reason that this is the third year in a row where Activision has done this. This is a perfect marketing maneuver. The NBA Finals is a venue where there are multiple divisions of social classes and just in general, an ass load of viewers. This debut is presented to a ton of viewers, casual sports fans, gamers, families, and any other archetype you can think of. The product is presented in a mainstream fashion to a large audience. I'm sure the cost is worth the publicity it garners from this stunt.

The majority of ads concerning Skyrim is being projected to a hardcoe audience that is already aware. The only marketing maneuver I agree with is the brandishing of the Figueroa Hotel. Although it was placed in the vicinity of E3 2011, I'm sure it wasn't only seen by hardcoe gamers. I'm sure everyone in that area saw it. All in all, I'm depressed by Bethesda's strategies thus far. I feel as though their campaign isn't well thought out, and they're shelling out cash without reason. I feel as though they should wait and rethink their strategy and display their product to a different and larger audience in a few month's time.

I'm excited to see the "completely civil" discussion that follows. I may be to cynical, but I hope everyone reads this with understanding and responds in an appropriately mature attitude.

I think it's fine, tbh. I've never really worried about advertising.

They spent some dollars, and ended up with one of the most talked about games at E3. Which company wouldn't want that? The entire point is to go there and show off.
As to Call of Duty, that is a game that anyone vaguely interested in games knows about, in one of the most popular genres. Surely money and effort spent advertising an rpg has a higher interest garnered to dollar spent ratio than for a shooter which is already the gaming equivalent of a household name?

The giant skyrim ad was for e3 THE EVENT for games so it makes absolute sense for them to do it there.

As for the other ads.. Its funneling people to google skyrim and find previews and interviews and this forum. Thats all its realy doing. Dont forget most people who will buy skyrim dont even know its comming yet or didnt know till recently.

What about that Skyrim commercial that has been playing on various websites?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_U0JVi19EU

While the nerds here worry about useless stuff that they can't change, you are worrying about advertising. Your one of the smarter people here!

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RAAAAAWWWRRR!!!!! *insert trolling post here!*
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In all seriousness, I think the advertising is just fine. I LOVED the giant 13 story tall 3 building wide picture of the skyrim guy lookin like his usual badass self. Its not really forced, like Witcher 2 (where you see the [censored] everywhere). I always hated seeing adds for games everywhere. Its usually indicative of a very in confident game when they have adds everywhere. A few, high shooting bits of marketing are all it needs. Once the word is out, a game with a reputation like this will spread like wildfire.

Well thought out topic

The reason call of duty is advertised there is because as you say it has huge viewing. The problem I see is that most of the viewers are not fantasy/hardcoe gamers/RPG nuts. The fanbase in the viewers are probably already pro-FPS and activision are dropping a reminder to the casual COD players that they are bringing a new one out. If Bethesda did this the viewers would probably ignore it as it isn't accustomed to their tastes. This would cost hundreds of thousands? Millions? Of dollars. It would be very counter productive.

What irritates me about the advertising slightly is that it doesn't really reflect the game that well at all.

I think they're overusing the Dovahkiin character too much for one. To people who are unfamiliar with the series, this almost gives the impression that the game has a semi-set character like Mass Effect... when really one of the most significant features of the series is the freedom to create the character you want from 10 different races. A perfect example of this misleading advertising could be seen at E3 where one of the interviewers said something like "so that's Dovahkiin?" to Todd. It would've been much more appropriate to simply use dragons as the main mascot for the game and to show multiple examples of possible player characters.

Yes, there was the whole generic Imperial guy for Oblivion... but to me he was just some random character. For all I knew, he could've been an NPC. I didn't see him on the side of hotels, hear songs about him, or see people naming themselves after him on forums.

I also thought the trailer was far too action-based. It really didn't show off the game as being an open-world RPG much at all. The Morrowind trailer was a lot more reflective of the series in that respect.

But I guess it's fairly pointless whining about how they're advertising the game. Shouldn't make any difference whatsoever to people who are already fans of the series.

I think I'll hit the classic saying here. "You gotta spend money, to make money." You gotta grap new people in, and big fancy ads showing off the fact that the game will be awesome. I mean if you don't show it off, you won't get new people in the game.

The reason for all this heavy advertising right now is simple. They want people to make preorders. Opening up with the heavy handed advertising means that gamers are more likely to go in droves to their favorite pre-order store and reserve their copy. These are more or less guaranteed sales, and the disk pressers will know exactly how many copies to make to fill the pre-orders, then make a few hundred more to appease some release day buyers, and have about a thousand or so in reserve to sporadically release in bunches for the time leading up to Christmas, just to make sure that Skyrim is one of those "Must have but oh so hard to find" Christmas buys. Essentially, artificial scarcity is going to make the consumer think that Skyrim is worth every Penny of the $60 to $80 that they'll pay for it... so the scalpers can make their $500 to $1000 deals on the poor svckers that didn't make the preoorder rush and absolutely have to get the game for little Jimmy's Christmas...because the ESRB Rating system doesn't mean bunk to most parents/grandparents/uncles/etc.

Bethesda's marketing department knows full well what it's doing with plastering Skyrim ads all over the net this early out.


BTW, I've got my copies secured for the wife & I so I'm not playing the Out of Stock Roulette game on release day... have you?

I know more about Skyrim than any other new game. Probably becus they need to attract attention.

They have put a lot of money into the game and need to do a lot of marketing to ensure that the sales are high enough for them to make a profit.

Along with that since its been 5 years since the last game in a market where many series get a new installment yearly, many people may of forgotten that Elder Scrolls even exists.

Stated the trailers in the introductory paragraph.




Insult aside, it doesn't make a difference to the fans, which is the point of marketing: garnering interest in a mass populace of people.



And thanks! I spent a good half hour's work on it. Sorry that I can't respond to each individual post, but this is going well so far. I'm glad to see everyone's input.

Lord, please forgive me for not reading your entire post. I hope my thinking here still makes sense.

I just think everything about Skyrim is going to be BIG. The world is big. The dragons are big. Todd's Dovahkiin is big. The hours you can play at over 300 is HUGE compared to other games at 30-50. It's going to win lots of awards because it's so big. So it just makes sense to me that getting the word out there is going to be BIG. Interesting that you liked the Figueroa ad because that was GINORMOUS.

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OT: Bethesda finances and publishes it's own games, while other developers let distributors handle that, and marketing too, of course.

Since Bethesda is quite a small company they can't promote their games as much as, for example, EA does.

Anyway, I believe Bethesda's strategy is based on maintaining their core-base and trying to expand it with every game.

The excellent reviews the games receive, and the mouth to mouth marketing compensate some of this lack of advertising, and have proved to work quite well in the past.

I wasn't trying to insult you... if anything, I was insulting myself for whining about something which really doesn't matter that much.

Its to early for this kind of aggressive marketing i mean the huge ad on the building god knows how much it may have costed, i mean the game doesn't come out for another 5 month and they already started spending so much money i think is very very early.

I would understand doing this lets say 2 months before its released and another month after that, but this is rly wasting a lot of money for a game that is coming 5 months later i just hope this was just for E3 and they will stop for some time, cuz in summer most of the people go on vacations probably out of the country and chances is they will forgot about this game, if they keep going like this i think its a waste of money.

Then I apologize respectfully.

i agree with most of the posts. to me, it seems like they're advertising too much of the story and it's making it seem too linear, and honestly, they've milked the concept of having dragons for all its worth. to hardcoe TES fans, that's understandable due to it being the first elder scrolls to feature dragons, but to other gamers, dragons in most RPG's is the norm. so i think they need to start advertising the fact that it's an open world where you can do anything, and be whoever you want, because i think that will svck in more fans than they think.

Summer is when people have a lot more time on their hands and have the time to research new games they are interested in

Yeah i highly doubt people will use that time for that, i mean i live in a city that has a lake and like 20 km of beaches and in summer i spend most of my time on the beach and when i get home i eat, watch some movie and if i am not tired i go out i, doubt i will sit on the pc and be active this much as i am now, so think of the people that are going on vacations pretty sure they will spend all day on the beach, i know cuz i have guests in my house every summer .

That is why all the big games come in winter cuz they know people will spend most of their time at home than.

I'm addressing this small tangent because I'm half sure it's not knowing people will be indoors, but it's just near the holidays, when consumers buy excess in goods and so forth.

I heard of this game through word of mouth, advertisemants won't hurt the game since it already well known.

Advertising is the art of screaming politely.