Theory

[icycalm]

no, the people you're thinking of don't give a shit about the 8-bit sonic games either.

I assure you they do. Maybe not about playing them (most marketing people I know rarely play games at all), but about understanding the nostalgia behind them, and they're more than willing to name-drop them in the interests of hype.

Classic gaming is no longer off-limits to the mainstream marketing department and it hasn't been for a while. Classic downloads and the retro market are a big deal these days compared to six years ago where it was taboo to bring them up, and now even the corporate big shots know there's money to be made. There's a reason they slapped Sonic's name and old-school likeness on the most recent genesis collection. Those things sell, and they sell pretty well for something that costs Sega virtually nothing to produce. Playing off the nostalgia factor is a key part of that. Marketing people aren't stupid; it is literally their job to figure out what is going to sell, and why it's going to sell, and to drum up support for it.

Just because something name checks a classic title doesn't mean it's not marketing pap. You don't have to agree with me if you don't want, but I've been lucky enough to make a bunch of friends in the industry and trust me, the hardcore/classic gamer market is something they are keenly aware of, especially these days when it means a comparatively-cheap game to produce that comes with a built in fanbase. Those are all really big fat bullet points on any game proposal that gets floated these days, and if one of the mandates sent down to marketing is "play this up to the '90s diehards" then that's exactly what they're gonna do. The fact that Sega's making a big deal about what The Fans Have Clamored For is another dead giveaway.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, either. Hell, a little marketing jargon might be a good thing. Might mean Sega are actually throwing some money behind this and taking it seriously.

http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopi ... 177#614177

[Molloy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVZo1Jjfshw

[taub]

So they find out what people want and give it to them, who would've thought!

[icycalm]

1. Giving to "people" what they want is contrary to good taste and leads inevitably to giving people trash, because the "people" are the lowest common denominator, and what they want is always trash. You have to give people what they need, not what they want (i.e. not what they consciously ask for), in exactly the same way that one gives children healthy food instead of the candy they would have stuffed themselves with if left to their own devices. That is what the people are: children, who must be treated with a certain degree of harshness if they are not to ruin themselves: their health, their taste, their environment, etc.

2. Even when they are dealing with groups that are above the lowest common denominator (as in the case describe by DJ above), marketing people, who themselves belong by definition to the lowest common denominator, are perfectly incapable of giving them what they want, as can be seen in countless cases in the gaming industry: from crap emulation standards in commercial compilation releases (whilst amateur ones are amazing: see pretty much every emulator from MAME downwards -- and how can the amateurs deliver such a level of quality without focus testing and mareketers? Answer: EXACTLY BECAUSE they are free of focus testing and marketers), to rereleasing he same tired 5 games, while ENTIRE LIBRARIES OF AWESOME GAMES REMAIN OUT OF PRINT, and not to mention all the botched attempts to revive old franchises, hilariously enough usually by merely slapping the name of an old series onto a new game which has nothing whatsoever to do with the old ones (see 2D to 3D "spiritual successors", which are in fact neither spiritual nor successors).


So yeah. And just to be clear, I did not ban you for your ignorance and stupidity -- I banned you for the smarmy tone you employing while mouthing ignorant and stupid things.

[El Chaos]

And the marketing guy was almost literally selling smoke, 'cause that's what he was told to do.

http://www.tssznews.com/2010/01/08/how- ... ev-saw-it/