Marketing of Video Games - The Video Game Industry: Formation, Present State, and Future - page 42

3 Marketing of Video Games

Peter Zackariasson and Timothy L. Wilson

In this chapter, we attempt to position marketing within the framework of the
video game industry. It is a complex and evolving relationship that extends
from the ideation stage of game development through the fi nal marketing to
the consumer. Although rather prosaic to date, we are starting to see some
of the creativity that initially went into game development now going into
marketing. We sense that we are seeing the initial stages of marketing being
adapted to the specifi c of erings of video games to specifi c segments.

INTRODUCTION

Social life is endued with supra-biological forms, in the shape of play,
which enhance its value. It is through this playing that society expresses
its interpretation of life and of the world. By this we do not mean that
play turns into culture, rather that in its earliest phases culture has
the play-character, that it proceeds in the shape and the mood of play.
(Huizinga 1950/1938, 46)

In his seminal text from the early twentieth century the philologist Johan
Huizinga suggested that man is homo ludens —Man the Player—and soci-
ety as we know it was formed through playing. This suggestion has impli-
cations for how we create an understanding of society, as well as play and
playing. Not as a biological phenomenon that should be explained, but as a
cultural phenomenon that explains us . 1 Our societies are still dominated by
play, both in the metaphorical sense and a literal sense, i.e. playing on the
stock exchange market, playing at the oi ce or even playing the “game” of
family life. Regarding the latter, playing in the literal sense, the play phe-
nomenon extraordinaire today is, without any doubts, video games.
Today it is almost impossible to fi nd any space, public or private, that
video games have not penetrated. Living rooms are dominated by gaming
consoles (Xbox, PlayStation or Wii), making the TV a media centre and
focal point of attention; the fl oor in front of the TV turned into a stage for
dancing, guitar rif s and a wide array of sport activities. Oi ces, bedrooms