Tom’s Friends Blog post!!!!

Video games are not easily sold; there is a lot of marketing that goes into making and selling a video game. When thinking about marking you think about what would people buy; why would that person even consider buying that game. When speaking about marketing, you have to think about how big the market is; there is so much competition in the world of producing games. All that being said there are a few things that have stayed pretty consistent over the years. I would like to dive into the diversity behind the marketing and the tactics used when making a video game cover.

Video games have been around since the late 60s; in that duration the marketing approach in the media has been predominantly white. If you are able to watch any of the old commercials, the companies would produce content starting only Caucasian people. The commercials would usually have an adult and a child attempting to buy a video game or looking very intrigued by a certain video game. This really caught my attention because the statistics show that these games really thrived. There was no backlash in sales, when every single commercial was predominantly white.

Although today we don’t see this same predominantly white commercials promoting videogames; the character in the games trailers are now white. There are usually never any minorities in the trailers for videogames unless that are the villains. Let’s not forget the video game producers are still predominantly white! That being said the creations of games such as Grand Theft Auto, have been created with racial stereotypes and have seen great success in sales. It seems that when dealing with videogame entertainment people are able to ignore the lack of diversity of the industry.

On a lighter note, I would also like to talk about how videogame covers are made and how they made. In marketing everything you do is about grabbing attention of an intended audience. There are three different types of videogame covers that hit home with myself and my childhood; face to face, waist up and “white background”.

The purpose of a face to face over is usually hinting at a one versus one competition. This cover style reminds me of fighter games growing up such as Mortal Combat. On the other hand, waist up covers have been used for almost any type of game. This image is close enough to attract the consumer to the character without giving a full body action shot. Lastly, the white background cover which make whatever the object or character is on the cover really pops. Although this cover was very popular for sports games when I was growing up; the cover really worked for all types of games not just one specific genre.

Video games have continuously been developing over the years, but there are some trends that have pretty much stayed the same throughout. I am interested to see what else has been consistent though the development of video games.