Marketing as black magic: perspectives from Victorian studios

Many Australian developers do not see themselves as businesses and consequently focus on the production of their games (Keogh, 2021), rather than business aspects such as marketing. Furthermore, it is known that smaller video game developers, who make up the majority of the Australian industry (Keogh, 2021), often do not understand fundamental marketing processes such as engaging in market research, understanding a target market, or how to deliver value to the target market (Consalvo & Paul, 2017; Zackariasson & Dymek, 2017) unless marketing is an interest of the developer (Kubberød et al. 2019; Khan, 2017). However, many developers focus more on creating their games, not the marketing processes. Research into aspiring, university student game developers found a limited level of marketing knowledge, but an appreciation of its importance and desire to enhance their marketing knowledge and skills (Burgess, 2021). Marketing is much more than simply advertising, and what marketing involves and entails is often misunderstood by video game developers (Zackariasson & Dymek, 2017). Marketing is concerned with creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging offerings and products that produce value for the seller, consumer and society as a whole (Burgess, 2021). As such, marketing should involve extensive market research into consumers and start early in game production to ensure value can be created for players so the developer can capture, and communicate, value in return (Zackariasson & Dymek, 2017). Marketing is a pivotal and core skill in the video game industry and equips developers with the tools they need to stand out among a competitive and crowded market (Kerr, 2017; Zackariasson & Dymek, 2017).