Local Perspectives and Global Challenges: Understanding Marketing Knowledge Within the Trans-Tasman Video Game Industry

The video game industry in Australia is internationally renowned for its creativity and innovative games, while the video game industry in New Zealand has also been developing and growing significantly. However, many of the video game developers in Australia and New Zealand are smaller studios, and although they understand the importance of marketing, they often lack the resources to have one full-time person devoted to marketing activities. Good marketing is crucial for these developers so they can connect with potential consumers and have their games stand out among the thousands of other video games published each year. Until this research, the marketing skills, knowledge, and practices of these developers in Australia and New Zealand had not been examined. The results of this research can be used to create activities to increase and improve video game developers’ marketing knowledge and skills to assist the video game industries in Australia and New Zealand to grow. Data was collected from 33 video game developers based across Australia and New Zealand in semi-structured interviews that were analysed using thematic analysis. It was found that, despite these developers generally recognising the importance of marketing, their marketing knowledge and practices were mixed and uneven.