Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption has been a huge hit, selling in 5 million units at retail in just a few weeks. Considering the game's hot start, analysts are now beginning to label the IP as Take-Two's next "mega franchise." The publisher might even be profitable in a non-GTA year thanks to the game's performance.
One key aspect of the title's success was its marketing, Take-Two said, as noted by Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter. "We note that RDR has displayed greater staying power, and remains in the top 10 of certain key online retailer sales lists. Apart from the game’s high Metacritic score, management attributed a large portion of the game’s success to its marketing campaign. We noted multiple prominent billboards throughout Los Angeles promoting RDR, in addition to print ads, TV commercials, and a TV special," Pachter said.
He added that Take-Two is now aiming to support all of its major releases with more intensive marketing campaigns. "As a result of the success of the RDR campaign, Take-Two will focus more on marketing for future high profile releases, including Mafia II," Pachter noted.
Red Dead is estimated to have cost around $70 million to develop, and who knows how many millions were pumped into the marketing of the title. Frankly, it wouldn't surprise us if the campaign costs pushed total expenses upwards of $100 million or more.
6 Comments
June 10, 2010
The last person on Earth to comment on this now would indeed be Michael Pachter. You saw ads in the streets? No way!!
No one was expecting this game, that included you Mr. Pachter didn't it, it came out of nowhere and its (indeed huge) marketing got it some visibility only a short time before release.
What worked the most was when people started to figure out the mere key selling point of the game, which was really "GTA on horses in the Old West". This helped spread the infection via word to mouth and people started following trailers and hyping THEMSELVES up for the game.
Had it had no other marketing than the trailers on the Internet, it would have sold the SAME.
In the end of the day, creativity and high quality help build up a good reputation, and this can take years to achieve. The effect of marketing, although highly praised in board rooms, annual reports and budgets is, in fact, completely secondary in the video games industry. A bad game with a huge marketing can sell some units, no arguing there. But great games are different stories.
June 10, 2010
I agree with Minbad. $30 million for marketing alone wouldn't surprise me at all, I think you're about right with that guess, James. It's my opinion though that while the marketing campaign surely helped them get the word out, it was the quality of the game that was the biggest contributor to sales. When your game is as polished as Red Dead Redemption is, it tends to sell itself from word of mouth. That's just my opinion, though. :)
June 10, 2010
I've always believed that great products sell themselves, however, I think it is important to recognize the effect of marketing on the sales of RDR. Interestingly, Patcher cites "billboards and TV ads" as the selling point of this campaign. I would look at the extremely aggressive online marketing campaign. By releasing fairly substantial (yet not too revealing) trailers every two weeks to targeted hardcore gaming sites, there was an interesting viral effect that spread quickly to even the mainstream. However, it was the game's easily apparently quality and, most importantly, its bold take on a "GTA in the West" that really shined in the trailers and got people to spread the word.
In short: First, focus on quality and creativity, then slowly reveal those attributes through aggressive internet viral campaigns. Don't solely focus on cheesy ad campaigns based merely on concept alone. Give people good reason to get excited, and then give them easy ways (such as trailers) to spread the word.
June 10, 2010
Quality is part of the equation, but not all of it. Despite the differences in time and place, the game had a very similar sort of appeal as GTA, with sharp dialog, open world action, and parodies on American culture (which seems to play well on both sides of the Atlantic). The game has a very broad appeal, and what a campaign like this does is help reach out to consumers that might like GTA but may not know that RDR even exists.
A media buy like this for Mafia II might work as well, since it could have many of the same elements that make GTA and RDR a success. Something like Max Payne 3, however, might not benefit as much from a broad marketing campaign, simply because a linear shooter title is more likely to have narrower appeal.
June 10, 2010
The ads on GT were horrible, had no impact on myself or my friends who bought the game. The outdoor advertising was much better. And, in this case, the accolades can't be ignored. Those really did help sell a number of copies.
Don' get me wrong, I think the marketing for this was really important, I just question how much the commercials really did, they were pretty piss poor from and execution standpoint.
June 10, 2010
One other thought: If Minbad is suggesting that marketing doesn't have an effect on a title like this, then I really hope he/she is not working for a publisher, because they will fail. Cokmpanies like activision and microsoft have shown for years that hype can sell way more copies than no hype.