MEDIA: The Marketing Machine, and Why it is Despised.

Marketing is everywhere. This fact is indisputable. From the early days of people shouting out about the wares they're selling in a marketplace, to the modern-day plaster ads almost everywhere, the marketing machine is almost as old as mankind.

Marketing itself isn't bad, since in and of itself it's merely a way of getting your product noticed, thus ideally making the seller happy to acquire cash and the buyer happy to acquire an item.

Emphasis on IDEALLY.

With marketing everywhere, it's a raging behemoth that ranges from simplistic awareness creation promising little more than what is shown (think grocery store ads), to entire, massive, elaborate ads that may often be a complete scam.

Having grown up with media, I've witnessed the marketing machine personally in several aspects. When I was growing up, video games often employed a simplistic form of marketing: name recognition. When the original Nintendo system became popular, games that sold well would often have sequels released later. The most notable of these was MegaMan, managing to span six full games before moving on to another system and getting a spin-off series. Though a bit shameful, this particularly series pretty much lived up to it's pedigree, each game pretty much built on the same formula as the one before it, except different levels and a slight retooling.

Other times, this was employed in absolutely shameful ways, such as Double Dragon 5, which had a tenuous tie at best with its predecessors (it wasn't even in the same genre!).

Switching gears to something more mainstream, there's a form of the marketing machine that's become quite insidious in the film industry. In movies, Lord of the Rings and Star Wars have become (or will become, in the case of the latter film) notorious for re-release schedules that seek to milk all they can out of the audience. For Lord of the Rings, it started out simple enough with theatrical DVD releases of each movie. Then came the extended editions, which was understandable but problematic, since these versions could've been released at the same time as the theatrical versions (there have been standard and director's cut releases in the past). By itself, people could let that slide. But then, the Blu-Ray version came out... theatrical length, not extended edition. The review score alone shows that much of the online populace have caught on, and demand nothing less than at least having the extended edition as an option, one way or the other.

In another scenario, a supposedly minor edit from one version to another changed the face of another film production. BBC, being well known for their nature documentary series, releases another one, much to the delight of many people. However, Discovery Channel acquired the rights to re-release it, and as with the Planet Earth series they decided to change the narration. Why? No one knows but them, though it can only be guessed they were going for name appeal (because more people know of Oprah Winfrey than David Attenborough). Either way, from both my experience, and the experience of many others, the move was both bad for the audience, and everyone else for that matter. But who knows, maybe they got more money from it. I sincerely hope not, though.

In closing, I'll tell you the sad tale of what befell one company when marketing took over.

There once was a game developer named New World Computing. They weren't a very big company, nor the very best, but they were successful in their own right and had two popular franchises (technically one with a spin-off series) under their belt.

But the leader of the company had big aspirations. He dreamed of games played online in a massive virtual environment, something that was only starting to happen in the game industry. To achieve these goals, he would need to acquire backing from a publisher.

He went to 3DO, a company that had recently failed in their hardware business attempt, but had developed a respectable MMORPG; exactly the direction New World Computing wanted to take their franchise! The two companies talked, and eventually New World Computing was bought by 3DO and became part of the family.

It all went well at first, but slowly things worsened. 3DO began to impose tighter deadlines on the company. Throughout this initial threat, NWC still managed to release some good games, even if not polished as well as they'd like. But as the deadlines grew tighter and tighter, and the demands higher and higher, the quality fell further and further. At some point, the demands reached a point where the work was four times beyond what the company should be expected to make in such a timespan!

In the end, NWC never got to make that MMO they dreamed of creating, and soon ceased to exist altogether. When the 3DO ship sank, NWC went with it.

Now their franchise is in the hands of another company, not much better off than it was before.

In the end, the marketing department is said to have been the final nail in the coffin for 3DO, as their insistence on deadlines and numbers left no room for the quality that gamers craved.