THQ: "Television is a big question mark" for game ads
Marketing better spent on Xbox Live and PSN, says Danny Bilson
THQ's VP of core games, Danny Bilson, has claimed that television is becoming an increasingly irrelevant medium for videogame marketing.
Speaking to the[a]listdaily, Bilson said "One of the bigger questions we have to ask ourselves is how important is television? How important is television to a core gamer on a non-television brand? So I think television has some relevance on WWE and UFC because I consider those TV brands. But our other stuff, I question it severely.
"It’s incredibly expensive, and what I can do with two million dollars, which will buy a few TV spots on a big sporting event, what I can do in outdoor, or on the web, or direct-to-consumer is way more exciting.
"You know where I want to market? I want to market on Xbox Live. I want to market on PSN... Television is a big question mark for me."
This follows EA's revelation in May that it is to tone down its TV spending, citing friend referrals as being a bigger cause of game sales. Just three months previously, EA had allegedly spent over $2 million on a 30-second superbowl ad for Dante's Inferno.
Bilson also revealed that one of THQ's current marketing strategies is to create early trailers which do not feature in-game assets, in order to not distract studios from development time on the games themselves.