Marketing practices are flawed and wasteful, says Dyack

Silicon Knights boss Denis Dyack has told GamesIndustry.biz that the industry must change its marketing practices and adopt a method similar to that seen in Hollywood, if it hopes to stop throwing away money and development time.

Dyack believes the process of showing early code to journalists and expecting developers to create demo's for trade shows months before final release is a flawed and wasteful practice.

"I don't think we should start doing press on a game until it's finished," said Dyack in the first part of an exclusive interview published today.

"When a developer gives the controller over, the game should be final. The movie industry waits until the film is in the can, then it's marketed for six to nine months and then it's released," he said.

For Dyack, holding back the marketing for a game until it's complete means there's less chance of wasting money if a game slips, and better opportunities for developers to create higher quality titles.

"Look at the marketing campaigns for our industry, they are generally booked five or six months in advance. If the game slips then money is wasted."

"That's why you get games that are rushed to stores because companies don't want to loose that marketing money. It's those kind of things that are hurting our industry," he commented.

Dyack believes that Silicon Knights' publishing partner for upcoming Xbox 360 game Too Human understands his concerns, and supports the idea of following the example set by the movie industry.

"For the marketing people at Microsoft it's their dream. Quite frankly it's a dream of a lot of marketing people in this industry because it's a model that works and is reliable," he said.

The full interview with Dyack can be read here.