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Discussion Now with release imminent and reviews out, were the concerns the past months about TOTK's marketing justified?

Were the concerns justified?

  • Yes

    Votes: 44 25.6%

  • No

    Votes: 128 74.4%
  • Total voters
    172
just speaking personally I went from not very interested to cautious interest with the final trailer to actual interest with the leaks and I could very easily see a world where I missed a step there somewhere and ended up just not getting the game or whatever
 
Gaming enthusiasts are too infatuated with the idea that the marketing IS the product. Marketing has been extremely effective by every possible metric other than "Nintendo didn't tailor their strategy to my specific hype cycle, personally"
 
I don't know about you guys, but this says good marketing to me

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It was a slow, gradual buildup. Think they did an exceptional job IMO.

Was it justified in 2019? Yes. But after a couple of trailers, especially those released since last year? No, I don't think so.
 
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I don’t know if marketing has been good or not, but what I do know even less is why exactly as players we should worry about marketing? It is the quality or not of the product that counts, neither the marketing nor the scores on metacritic are concerns that I can explain in any way.
 
Nobody was "concerned". Most people just pointed out that they weren't personally hyped because nothing was really getting shown. Which was true
 
The marketing was vague and therefore set unrealistic expectations for certain elements of the game, which may result in disappointment. You can say that’s on the fans, but it could also be argued they thought that way because of how vague it was to begin with.

People will say it was never a problem, but it definitely was a big discussion for years. The fact there is even a thread about this now indicates it was a point of concern. It’s more likely they never felt it was a problem because they were all-in no matter what. They didn’t even need to know anything, just give them the game without any prior context and they’d be satisfied.

Of course it ultimately doesn’t matter. It’s Zelda, and a BOTW sequel to boot. There was no way it wasn’t going to get perfect scores and sell a bajillion copies, even if story or world elements ended up not being what some hoped.
 
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The argument from those who "were gonna buy it anyway" seems to be a feeling that the success of the first game made them feel they could coast, that the lack of showing things means they assume they don't have to show things to sell. And they're right I guess, but I also would argue the idea that a company is greedy for not showing things that by all accounts the dev team didn't want people to see, where as if anything the opposite would be greedy, is weird. I saw the same discourse with SV, and I don't know as much about the dev team, but the idea that showing more is more egalitarian feels a bit weird
 
Zellia said:
I just wanted to know more about the game, honestly. Never thought or even cared about whether the marketing was effective or not.
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Basically this for me too. They ultimately delivered, it was just at a much later stage in the hype cycle than normal. Nothing wrong with that, and honestly it’s probably healthier for everyone involved.
 
It seems that in the end the marketing was showing what the game really is. Of course there are some surprises but don' t expect it to be a game completely different than botw. I mean, for people that were expecting a game more like old zeldas.
 
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It felt like people were wondering why an athlete didn't set record breaking times during their warm-up rounds.

Sure the earlier trailers were not very revealing and Nintendo was very secretive, but people really jumped to conclusions. I mean, it's EPD3 under Aonuma that has been working on it for years and we know Nintendo like to keep their cards close to their chests when it comes to revealing info, have some faith
 
hologram said:
I mean, if the question is "was the marketing successful" then "selling well" is just about the only thing that matters tbh
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Nintendo could have released TOTK with literally zero marketing and it would have sold well. Some games are guaranteed successes.
 
No. This has been the way Nintendo has marketed games in recent years, and Zelda ended up getting a massive marketing push.

Plus, the game was always going to sell itself.
 
Zellia said:
I just wanted to know more about the game, honestly. Never thought or even cared about whether the marketing was effective or not.
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Pretty much. I was annoyed because they kept saying they were going to show the game and then not actually showing anything. All I wanted the entire time was the final trailer. I think in hindsight I would have preferred radio silence between the initial teaser and the last trailer to give it slightly more impact, because all the ones in between were pretty much worthless and eventually just made me wonder why they were doing this.
 
It’s a really interesting counterpoint to what has become Nintendo’s recent marketing strategy, announce a game within six months of release, show us all the hooks right away and fill in other details in Twitter posts, videos, and potentially special Directs. Here instead, they announced the game four years out and told us nothing making every drop we got so precious and exciting as it grew in our minds. Maybe it’ll only work with Zelda, but I wonder whether two or three years with 3D Mario or Smash Bros where we get almost nothing could work.
 
ammonite said:
It’s a really interesting counterpoint to what has become Nintendo’s recent marketing strategy, announce a game within six months of release, show us all the hooks right away and fill in other details in Twitter posts, videos, and potentially special Directs. Here instead, they announced the game four years out and told us nothing making every drop we got so precious and exciting as it grew in our minds. Maybe it’ll only work with Zelda, but I wonder whether two or three years with 3D Mario or Smash Bros where we get almost nothing could work.
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Smash Ultimate’s marketing was pretty much perfect. Teaser in March, full blowout in June, a steady stream of news in the summer/fall and release in the holidays. I don’t think Nintendo should deviate from that for the next Smash.
 
At first I thought a qualified “yes”, but after giving it some more thought I think I’m on Team No. Marketing might have felt sparse because the game was in development for So Damn Long, but the actual ads and trailers for the game starting from a few months ago ultimately gave us a really good impression of how much things had changed. And of course, even if they hadn’t, TOTK looks like its own entire beast anyway, so the “is this just glorified DLC” worry was always overblown (even if concerns over marketing may have had a point, since, y’know, we all thought it was glorified DLC in the first place).
 
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Catalyst said:
Smash Ultimate’s marketing was pretty much perfect. Teaser in March, full blowout in June, a steady stream of news in the summer/fall and release in the holidays. I don’t think Nintendo should deviate from that for the next Smash.
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Yeah, the one thing I never want to relive is wondering who makes cuts in the next Smash. I loved that Ultimate told us up front who returned (spoilers: everybody). Even if there are cuts next time, I'd like to know the whole veteran roster before we know anything else.
 
Tangerine_Cookie said:
They never were, and i find it weird people were complaining about the marketing.

Like, why are you worried about that, from a client's perspective
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Yeah, like, who goes around their lives thinking about the promotional materials for a game. Makes no sense to me.
 
0
The success of marketing can honestly only be judged by sales. That's the purpose of marketing. That's the only logical way to judge it and anything else is honestly a subjective personal take rather than any statement on the marketing's value. I like marketing as much as the next person who spends way too much time on gaming forums, but them's the facts.

So by that logic, it's technically too early to tell. But also let's be real this game is going to sell gangbusters so the marketing talk was always pretty silly
 
I mean obviously not, but that won’t stop me from complaining about the marketing next time if I don’t like it ¯\(ツ)/¯
 
0
The point of marketing is to drive sales, so the ultimate answer should reveal itself in the coming months.

Edit: I should have read a few posts up first.
 
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I'll say yeah they were with the qualifier: now that we're here I don't care anymore. There were just so many things Nintendo wound up not talking about that I have to wonder why they settled on "nothing" to talk about instead of even just saying the word "dungeons" months ago and not, say, in a developer interview 36 hours before the game came out.
 
They never were, people just won't admit it.

PS: The game had ridiculous amount of hype before release. I think the way Nintendo were very secretive about that, actually contributed positively to that. I think that some people don't want to accept that sometimes hype can work that way.
 
This entire hype cycle was so weird to me. Because the hardcore fandom was super pessimistic and wanted to see more and talked about glorified dlc or arrogant Nintendo or they don't have anything to show for a game they would have bought day 1 anyway.
But my casual group was sold since 2019 and didn't want to watch any trailer for risk of spoiler and bought it day 1 because they had huge faith in the zelda team after botw.
 
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The point of marketing is to drive people that see it to go pick it up, when the product is on sale. So it matters far more whether the light touch in terms of managing gamer hype translates into people feeling they are making discoveries now they can play it, and that then generating word-of-mouth amongst a wider audience across social media now people can actually buy it. In short, gamers not getting to see much months in advance doesn’t matter as much for Zelda as they might think it does.
 
PixelKnight said:
The point of marketing is to drive people that see it to go pick it up, when the product is on sale. So it matters far more whether the light touch in terms of managing gamer hype translates into people feeling they are making discoveries now they can play it, and that then generating word-of-mouth amongst a wider audience across social media now people can actually buy it. In short, gamers not getting to see much months in advance doesn’t matter as much for Zelda as they might think it does.
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And now that we've had a weekend with the game we've seen the word of mouth lol. Tiktok, youtube shorts, and insta reels are being inundated with this game. People just showing how they solved a simple puzzle with the tools provided only to see another person solving it differently in another video. And ofc, how many of us saw the wooden man with cock and balls? Rotisserie Koroks?

What always mattered was when the marketing got started and launch weekend (word of mouth). In the age of tiktok, where there is creativity, word of mouth comes naturally. We saw it with Animal Crossing in a way.
 
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I still think the way they pushed the game was mostly dumb, but they were also basically irrelevant because "Sequel to Breath of the Wild is coming" was enough for hype.
 
As someone who didn't like BOTW there were exactly 3 moments that gave me any excitement for TOTK:
1. When the art book leaked
2. The third trailer
3. When the game leaked

So, only one of those was something Nintendo did. The sales show that the game didn't need extensive marketing, it's selling insanely well. That doesn't mean that I have to be happy with the way they marketed the game though. I don't care at all about the sandbox elements and there were things I wanted to know. Had to turn to leaks to find out the information I was looking for.
 
The marketing sucked, I don't care how it sold. When I'm at the cinema with a friend and say to him "hey, that was a good trailer" I do not mean "that trailer will sell a lot of tickets". I mean "I enjoyed that and it made me believe I'll enjoy the movie".

With TotK's marketing I did not enjoy it, and it did not particularly make me think I'd enjoy the game beyond what I already knew about BotW. Waiting until 36 hours before launch to confirm dungeons was the height of stupidity. If they had done that 1 year ago half the concern threads wouldn't have happened. But they didn't keep it secret, either.

Lastly, it was revealed way too soon, and then slow-played way to much up to release. We know now that the best schedule is a reveal about a year ahead of time, with marketing ramping up in the last three months. Covid played a part, but it was a frustrating cycle to be part of.
 
Heron said:
Waiting until 36 hours before launch to confirm dungeons was the height of stupidity. If they had done that 1 year ago half the concern threads wouldn't have happened. But they didn't keep it secret, either.
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This was honestly the most baffling part. They showed them in the trailer, but to learn about them in a low key developer interview is wild.

They didn’t even allow previewers to go into shrines. Obviously it all worked out but it was just such a limited drip-feed of information that turned out to be unnecessary.
 
It was never a concern in terms of sales, Nintendo could literally shadowdrop Mario/Zelda/Pokemon games and they would do well, just like Beyonce

It’s just that every single trailer until the final one was the same cryptic stuff. Even the final one is whatever in retrospect, supercut of the main story + flashbacks just like BOTW’s final trailer. Word for word bar for bar

Usually the hype/speculation before a Zelda game is very palpable but we had so little to work it that most of it was the artbook leak. Also the map reuse kind of takes away a lot of that new Zelda smell. I know there’s quite a lot of new stuff, I know they kept the depths a mystery but a lot of people that didn’t follow closely the game unironically think it’s a DLC, the meme was already too deeply rooted
 
Trailers are supposed to build excitement and anticipation, right? It's kind of like they were keeping everything under wraps until the very last moment. And I agree the reuse of the map does take away some of the novelty factors. It's like you're stepping into a familiar world rather than discovering something entirely new. But hey, speaking of surprises, guess what? I recently tried this cheap Instagram comments service, and it actually made a huge impact on my profile engagement. It's crazy how a small change like that can make a big difference!
 
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Tears of the Kingdom-marketing was very different from the marketing we are used to with other titles. As to why a lot of people were concerned. Also, seeing the latest trend of having an AAA-title being released in a piss poor state I am not surprised that people were worried. In that narrative I think the concerns are justified.

Personally, I wasn't worried about Tears of the Kingdom, but that is also partly due to the fact I was not as hyped as some others were (I didn't enjoy Breath of the Wild as much as others). Now that I am playing it the approx 6 years of development makes a lot of sense. So I was never in the camp of having concerns on the game.
 
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I don't think we need to reopen the discussion into considering what happened in that other thread when we found out new info on their marketing strategy.
 
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