Dan Houser on marketing games, moving away from holiday cycle sales

In the video games industry, many of the respected names include Rockstar Games and its Dan Houser. So when the guy talks, you better listen.

Recently, the guy was interviewed about marketing titles and moving away from the annual sales bottleneck during the holiday season. You can read about these after the jump!

Gamers usually wait for the holiday season to get their hands on quality titles for any platform of their choosing. While this is good as it gives the market something to look forward to, Dan Houser argued that it is not healthy for the industry in general.

According to Rockstar Games vice president, the video games industry need to mature and move away from the “seasonal sales cycle”. He further reiterated his point:

Christmas has always been big and it’s always going to be, but it’s gotten so focused in video games. I think for the next stage of its maturity as a business it needs to move out anyway.

It’s interesting to see what’s hopefully going to be the biggest release this year not going at Christmas.

Apart from that, Dan Houser also talked about marketing video game titles in general. According to the official, Rockstar Games has lifted its marketing strategy of treating titles as cultural products from the movie industry.

“No ads have been cut out-of-house. We use a media buyer. Apart from that, we’ve always believed in doing that stuff ourselves. Our belief is this is a cultural product and we understand how to present it better than an advertising agency ever could,” said Houser.

In the end, Dan Houser said that marketing gamers is pretty simple. It’s not about hype, it’s not about platforms. According to him, the bottom line which should be kept in mind is simply this: “If the game is of high quality, it will sell“.

Via GamesIndustry