Marketing-Developers Collaboration Key For Better Game Product, Conference Told

SAN FRANCISCO -- Close collaboration between marketing and development staffs is a key ingredient for game product success, said Microsoft and THQ executives speaking at the MI6 Game Marketing Conference Thursday. “We're going to get better games to play at the end of the day” if that happens, Kudo Tsunoda, general manager and creative director of Microsoft Game Studios, said in a keynote. It was a key reason for the success of the Kinect motion sensor for the Xbox 360 and why customer satisfaction with the product was “through the roof,” he said.

Developers and marketers were usually “perfect partners” who always see eye to eye, Tsunoda said with admitted sarcasm. There’s, in fact, usually “problems all around,” he said. But, in a change of pace, the two Microsoft departments worked together on developing Kinect right from the start, he said. The partnership between the two Microsoft departments is continuing after Kinect, he said.

Tsunoda didn’t update how many Kinect sensors had been sold. Microsoft said at CES in January that it sold more than 8 million Kinect systems globally in the first 60 days (CED Jan 6 p2). Sales went on to reach 10 million globally as of early March, Microsoft said last month (CED March 10 p8). We also attempted to get Tsunoda’s take on the significance of augmented reality’s arrival on Kinect with the coming release of THQ’s game Fantastic Pets this month, but Tsunoda said he wasn’t authorized to talk to reporters at the conference.

When Danny Bilson arrived at THQ about three years ago, the executive vice president of THQ’s Core Games group said the marketing and product development departments were “like Germany and England in World War II.” That changed after a restructuring of management at the company combined the two departments under one umbrella, he said. Before that, the company’s games had often been “pretty weak,” with “a lot of copycatting” and “not a lot of innovation,” he said.

Bilson also stressed the significant role that transmedia is playing in THQ’s marketing efforts. He pointed to the efforts that THQ employed with its recent release, Homefront for the 360, PS3 and PC. THQ estimated that of the 2.4 million units initially shipped of the game, more than 1 million copies were sold in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific markets (CED March 28 p8). Marketing initiatives used ahead of the game’s release included video trailers and viral efforts, he said.

THQ and the Random House Publishing Group said early this week that they started a joint transmedia team to “create and develop original intellectual properties for publication across multiple mediums” (CED April 5 p10). The initiative “builds on Random House and THQ’s continuing efforts to bring THQ’s existing IP library to all book publishing formats,” the companies said, citing the recent Homefront: The Voice of Freedom novel that’s a prequel to the game. The initiative with Random House covers five intellectual properties, Bilson told the conference. Transmedia initiatives are planned for THQ’s coming core game releases also, including Red Faction: Armageddon, shipping for the 360, PS3 and PC May 31 in North America, and Saints Row: The Third, shipping for the same platforms late this year, he said. THQ teamed with Syfy for a TV movie based on the Red Faction game, and a movie based on the Saints Row game is being made also, he said. THQ didn’t say what company is making the Saints Row film.

MI6 Conference Notebook

The annual marketing conference has “come a long way in six years,” said Jonathan Block-Verk, CEO of PromaxBDA International and MI6. Registration for the conference reached an “all-time high,” said Jonathan Simpson-Bint, CEO of Brand Narrative and co-chair of the MI6 board of governors. Registration was up 15 percent from last year, a spokeswoman for the conference said. But she didn’t say how many people registered last year.