Actually has more of an impact because they are a small dev studio, with smaller means than the likes of what EA and companies offer their devs in terms of money and what they look in return. Lets just hope that they can keep churning out great games.

@Krazykomatant

Think about it CDProjekt cant afford to give paid DLC.

I know that statement doesn't make much sense but put it in context, The company doesn't make games with mass appeal compared to the likes of COD, BF and other FPSs. They make games that core gamers appreciate and if they started shafting us then core gamers wouldn't buy their game and the mass market has no interest in their product. So they'd end up digging themselves in a hole.

There's so much that's wrong with this post I don't even know where to begin.

Simply put: EA and Activision put themselves in a bind with overspending. No one told either company they needed to spend more than three quarters of a billion dollars in marketing.

Look at DayZ...that game has no marketing budget and it's pushing Arma 2 close to a million sales.

CD Projekt doesn't do all the bullcrap and they know how to keep expenses down. This is what we should be promoting in the game industry. If companies can't keep expenses down then they shouldn't be making games.

Us gamers shouldn't have to foot bills for half-hearted AAA titles. There's no reason for it at all.

Though I think your post is well thought out, vortis is right. EA and others have spend too much time and money on selling a shiny product instead of actually making a great product. Great games sell themselves. With how fast word can spread on the internet, a great game doesn't need a marketing budget. DayZ is a perfect example.

I am not going to get too into this, because I truly feel my points are valid.

But, I feel you two aren't looking into everything here.

Marketing is very, very important in how well a game can do in sales. And I don't agree that a good game can get by on word of mouth alone. Not normally. This has been proven time and again.

Also, Day Z gets it's marketing through youtube. It became this viral sensation that really, really helps the game sell, simply because there are tons of people doing videos. It was the same with Minecraft. It would have never moved in the way it did without catching the lucky break it did. Most games can't expect for this to happen.

Also, I didn't mention cost of advertising in my post. I mentioned purely development cost has gone up by multiples. It is to the point that moderate sales don't normally turn profit. And then, almost no one spends the amount in marketing that you listed, for most any game. CoD and BF3 doesn't make up the entire market.

But marketing is important. It goes hand in hand with selling the game, and does what it can to make sure you know it exists.

You also don't take into consideration the difference in cost when it comes to developing games outside of U.S. It can dramatically lower the cost, as seen with Witcher 2 and Metro 2033. Making it much easier to turn profit, even with moderate sales. Which is where both of those games, Metro more so, sort of fell in terms of sales.