How game studios make poor marketing decisions and how to fix it
A deeper look at the hidden patterns that quietly undermine good games
Most games do not fail because they lack potential. They fail quietly, long before launch, when studios make a sequence of small but deeply consequential marketing decisions that gradually push the game off its natural trajectory. These decisions rarely feel dramatic in the moment. They often feel reasonable: waiting a bit longer before showing something, polishing a trailer instead of testing an idea, postponing uncomfortable feedback until the game is ready. But each of these choices reflects the same underlying issue: the studio is thinking about marketing from the perspective of development rather than from the perspective of the audience.
Once this gap forms, every decision that follows reinforces the wrong assumptions. Teams polish aspects players do not care about, hide the ones players actually need to see, and build promotional materials around messages the market has never validated. Marketing ends up trying to justify an idea that was never tested. Understanding when to start marketing can prevent many of these mistakes.
When studios build marketing around the game they wish they made
Inside most studios developers see the game through months or years of context. They know the systems, the intentions, and the true shape of the experience. As a result, they often highlight details and depth that matter internally but mean nothing to someone discovering the game for the first time.
Players only see what is instantly legible and emotionally relevant. When marketing focuses on late game complexity or lore instead of the immediate hook, communication breaks. A survival RPG team may emphasize crafting depth while players actually care about early tension. A tactics game may highlight narrative while players respond more to the core loop.
The result is a Steam page or trailer that technically shows the game but fails to convey meaning.
Fixing the disconnect
Marketing must begin with the player's entry point, not the team's internal understanding. If a studio cannot describe the game in one clear sentence that a stranger can repeat correctly, the audience will not be able to describe it either.
Clarity is the foundation of effective marketing.
The decision to wait until it is ready is rarely about readiness
Studios rarely delay marketing because the game is truly unpresentable. They delay because showing work in progress is uncomfortable and exposes assumptions to early scrutiny. Early feedback can challenge the vision, reveal weak hooks, or expose issues that require rethinking features.
So teams wait. They wait for polish. They wait for the final art pass. They wait for a proper trailer. They wait until the game aligns with the ideal version in their minds.
But the market does not reward waiting. Early marketing is not about hype. It is about learning. Games that market early discover which moments players care about, which explanations resonate, and which features have no communicative value. They let the audience shape the message instead of guessing it internally. This is why marketing is not a launch week activity.
Fixing the timeline
Early marketing is a research discipline. TikTok, YouTube, Discord, and early Steam analytics reveal how the game is interpreted today, not how the team hopes it will be understood later.
Marketing should guide production, not follow behind it.
The obsession with polished trailers creates an illusion of clarity
Trailers feel productive because they are concrete and impressive. But trailers do not fix unclear positioning. They disguise it. Many studios produce highly polished trailers not because their message is strong but because they hope production value will make the message appear strong.
Players do not evaluate polish. They evaluate comprehension. If the audience does not understand the game, no cinematics will solve the problem.
Fixing the trailer mindset
A trailer should be the final expression of validated messaging, not a tool for discovering it. Before producing a trailer, the studio should already know which moment stops scrolls, which mechanic sparks emotion, and which framing delivers retention. YouTube's creator research shows that the first seconds determine whether viewers continue watching.
Otherwise the trailer becomes a well produced artifact of confusion.
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Studios track the wrong numbers and ignore the right warnings
Teams often rely on vanity metrics — likes, positive comments, Discord growth — because they provide emotional reassurance. But these metrics do not measure comprehension or intent.
The real predictive metrics include Steam Click Through Rate, first 3 second retention on TikTok, first 20 second retention on YouTube, wishlist to visit ratio, capsule test performance, and rewatch rates. These numbers show whether the game communicates clearly and whether people want to continue.
Almost every failed launch shows warning signs in these metrics months before release — studios simply are not looking.
Fixing the feedback loop
Replace "did people like it?" with "did people understand it?" Understanding drives real interest and conversion.
Leadership relies on intuition where the market requires experiments
Leads form strong opinions after living inside the game for years. This is valuable for development but dangerous for marketing. Intuition formed in a production bubble rarely matches audience interpretation.
Successful studios behave like researchers, not guessers. They test ideas weekly, validate assumptions, and eliminate uncertainty. Failed studios defend opinions instead of testing them. GDC postmortems consistently show this pattern in both successful and failed launches.
Fixing the culture
Shift from an approval culture to an experimentation culture. Produce multiple hooks per week, test Steam page variations, iterate on thumbnails, and gather behavioral data continuously.
Marketing becomes reliable when it becomes empirical.
Treating TikTok, YouTube and influencers only as promotion is a blind spot
Studios often see these platforms as distribution channels instead of diagnostic tools. But each one reveals something structural about the game.
TikTok shows whether the game has an instantly legible hook. YouTube shows whether it supports long form interest. Influencers reveal how naturally the game can be retold.
If a game fails on these platforms, the issue is not promotion — it is communication. The TikTok algorithm surfaces content based on engagement signals, making it an honest test of whether a game communicates effectively.
Fixing the platform mindset
Treat every platform as an X ray exposing a different part of the game's communicative DNA. The earlier these truths appear, the more time the studio has to adjust the product.
The root cause of poor decisions
Almost every major marketing failure stems from production and marketing operating as separate systems. When production becomes stressful, the studio chooses what is easiest for development, not what is clearest for players. They hide unfinished features, delay the Steam page, polish safe scenes, and avoid early testing.
By launch the strategy is built on untested assumptions. The game may be good, but the audience never learns why. Teams building marketing without a budget can avoid this trap by treating early feedback as their primary research investment.
Fixing the foundation
Marketing must be embedded in production from day one. Test ideas early, let player interpretation influence priorities, and design the game around moments that survive exposure to real audiences.
Communication is part of the product.
Final Thoughts
Poor marketing decisions accumulate quietly. They rarely appear dramatic. But they compound until the game enters the market with a message that does not match reality.
Fixing marketing is not about louder trailers or bigger creators. It is about changing how a studio learns. Teams that treat marketing as continuous discovery resonate. Teams that rely on intuition lose momentum, even with strong games.
A studio that masters this gap builds a long term competitive advantage — one that compounds across every future project.
I’m a marketing consultant helping PC and console studios build systems that grow wishlists and sales with clarity, not chaos.
I work with teams that want predictable growth across the full lifecycle of a game: Steam optimization, store asset improvement, messaging, analytics, creator strategy, and launch planning. My approach combines structured decision making with practical execution so developers can focus on building the game while the marketing foundation scales with them.
- Steam visibility, conversion and wishlist growth
- Store assets: capsules, trailers, messaging, positioning
- Analytics frameworks and marketing decision systems
- Creator and influencer pipeline setup
- Launch strategy for PC and console games
- Long term marketing systems, not one off tactics