by [name redacted]
The idea behind Creative Domain Executive VP of Marketing Craig Relyea’s panel at this year’s E3 was to explore and maybe debunk what he described as misconceptions about “strategic information gathering”; marketing speak for focus groups, surveys, and other consumer data-raking. His thesis was that current videogame marketing “relies too much on gut instinct,” a tendency that, from his perspective, has “slowed the industry’s progress in becoming a dominant medium.” He fears that “we’re becoming smothered by over-dependancy on analysis”, resulting in a trap where, unless it is an extension of an established brand, nothing new gets made.