Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Marketing for Grand Theft Auto V

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was merge to Grand Theft Auto V. Mark Arsten (talk) 01:59, 11 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Marketing for Grand Theft Auto V[edit]

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Every source in this article is an advertisement for GTA V. There are no sources that talk about marketing GTA V. See WP:SPIP: "Wikipedia is not a promotional medium... product placement are not valid routes to an encyclopedia article. The barometer of notability is whether people independent of the topic itself have actually considered the topic notable enough that they have written and published non-trivial works of their own that focus upon it." Question: Has anyone written about the topic of this article, the marketing of GTA V? Green Cardamom (talk) 01:52, 30 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Also, there is a Wikia for GTA V where this material could be transwiki'd in order to preserve it. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 16:49, 2 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment This game has made a big splash in the media. A quick search shows some secondary sources discussing both the marketing of and the market for GTA V: businessweek.com, venturebeat.com, IGN, Gamasutra, the Motley Fool, the Motley Fool, too. But I don't think these sources can support the blow-by-blow description of Rockstar marketing actions noted in the article; it would need to be cut back quite a bit. --Mark viking (talk) 04:08, 30 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of video game-related deletion discussions. (G·N·B·S·RS·Talk) • Gene93k (talk) 00:59, 1 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Advertising-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:00, 1 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:00, 1 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Smerge back into Grand Theft Auto V. Way too much detail in here, and a lot of the article that doesn't have to do with marketing directly (development and sales, for example) belongs in the main article, where much of it is duplicated already. Ansh6 6 6 01:04, 1 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Except for the important mentions that development had started and that the initial release date had been missed, the development section, doesn't actually mention development. I've re-named it Promotion as a better name. In an article about marketing I would have thought that having a sales section that indicates the success of the marketing would be a good idea and would be the correct last paragraph of the article. - X201 (talk) 08:30, 1 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Merge - There's no reason this needs to be its own article. Sure, its a huge blockbuster, but we don't need to get into the habit of splitting off a "Marketing" sub article every time a company puts a ton of promotion into a game. It should just be a subsection in the parent article. (A lot of stuff can be trimmed or shortened. For instance, right now, it mentions every time the website is updated. We don't need to list that sort of thing...) Sergecross73 msg me 13:10, 1 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"it mentions every time the website is updated.", that's actually down to my cack-handed trimming of the article. That segment is actually covering the online guide to Los Santos. But I agree, it reads very badly. - X201 (talk) 13:33, 1 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Topic appears notable and the article is well-sourced. I read through a few of the sources and each discusses updates from the GTAV marketing plan. I did not read every source, but the ones I did were not press releases—they were articles written by staff writers about the GTAV marketing campaign. Claiming "every source is an advertisement" I think is a gross generalization; we could also say every source everywhere is an advertisement for what they are discussing.

WP:SPIP does not apply here. It states:

Self-promotion, paid material, autobiography, and product placement are not valid routes to an encyclopedia article. The barometer of notability is whether people independent of the topic itself (or of its manufacturer, creator, author, inventor, or vendor) have actually considered the topic notable enough that they have written and published non-trivial works of their own that focus upon it – without incentive, promotion, or other influence by people connected to the topic matter.

Clearly a majority of these sources are written by people independent of Rockstar and are not incentivised by Rockstar.

Then the question is asked, "Has anyone written about the topic of this article, the marketing of GTA V?" To which I would argue that yes, hundreds of articles have been written that discuss aspects of the GTAV marketing campaign, whether it be the GTAV media release, or the physical promotional material, or just the general press releases giving updates on the game. People independent of Rockstar wrote about all those things. I think it's a serious misstep to discount everyone that writes about the marketing campaign (for invalid reasons, SPIP), and then in the next breath complain that no one writes about the marketing campaign. --Odie5533 (talk) 14:12, 1 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We don't need to list every instance and mention of GTA that appeared in the press, it's trivia. Read WP:NOTNEWS, WP:INDISCRIMINATE, WP:NOTDIR, WP:NOTADVERTISING. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 16:29, 1 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No one is arguing for that. --Odie5533 (talk) 19:00, 1 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - On the grounds that the marketing budget for the film is larger than a dozen production budgets for similar games combined with the fact that its marketing campaign was and is among the most heavily covered and widespread campaigns with a diverse system including an international campaign. Not even major political campaigns get as innovative or as expensive as GTA 5. While it may seem like "advertising" this is an article ABOUT its advertising campaign and is most certainly going to be an important article for those in marketing fields - the game itself is rather secondary, but marketing machinary assembled to push this game defies most textbook examples and really pushed the envelope. This article will continue to develop as GTA 5 enters its second and third phase. And one more time so its clear, this page should not be about the game in any real capacity, but this notable and all encompassing advertising push that makes it the #1 most expensive game in history. 209.255.230.32 (talk) 21:32, 1 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I agree on every point except for the end conclusion. That all just makes Grand Theft Auto 5 notable, but I'm not sure it really explains why we need a separate article for this. All the important points can be covered it the GTA 5 article in a "Marketing" or "Development" sub-section. Sergecross73 msg me 13:00, 2 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

All of the important points could be covered in the main article, but per WP:SS I see no reason to limit the amount of information on the marketing aspect of the game, considering what a large marketing campaign it was and what a major game release it is. --Odie5533 (talk) 13:55, 2 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Where do we stop though? All sorts of aspects of this game get a ton of attention from the press. There was also endless coverage and discussion on the game's initial trailers, and its boxart even. Shall we make a "Box art of GTA 5" article? A "List of GTA 5 Trailers" article? Sergecross73 msg me 14:23, 2 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We aren't arguing for that... We are arguing for one article about one of the major sections on the GTA V page, and a major aspect of the game, an aspect which is of wide interest even to people that don't like video games to see how one of the most successful video games of all time was marketed. This game is a big deal for the gaming industry, which is a huge industry. I think we are trying too hard to fit everything in one article when there's no real reason to. For example, look at Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2. There's WP:SS articles for the Production, the soundtrack, and the theatrical run. Or Avatar (2009 film), which has 5 sub-articles to it. --Odie5533 (talk) 16:26, 2 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not everything of wide interest is appropriate for Wikipedia, and a big game doesn't make the marketing of it notable. As mentioned by Egsan Bacon below, there's nothing particularly noteworthy about the marketing of this game other than they spent a lot of money on it. That information can easily be discussed in the main article on the game, probably in relation to overall cost vs. revenue (ie. was the marketing effective: yes). The only reason this article seems to exist is to list every (or many) instance when the game was mentioned in the press, it's a sort of fandom article. If we eliminate all that as trivia there's nothing left but a couple sentences. 1. Rockstar was the company. 2. They marketed in twitter, trailers, etc.. 3. They spent a lot of money. 4. It was effective. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 16:46, 2 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Merge – I don't see any reason why this couldn't and shouldn't just be in the main article. This article doesn't present anything about the way the game was marketed (Twitter announcements, screenshots, trailers, pre-order bonuses, special editions of the game, a promotional article in a gaming magazine) that suggests the marketing of GTA V was notability innovative in any way beyond them spending a lot of money doing it, and that fact can be mentioned in a marketing section in the game's article. There's no reason to do things like go into detail about when every trailer was released and what was in it. Egsan Bacon (talk) 14:00, 2 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - I can't decide either way, but I should point out that the GTA V page is 80,000 bytes which is quite long, so the only feasible way to get this merged back would be with lots of trimming. CR4ZE (t) 05:42, 4 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Yeah, that's what most of us who have expressed a desire to see this merged want - we think that this is too much detail, so a pruned version can go back into the article for the game where it probably belongs. Ansh6 6 6 10:02, 4 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Chop a lot of the article, and merge the rest: Even if this wasn't poorly sourced, it's probably not a candidate for its own article. This has a lot of cruft that probably should be removed even if the article is kept p b p 17:42, 9 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"it's probably not a candidate for its own article." could you please elaborate? Because that's the whole reason we're here. --Odie5533 (talk) 00:47, 10 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Remember that if something passes GNG, it can still be merged p b p 16:05, 10 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.