It isn't a one-size-fits-all market, and lumping together "marketing" with the industrial sales funnel does a disservice to the numerous games that used other m

It isn't a one-size-fits-all market, and lumping together "marketing" with the industrial sales funnel does a disservice to the numerous games that used other marketing techniques, on their own or accompanied by a traditional push. That doesn't mean that marketing isn't important - if your goal is commercial then it really should be up in that 60% of developer time range - but the way in which you do it requires at least as much design thinking as making the game. The whole premise of the game needs built in sales value or else you're part of the crowd, fighting to break out. Most of the tricks you can do with advertising and production values only reduce reasons for people to say "no" to a game. They don't make people say "yes", and if nobody says "yes" then all you can do is churn people through the sales funnel, because your game doesn't and never will solve anyone's hair-on-fire problem.