Right now, the only thing the AAA marketing people know how to market are:
- Graphical Screenies
- Graphical data nonesense
- Snappy technical jargon
- Raw basic numbers "30 levels with over 250 spells and skills, and 1000 items!"
- Boobies
- Butts
- Cool animations
- Licensed characters/settings
- Graphical Screenies
- Graphical data nonesense
- Snappy technical jargon
- Raw basic numbers "30 levels with over 250 spells and skills, and 1000 items!"
- Boobies
- Butts
- Cool animations
- Licensed characters/settings
Yet you still have to understand that trying to market to the mass media is like pulling teeth. the 'masses' are dumb. They won't respond to anything unless its shiny, sexy, and/or something they already are familar with.
With that said, how exactly do you market 'gameplay'? Its not something that is quickly visible at a glance, not something you can convince easily through words or a 30 second commercial. Gameplay usually is something you experience. you'd have to have a whole new venue or reaching customers because magazine ads, tv commercials, and store promotions simply can't convey good 'gameplay'.
Take for example, Indigo prophecy. Great game, but when it comes to trying to verbalize how 'awesome' the game was to my friends in terms of experience it becomes very difficult. usually just ends with 'you just have to play it'.