This is in response to what someone considered news, but most see just as a factless uninformed rant.

http://www.vgchartz.com/news/news.php?id=600

An Television campaign in Canada will cost between $500,000 to $1,000,000.  That would include conventional channels such as CTV, Global, CBC, (those are the NBC, ABC, CBS of Canada) and specialty channels like Space, Discovery, Teletoon, G4Tech TV, etc.

You could cut down the cost and buy 100% Specialty channels and bring it down to approx $250,000.  This, on a A1834 demo, would get you about 1,250,000 views from Adults aged between 18 to 34 (perfect demo for gamers).

Now this is just Canada, and you're looking at $250,000 minimum for Specialty only.

The TV advertising industry bases its cost on how many thousands of people watch a show, so if the states has 10x the population of Canada, the cost go up by 10x.

So a TV advertising campaign in the states would cost minimum $2,500,000 just for specialty channels such as Discovery, SciFi Network, G4Tech TV and whatever specialty channel you guys have in the states.

In dollars this won't make sense to any company selling downloadable games. No one would be spending that much money on a $15 game. If they make $8 profit on the game, they would need to sell 300,000 units just to pay off the TV campaign. 

It's dumb, it's doesn't make sense. That's the reason why you'll never see a downloadable game advertised on TV.. and not because of some weird conspiracy theory.

I read the link. I hadn't seen it before now.

So wait, what's the argument here? Retailers are somehow preventing publishers from advertising on TV, websites, and magazines? They're doing this through some vague, undetermined system of "threats"? Threats about what, exactly?

Or was he saying that sinister retailers are refusing to advertise downloadable games in-store and in their flyers? In that case, what do threats have to do with anything? And wouldn't it make just as much sense to chide McDonald's for not putting up posters of Burger King sandwiches?

It's interesting that the comments following the post first defended it as legitimate news, then as an editorial... Personally, I'd go with "schizophrenic rant."

As far as I'm concerned, something like that has no place on any public space, much less on the front page of a website struggling for legitimacy. Your rebuttal ought to be common sense, but maybe it isn't for some people. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

well at least we are filling up the news section...

that's what the new mods were for, right?

Uhh....ok?

We won't see downloadable, cheap games advertised on TV, because advertising costs a lot? That's nothing new...it's why your uncle's car repair shop doesn't get an ad during the Superbowl...that's just how it works.

 but theres a difference mattering the conpany. Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo could easily advertise on their kiosks. Thats all it would take to get word out. 

I give props to the console makers for at least giving some hype to downloadable games on their services. Nintendo has videos of the games on the VC, and Microsoft (and possibly Sony), have demos of those games.