Consumers love their video games, and that's no accident. To achieve what the NPD Group estimates at $5.8 billion in U.S. console-software sales in 2003, publishers spent nearly $547.4 million on marketing, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus--not a bad return on investment by anyone's standards.

A total of 89 publishers ponied up last year for 640 titles. Interestingly, the top 20 "big spenders," led by Sony at $99 million and change, accounted for a whopping $523.6 million in marketing firepower; the remaining 69 firms tracked by NMP tallied a total of only $23.8 million.

Among individual game releases, marketing money was spread slightly more evenly: The average per-title expenditure in 2003 was $855,242, with a median marketing figure of $158,550.

Nonetheless, the top sellers galvanized considerably more marketing dollars than did their lower-selling counterparts. Rockstar Games' "Grand Theft Auto" was supported by $13.2 million in marketing, an amount over which many feature filmmakers would drool.

"If I look at the top games from 2003, the average budget for each is in the $6 (million)-$7 million range just for television," Activision Publishing president Kathy Vrabeck says. "What we're seeing increasingly is (that) the top 50 or 60 titles are accounting for the lion's share of the business--so if your goal is to get a product into the top 50, you have to spend that kind of money."

It hasn't always been that way: In the "old days"--which in the video game business means tour or five years ago, during the previous generation of consoles--a combination of fan magazines and online promotion allowed publishers to reach most of their target audience.

Since then, the industry has raised its sights from a niche business to a mainstream, packaged-goods orientation. The reasons are multifold, though Electronic Arts marketing director Jillian Goldberg cites a maturing customer base.

"The guy who is 37 or 38 years old and starring his own family, he grew up...