>>because it implies that marketing is more important than the development effort.
It doesn't imply such a thing.
You can think of marketing as a force multiplier. If the developed product is shit, it doesn't matter how well it's marketed because it will never sehahahahahah I can't even say that with a straight face.
If you look at the entire system, its sad for me to think that companies spend 60% of their budget to fight for attention between each other.
Its not Rockstar's fault or shortcoming, but its a problem in how things are done in general.
In the form of a story: Company A and Company B compose an entire economic system, and each build a product with 100% budget.
Company A falls behind in sales to Company B for a variety of reasons, of which luck could be one of them. So to get more awareness and better sales, they take 10% of their budget and put it into marketing the product.
Now they get ahead in sales, and are very happy. Company B figures this, and now uses 20% of the budget, to overcome Company A.
They will keep racing on marketing and presence as long as they can build the product and stay afloat.
So production is decreasing in proportion to available resources. In absolute terms, we'd have to answer the question of "is marketing making the pie larger" and if so by how much.
It doesn't imply such a thing.
You can think of marketing as a force multiplier. If the developed product is shit, it doesn't matter how well it's marketed because it will never sehahahahahah I can't even say that with a straight face.