There really isn't a lot of "unethical" marketing, other than paying for coverage without both parties disclosing it.
People just have a lot of hangups to get over. Also, a lot of beginners are just marketing aimlessly. Marketing is ineffective without a target. It's been a while, but from I can remember that GDC talk I linked (They are no longer active on TIG, but are a member
here) addresses a lot of this.
Here are a few things I consider (and some most people consider) very important in relation to marketing.
1. The name/title of your game. It might have worked for Zelda, but if you name your game "The Legend of ____", you're already going to lose people. Many games can and have been successful despite having what I consider to have mediocre titles, but having something that catches attention can definitely be in your favor. Even though I don't like the game, the title "Enter the Gungeon" has my respect. Another thing to make sure of is how your title will fare in a google search.
2. Elevator pitch. Almost everyone already places a heavy emphasis on this, but you need a concise and interesting way to explain your game to others. I would advise against referencing other games in your pitch. "It's like this game but with this." is already a failed pitch. You don't want people thinking about a different game when pitching yours. Even if you are making a nostalgia play or trying to capture the audience of said game you reference, it's a failure. Let people make that connection on their own. Trust me, they will. People love comparing games to other games. But its tacky coming out of your mouth. Exceptions would be when someone directly asks about inspirations, but even then I have personal issue with that, as I don't think your inspiration should derive mostly from other video games. ("Rocket League is Soccer with Cars" is probably the most inoffensive one, but I also don't know if the devs ever pitched it that way themselves. And I'd argue Stardew Valley is an exception in which comparisons to Harvest Moon benefitted it because of lack of games in that genre on the platform.) Try to get it down to one sentence. Personally, I'd say two sentences at most. And when I say that, I don't mean have an insanely long compound complex sentence to try to fit a superfluous amount of words into that restriction.
3. Artstyle. Unfortunately for myself and for many others here, pixel art is receiving more and more backlash. The bar has been raised. Even games with good pixel get backlash. So, if you have mediocre to bad pixel art, you especially are going to struggle to gain attention. I'm not going to tell you to make a hand illustrated or 3d game if you can't, but I think it's important to understand going into development the reality of the comments or you will receive. I have hope that as kids who grew up with a PS1 or N64 age and enter development, low poly will become more prominent and pixel art will again have more breathing space. Overall, I think it's pretty obvious that a more unique artstyle (e.g. Cuphead, Firewatch, ) will receive attention solely because of said artstyle. However, I understand that most are not capable of this. You just have to do the best you can.
4. What I like to call "Gifability". How well does your game come across in gifs? People fucking love gifs. I love them. You probably love them. The only people who don't have shitty internet and can't load them all. (There are probably legitimate reasons other than that, but I do not know them.) Unfortunately, this can negatively affect story based and slower paced games. Action games often show off very well in gifs. I'm not an expert in gifs. I only know that I and many others find them appealing. I'm sure there are creative ways to use them across all genres. "Gifability" is also very important to your social media presence. Good gifs get retweets, shares, and likes, further spreading your reach. They can help you leverage your current audience into more.
I'm going to be honest. I ran out of steam writing all this. I'll try to come back and write some more as I think of it. I'm no expert in marketing and have strong opinions, so don't take anything I say as gospel. You can have a successful game without marketing at all, but I wouldn't leave it up to chance. You can also make a bunch of mistakes and still succeed despite that. Good marketing will give you, in my opinion, the best chance of success in a very crowded indie space. And as rj said, different games require different methods. Sometimes ignoring the best methods will work to your advantage for a particular game.
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