On The Quality Of Videogame Commercials

Thanks to GameSpy for their opinion piece discussing why many videogame TV commercials sell the product short. They cite the Final Fantasy Tactics Advance spot, in which: "Three kids, pretending to be three characters from FFTA, were pretending to man phone lines, urging kids to call in to help them progress in their quest", and a recent Everquest PS2 commercial in which "a businessman, a slacker/skater, a punk girl, and some other stereotype get together to play EQ after the businessman makes a call on his cell phone, proclaiming, 'It's time to slay the dragon.'", suggesting that "If gaming is to truly grow up... then it really needs to get its act together with its commercials." Which game TV commercials work for you, and what do companies need to do to improve them?

Comments

First Zelda commercial sold me

[setzman]

A couple of links (...) so you can see it for yourself:

http://www.fileplanet.com/files/110000/112186.shtm l

http://zc.zeldaxtreme.com/movies.shtml

and google

If fileplanet doesn't work for you, please use zeldaxtreme or google, but don't slashdot any of these fan sites.

SOCOM

[MORTAR_COMBAT!]

The PS2 online commercial where the guys are getting smacked down by the actual Navy Seals is priceless.

Fragged: "Who are these guys?"

Seal: "Like shooting fish in a barrel."

The commercials that really piss me off...

[Incoherent07]

are the ones that don't actually show gameplay footage at all. This was an especially big problem in the PS1 generation, where you'd have commercials composed entirely of the game's FMV. It's false advertising at best when you play off the entire game to look like the FMV.

And then, of course, there are the completely unrelated commercials, but those have always been around even before video games.

Do it like the Japanese

[bconway]

Video game advertisers in the US really need to take a lesson from the Japanese. If I saw commercials like this on TV, they'd get my money every time.

One of the funniest ever.

[crazyphilman]

Now, I never played "Magic, the Gathering" because I never got into the card games and could never figure out the attraction (I'm more of a first person shooter kinda guy). But their commercials were hilarious.

There was one where a bunch of scientists are looking down on a lawyer type through a set of high-set glass windows. He was in the middle of a big, roundish room with huge steel doors in the back, and he was basically sitting around, fiddling with his watch, etc. So one of the scientist types says, "Ok, bring in the troll." They press a button and open the doors, and a huge, at least fifteen foot tall troll with a huge club comes in and roars. The lawyer shrieks, and the next thing you see is a view through the windows over the scientist's shoulders, as the lawyer flies up into the air, spilling papers all over the place. A scientist takes a note down on a pad, saying, "Troll beats lawyer..." (or words to that effect).

Those commercials were FUNNY.