Slashdot Mirror
Acclaim Tries Bloodvertising To Promote New Game
Thanks to Ananova for reporting that Acclaim UK are trying what they call 'bloodvertising' to promote Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance, their PlayStation 2 and Xbox title billed as "the bloodiest ever [videogame]." The UK promotion will include: "Advertisements in bus shelters.. [where] cartridges of red dye will be placed behind clear sheets of film and released over a six-day period. The 'blood' will slowly appear to spill out on the streets and drip onto the pavements." This continues Acclaim's increasingly desperate series of publicity stunts, including using "spray-painted homing pigeons" at the Wimbledon tennis tournament and trying to place game adverts on gravestones.
Don't forget when they got someone to name their kid Turok for $100,000...
While this advertising is kind of crappy and cheesy it represents a disturbing trend in video games. The trend for developers to concentrate more on theme than gameplay.
Don't get me wrong, I'm totally against censorship and such. I'm not one of those that think violent video games are evil or some such, hell I play cs lots. But Acclaim (seemingly the worst offender) is trying to sell a game because the game is bloody. Give me an hour and I'll code some blood in opengl. I'll make a program where every time you click a huge pool of blood explodes and spills everywhere. Is it a fun game? no.
I've noticed that lately a lot of people have been buying games based on theme. Like all the people who buy a Final Fantasy game just because it says Final Fantasy on it. Or all the people who put down the GameCube just because it looks like its for kids. These are the shallow minded retards that probably buy games Acclaim makes. You know a video game is a good game when you can replace every sprite with a stick figure and replace every thing else with color coded squares and it's still fun to play. That's a damn good game. If a game is only fun because the pictures happen to be pictures of trademarked characters or guns or blood or whatever the game still isn't a good game.
Look at Smash Bros. Sure they used their entire Nintendo lineup of characters as the theme. But if you took it away and replaced them all with stick figures the game would still rock the house. Now take any Acclaim game, do the same. What no gameplay?
If you want to see some blood there are a thousand websites with videos of hideous injuries you can look at. These ads are just one more way stupid developers are cheapening the industry.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Shaun White, Communications Manager at Acclaim, said: "The concept of 'Bloodvertising' ties in with our marketing strategy and sticks to the theme of blood and carnage which is consistent throughout the Gladiator video game."
Terrific. The parent and "think of the children" groups are going to have a field day with this. Blood dripping into the streets? Yup, someone in a high place is going to be told about this and raise a firestorm.
Don't forget when they got someone to name their kid Turok for $100,000... (sorry for repost, slashdot hiccuped and said I was an AC)
503 Sig Unavailable
The Signature could not be accessed. Please try again later or contact the administrator
The 'blood' will slowly appear to spill out on the streets and drip onto the pavements.
What happense if if someone gets this on their pantlegs or shoes?
But really....I think one of the advertisers was watching simpsons and saw the episode with the itchy scratchy: the movie billboard which poured blood onto the newlyweds below.
You see, the point of these campaigns Acclaim does, and especially their promotion of them before their fact, is that they get more publicity than by just running the campaign. Even if they never actually go ahead with the bus shelter campaign the game, their brand, etc, is all out in the media.. and FOR FREE!
Pretty good marketing, really.
So... What happens if somebody gets the "blood" on their fancy clothing or new car or something, and decides to sue for damages? Isn't Acclaim accountable for damages caused by their marketing scheme?
The Acclaim marketing department has more creativity than the actual project developers.
I have a problem with the following implication:
Like all the people who buy a Final Fantasy game just because it says Final Fantasy on it.
which concludes that:
These are the shallow minded retards that probably buy games Acclaim makes.
I am not a Final Fantasy Fanboi, although I'm sure some people would disagree. I do think it's unfair to say that people who bought it just for the name are retarded. I buy Final Fantasy games just for the name, granted. It does not make me retarded. I buy them because they are a franchise which has excellent quality standards, because they are made by the same company, a company that I admire and trust with my purchasing decisions. Brand loyalty? Yes.
Admittedly, some people don't enjoy the FF series. Are they the people who keep buying FF games? I doubt it. If they are, then I grant you your point, those people are stupid, and would likely also buy Acclaim crap.
If you like the series, and have in every past iteration, and have liked every spinoff line, then why SHOULDN'T you buy the game just based on it's name? It's very likely that you *will* end up enjoying it a lot. (and if not, it only takes bad purchase to break you of that habit pretty damn quick. See: Master Of Orion 3, Sim City 4)
Random and weird software I've written.
PC games don't get advertised as heavily because a) the number of people interested in playing PC games is much, MUCH smaller than the number of people interested in playing console games and b) the PC, despite what some believe, was not designed as a video game machine and was in fact designed as a productivity tool. It requires a significant investment to turn a basic PC (with CPU, 256MB of RAM, onboard video and sound, hard drive, monitor, etc.) into a capable gaming device, whereas it takes less than $200 to obtain the hardware necessary to play console games (a little more than $200 in the case of the PS2).
Further, your system-specific points barely make sense and provide no information to back them up. Who claims that the PS2 is "most difficult...to figure out"? Which gamers, besides the most lunatic proponents of other consoles, call the Gamecube "kiddie"? And which Xbox games have "little replay value without Xbox Live"?
I'll save you the trouble of answering those questions. Nobody but the addle-minded find the PS2 hard to operate, ONLY rabid anti-Nintendo nuts dismiss the Gamecube as being a kiddie console, and very damn few Xbox games can be considered as needing Xbox Live to be enjoyed.
The truth is that console titles sell more units and, in general, make more money than PC games. Thus, the console games are naturally going to be more of a marketing priority than PC games owing to the fact that 'it takes money to make money' and television advertising still isn't what I would call cheap.
I'll finish by addressing one more of your points: Even though I watch television via ReplayTV, and thus watch VERY few commercials, I do see snippets and Sony and Nintendo do plenty of advertising for systems and games. There is no way that 29 of 30 video game ads are for Xbox titles. If you think so, then you're not watching a lot of TV - which, of course, most would consider a good thing.
Maybe someone should replace the red dye cartridges with brown ones to reflect the true nature of this advertising campaign.
Acclaim have shit-for-brains and every time they pull this sort of crap, they get free publicity in the media.
zoocube ads will excrete poo?
ducatti world leaks oil?
I don't even want to know what liquid they'll use to promote Iggy's Reckin Balls!
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
I guess you could call this an attempt to squeeze blood from a stone...
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
What I really don't get is why, in all these crass advertising campaigns, it's always Acclaim UK that's doing it. (Go and check if you don't believe me.) Are Britons forever cursed to be the testing bed for low advertising? Any real-life Brits care to illuminate us on this subject?
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
I'd have to agree with the parent on this. /. about the types of games Nintendo produces and how they cater more twards a younger/family setting.
i've played games on both PS2 and GameCube, though not XBox (and i don't own any of them). the gamecube is great, but seemingly under rated. you DO get the feel that it's oriented more twards younger kids and families. Nintendo (or the game maker) does advertise for the GameCube, though all i've seen are things like Mario [whatever] and other family/kid oriented titles. not to say there aren't other more mature titles, they just don't seem to be advertised. Infact if i remember correctly there was an article on
on the other hand the PS2 seems to be regarded as the best console out there. with a great range of titles, the ability to play PS1 games, and well, it's reputation, it's got alot going for it. they don't seem to cater tward any one particular type of gamer.
finally, the XBox, while seemingly a great console as well, seems to offer (or atleast advertise) mostly action/fighting/sports games. most people either love that type of game or don't like microsoft. personally, i have no interest in getting or even playing on an XBox for both those reasons and i've not seen anything to indicate that there is more out there then the above.
the point is, while these statements may not be true at all, that is the feeling that alot (most?) people have (both people i know IRL and online). as far as i can tell they are all great consoles. but whether intentional or not, through advertising (or lack there of) and product/company image, these steriotypes are very common.
About Identity Marketing
Dr S. Cantrell isn't real. His book, "Market Their Pants Off!" (Engell International, ISBN 0552546925), isn't real. The whole thing was a hoax. I mean, my God, look at the man.. could that more clearly be a prop bow-tie?
The gravestone thing was a hoax as well... I haven't the link at the moment.
So the chances of this being real are terribly, terribly low. Especially with the cleaning of the sidewalks....
In a few days, we'll find out this was a hoax. Those of us who were here to read about it will remember, but a whole new set of people will get interested, and maybe angry, about the next one. Yay. Pthppht.
Sadly, if you go to the images page, it is apparent that gladiator is not actually all that bloody. It's not a member of the elite class of games where you can hack your opponent's limbs off, for example. There are no explosions, so bits of grizzle don't spray everywhere like in FPS games. No internally bits are ever on the outside. It's not even funny. Where is the violence? The nastiness? Where is the dark foreboding nature of of the world laid bare like scraped flesh covered in dirt and pebbles?
No, what we get is a series of repetitive blood textures added to the grounds around where a traditional penetration damage model is taking place. Nothing new here.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have some Happy Tree Friends to watch.
The ______ Agenda
This is nothing unusual for Acclaim UK. After all, this is the same company that came up with ads on gravestones (as pointed out). It shouldn't surprise anyone though it does make me wonder what types of pathetic hacks the art schools over there are churning out.
this somehow doesnt surprise me, that marketers would eventually come up with stupid shit like this to try and sell their products.. the game industry is so huge nowadays, and people are gonna try to outdo each other and do the next thing that causes a stir. its just like tv, or movies, or any other entertainment media.. you got yer FOX-type and you got yer PBS-type.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
I don't want to play games anymore because their so violent. Okay so this game isn't the most violent, but they're advertising is over the top. Games are dark. I feel depressed after spending hours killing stuff. Maybe I'm getting old, but I like a little bit more in my entertainment.
I was just killing some time at the mall yesterday. I start to overhear (she was hard not to hear) a mother getting upset about the ratings on a video game. She was worried that "Syphon Filter" was too violent a game. She started asking some of the salespeople (read saleskids) if they had played the game. She asked them if the game was violent. Hmm. Let's see, your a trained killer sent by the government to kill. Geeze, I don't know if the guy carrying a gun on the cover is any clue. I guess in the world of video games it's not as bad as that new serial killer game or the naked bike riding game or the anarchy game. I know it's easy to code the hunt and kill AI. It's hard to parse out text. And we all know games can't pass the Turing test. MMORPGs are still young and we just aren't all that creative. Trust me, hackers are smart but they're just not creative. Most games looks like a cross between Snowcrash and the Evil Dead.
You know I heard a story about Nero once. People around him were starving yet he would hold these massive feasts. There would be too much food for even Nero too eat. The party-goers would gorge themselves until they became full. Then they would proceed to vomit the food they ate so they could run back to the dinner table and gorge some more. They became addicted to the pleasures of life. So much even the simple act of eating became unhealthy.
Look, I'm going to do more than boycott this game. I intend on personally blacklisting Acclaim and the designer. Any other game that this desinger(s) or Acclaim puts out, I won't buy. I'm going to write them an email telling them this. I don't want Joe Lieberman to create a new law. I don't want Phil Mushnik to write a bunch of articles about this. I want to boycott Acclaim. I'm part of their prime demographic. I'm a young male who writes code for a living and can afford to buy such a game. We've got to let them know. Frankly, the game industry is worse than the music industry. There aren't any legitimate artists making games. John Carmack can code, but he couldn't design his way out of a paper bag. He's got the creativity of a 13 year old hopped up on Ritalin.
end of rant
What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean....
It's remarkable to what lengths a company will go to foist a sub-par video game into the limelight. Acclaim hasn't made anything worthwhile in months, if not years. A desperate advertising campaign like this is only trying to mask their shortcomings in game design.
Are Britons forever cursed to be the testing bed for low advertising?
If anything, you'd think Brits would be used as a testing bed for advances in oral hygiene.
Slashdot forgot about the time when Acclaim paid a guy to wait 2 months outside a video game store for Turok: Evolution to come out. He camped outside their door for about a week, then he disappeared overnight when the cameras stopped watching him. Got a big media frenzy out of it...if you consider maybe half a dozen game news sites a 'media frenzy'.
The Braying and Neighing of Barnyard Animals Follows.
Maybe their marketing people should play more games... The original Turok looked more bloody than this does.
** A Sketch a Week **
http://www.sketchplease.com
at the core though the games are often made for everyone, but they just missed such facts that yes people do not play the game before they buy them, and if the game looks to be for kids (with kids in the commercials, with toylike consoles and a purple kid like logo), and yes people do not want to show off a purple cube in their livingroom besides their metalic/black set of audio/video eq.
sidenote----
Personally I view the X-box as a so and so console, few orginial games that is not coming out for the PC and besides it looks like crap costs too much. The PS2 got good games in every category, and is essential of the three consoles for the general gamer, it got everything you need really. Now the GCn - in my eyes got the top of the crops in games, but barely, but so few that you better like the what Nintendo makes in games to really enjoy the console. For me the later 2 are essential, besides the Dreamcast and the GBA - all due to the games, but if I did not own a PC, I'd probably buy a X-box I would just need to mod it I guess
An archive strip, not on the subject of Acclaim's advertising stunts, but really the company itself. I wonder how do they really feel about it?
The world can be wrong today for once.
Actually, yes I do.
If the number of people interested in PC games is so much smaller than people playing console games, then why the hell are there companies being built solely for the purpose of building gaming machines? Maybe they're just catering a niche market, fine. I can accept that as an economist. But Dell? Dell is arguably one of the biggest computer manufacturers on the market for now, and if gaming machines are a niche market then Dell must be making a huge mistake. Now either Dell is deciding to burn some money or Dell thinks PC gaming is a market that can be tapped into. I don't have all the info, but unless you'd like to convince me otherwise I'm gonna have to believe that Dell is making its way to milking a new cashcow.
I've actually asked people and a friend of mine who works at EBGames about consoles. No one wants to fucking deal with the network adaptor. I've asked little 14 year olds, I've asked a 70+ year old man once, I've even asked a couple parents on the topic. They spend twenty minutes getting a lecture on how the adaptor works, do they need to subscribe to something, do they have to download something, is it effecient, is it stable, do they need to buy anything else, is it fun, etc. Every Joe Average knows Nintendo games tend to cater to the younger group of gamers. To say they don't associate the Gamecube as "kiddie" is like saying people don't associate anime with "Japanese." As for the Xbox; MechAssault (boring storyline), Rainbow Six : 3 (played the single player on the PC), Madden 2004 (hard to get people together to play a full game), Unreal Championship (I'd rather play Halo online).
Unless you'd like to show me the financial reports based on the sales of console games, I'd take any reports on the console market being profitable with a grain of salt. The console market is already being smashed left and right by parent groups and the government as it is. The NEED to make their sales sound good or they could lose all support from their investors. If I told you Slashdot was at risk of being shut down for some kind of government law breaking, followed by CowboyNeil's resignation, would you invest money in Slashdot's future? Course not. Its not safe, and unstable; you'd just be wasting money.
Let's see. Dell is taking computers they're already hoping to sell and making some of them gaming PCs. That's quite the risky proposition - you know, buying OEM video cards. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Dell is trying to have a computer for everyone, so of course they're going to have gaming PCs. It doesn't mean that there's a monstrous demand for them. It simply means that they don't want PC gamers to dismiss the company out of hand as being only for productivity.
As for the rest of the gaming PC manufacturers...er, assemblers...yes, they are catering to a relatively niche market.
I've actually asked people and a friend of mine who works at EBGames about consoles. No one wants to fucking deal with the network adaptor. [blah, blah, blah]
On the PS2, you're apparently changing the subject. Your original sentence referred to the PS2, not the network adapter. Getting any neophyte to figure out any network adapter can be difficult, though frankly if someone can set up their PC for networking, the PS2 is cake in comparison.
As for the Xbox; MechAssault (boring storyline), Rainbow Six : 3 (played the single player on the PC), Madden 2004 (hard to get people together to play a full game), Unreal Championship (I'd rather play Halo online).
MechAssault: Personally, I liked the single-player and played it through several times, though I can see how people wouldn't care for it as much. Of course, it was an Xbox Live LAUNCH TITLE. It's also worth noting that both MechAssault and Unreal Tournament are now budget titles that are easily worth their $20 pricetag.
Unreal Tournament: See above. AGAIN, a launch title. And I would rather play Halo online, too, though I don't know what that has to do with the price of tea in any part of the world. Of course, even without an XBL-enabled Halo, there are several Xbox FPS games released in the past year that can provide many hours of fun, on and offline.
Rainbow Six 3: No, you actually DIDN'T play the same single-player on the PC. They are indeed different.
Madden 2004: Not even an Xbox Live title - thus proving that you don't really know what you're talking about.
Unless you'd like to show me the financial reports based on the sales of console games, I'd take any reports on the console market being profitable with a grain of salt.
Now you're just trolling...unless you think that Sony, Nintendo, EA, Square Enix, etc. are running charities?
This game must really suck badly if they need to resort to shock advertising. They are just trying to get the media to advertise for them, like Running With Scissors did with Postal and Postal 2. Sadly, P2 didnt do so well because it was a shit game (I liked the original quite a bit).
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
Well, as one data point, Enter the Matrix has sold more than 4 million copies, which equates to revenues in excess of $200 million for it.
GTA3 Vice City sold 8.5 million copies and is still going strong. That's $400 million in sales for a game that uses the same engine as GTA3 (also insanely profitable) and thus had development costs that were practically zero.
Even their title Max Payne (the first one) made Take Two more than $100 million in profit.
These games mostly cost $2-3 million to make and if they can sell >50,000 copies then essentially everything else is profit to be split up between the retailer, the publisher and the developer.
It IS insanely profitable.
"The difference between theory and practice is small in theory and large in practice..."
Acclaim have shit-for-brains and every time they pull this sort of crap, they get free publicity in the media.
Not all publicity is good publicity. Just ask Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez.
I think he'd qualify as an artist. But once you get to defining what art is, all bets are off.
3dinfo@maficstudios.com