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Blogs, Games and Advertising
bippy writes "Video game companies have found a way around the natural distrust we all have of advertising and it's called the blog, RedAssedBaboon reports. The article points to a recent story by the Chicago Tribune about blogs as ads, and then talks about the Beta-7 and ILoveBees campaigns. RAB argues that gaming companies are starting to understand the potential of blogs, giving them their full support but also using them to get at the gamer. It raises some interesting questions about ethics, game journalism and advertising."
I see. And you have the plot of Halo 2 in your hands? If you do, I know a few (thousand) people who are going to lay siege to your house in the next few hours. Hehe.
Seriously? We don't know how ILB may or may not tie directly into Halo 2. What it's doing, for now, is fleshing out the background universe, which is always a valuable thing. And who knows? Janissary James may turn out to be a resistance leader in New Mombasa you work with at some point. Or our bestest friend Melissa may show up in game. Probably not, but WE DON'T KNOW.
The last ARG the people behind ILoveBees ran, The Beast, gave background information on the world of A.I. and detailed what happened to Martin Swinton, David's brother, after the movie. And so forth. Maybe it didn't relate DIRECTLY to the movie, but it was very interesting and helped flesh out the world.
Blogs are great because people attribute them to being by "average" people like you or me. I think this will change since a lot of famous people are now blogging, but for now that is still the perception.
So you get an average schmo who tries this product and raves about it for weeks on his blog and it seems a lot more truthful than the usual advertisements which we are used to being full of BS. I remember the first blog ad I saw was for one of those penis-enlargement schemes. The guy went through the product for 6 weeks. It was very well detailed about when and how it helped him. They even did the smart thing by having him doubt that the product was going to work and then completely wowed when it did work. Now testimonials are nothing new in advertising, but I like said we are USED to it in commercials and other ads. We are NOT used to it in blogs so it rings true. This will eventually change.
(and no, I didn't get the penis enlargement thing. and pure curiousity would be the answer for those questions as to how I saw it in the first place :p. I drive a toyota camry so I'm fine with my family jewels. No need for hummers here!)
The movie industry has been doing this for years, paying people to create fake "fan-sites" for movies, generating their own grass-roots buzz.
They also hire companies to place people in line a week before the opening. Creates lots of buzz about the dedicated fans, how important & popular the movie is, and other media outlets will usually pick up the manufactured story.
In Australia we have a show called Media Watch. I don't like the current presenter but the previous presenter, stuart littlemore, was great (he had a law degree so anyone that threatened him, and believe me there were many, had better watch out!). Basically it looks at journalism in Australian media and comments on it exposing mistakes, lies, fallacies, and sometimes dispensing the odd bit of legal advice to victims of journalism. All done with a good dose of humor so that it didn't become boring. Some REALLY big gaffs, lies and just bad ethics have been exposed by it, even leading to journalists being disciplined (I can't remember if fired) for outrageous lying.
It's actually kind of cool. Bungie is basically releasing an audio book piece by piece as part of the ilovebees game. I'm not playing the game, I'm just listening along to the audio clips people have compiled. Listen to it here.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
I trust the penny arcade blogs, I don't know why tho :/
Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.