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Shock Game Advertising
Lost Garden has a good look at some of the more tasteless media marketing that has been foisted on gamers, and what the willingness to shock for sales means to the industry as a whole. From the article: "When I look at many games and the sorry advertisements that reflect back their pitiful value, I see people mechanically spewing out 'more for the sake of more.' A game that only offers perfectly modeled bullet paths or the ability to murder beautiful women is a waste of talent and a blight upon our industry. I say this not because I'm morally opposed to such content, but because it doesn't accomplish anything worthy for the customer, the industry or our industry's wonderful developers." The ad that specifically caused him to write this was one for 'Hitman: Blood Money', in April's EGM. It's pretty darn tasteless; Why would a beautifully made up woman with a bullet in her brain make you want to buy a game?
Thing is, everyone is completely free to choose what games they expose themselves to. Exposure to ads, on the other hand, are more or less involuntary, and the fact remains, not everyone is thrilled by a picture of a woman with a bullet in her head.
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That masterstroke was by none other than Akklaim, the company that had some seriously depraved advertisments before they went bankrupt about a year or so ago. Case in point - they asked cemeteries if they would be willing to put advertisments on tombstones for "Shadow Man - 2nd Coming". And then they offered a $10,000 reward for one set of new parents to name their kid Turok. Oddly enough, they were very effective at advertisements a decade ago - one of the major reasons that game releases are now treated like events is due to their "Mortal Monday" campaign, for the home version of the white-hot (then) Mortal Kombat I.
http://www.hitmanforum.com/forum/index.php?act=mod ule&module=gallery&cmd=si&img=717
It's Startling, but not terrifying.
The whole shock-ad thing started years ago. I can remember seeing awfully gory ads in game mags back in the early 90s. Once things like DOOM and Mortal Kombat came out, which had (for the time) rather realistic violence in them, it seemed that game advertisers seemed to be on a mission to out-shock the other.
There was an ad that featured a 2-page spread of a bloody, severed human arm. I don't remember what game it was for, or even what the ad-copy was (if there was any) there just this centerfold-esque closeup of a bloody arm.
I'm surprised that game-mag advertising hasn't gone for the smut factor. After all, didn't UK game fans end up with an ad for BC2k which featured a scantily clad women holding the game's box between her legs with the caption "All you'll ever need." or something like that? Equally tasteless, just not as vomit-inducing as showing a closeup of a bullet wound.