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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?
...it starts off talking about the marketing, yeah, but ends up saying the content of the games should be different so they can be marketed better.
It really *is* just that games are often marketed very badly, in particularly tasteless ways. For instance, here in the UK: whoever was responsible for marketing the Burnout franchise pre-EA pulled off some stunts like a "Top Ten Celebrity Car Crashes" featuring Princess Diana and Mark Bolan. Public outcry, free publicity, and a lot of negative coverage in the press. Followed up by an offer to pay all speeding tickets on the day of the game's release, to even more outcry including from the police and government.
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I would prefer having a look at it, so I can understand what the ruckus is about :-)
But if the ad doesn't catch your attention at all, you're liable to flip right past it.
If the ad makes you stop and look at it, they win.
I'm beginning to think some ad agencies are populated by sociopaths...
In Sweden 6 months ago or so, stickers with "free x" popped up in many places, they were similar to posters by for instance the Red Cross or Amnesty international calling for the humane treatment and release of political prisoners. Only this person x (forgot the name) on the stickers was the character in a PS2 game, it was a promo by the publishers using peoples concern about real issues of torture and imprisonment by dictatorships to draw attention to a fucking game. Real tasteful!
I'm not calling for a ban here, I'm just wondering out loud if they are completely void of empathy and human feelings. Pretty timely article too, today news organizations in Europe are reporting that one ad agency used a convicted paedophile to jokingly advertise for childrens' theatre tickets...
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
This is Hitman. Have you ever played any of the Hitman series? For people who like stealth games there's nothing wrong with "more of the same" and they aren't really interested in the brain splatter and visual effects. All the ad needs to tell them is "New Hitman is to be out really soon." All the rest is a filler.
The specifics of stealth-based games is that they have pretty low replayablity factor but are really one of a kind experience the first time you play. Thing is each mission is unique, but there are only so many ways to solve it and once you learn them all there's no reason to try again. So simply the more missions the better. The improvements to previous Hitman series are moot. A good mission pack would do.
These games are great in the way they provide thrill, fear. They require finese, not power, caution, not speed, thinking, not shooting. They are puzzle games, not FPS/3PS. So we all already know and love Hitman and we don't give a shit about a beautiful bitch killed. We know the gore is not real, the bitch is just a bunch of polygons and it's all a game. But we don't give a shit, it's a challenge of wits between us and the level designers, following small hints, trying to solve their puzzles, timing actions, acting responsibly and cautiously. The challenge is everything, and each level is a new one. Shocker factor? We don't give a shit. Maybe some kids will get attracted, maybe some journalists will get repulsed. For us, hardcore stealth games players one thing is important in the ad: new Hitman is out.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
I was flipping through an early 90s game magazine the other day and saw a doozy. The ad was for a pinball game called Balls of Steel. It showed a woman's arm holding 2 large steel balls and the caption said "You need these to play". That one spawned a lot of complaints.
You have to apprciate the reasoning of such ads, though. They're placed in magazines and they know people just flip right past them so they have to put something engaging enough to make them stop flipping for 3 extra seconds. That Hitman ad is indeed pretty bad though. Their previous ads just showed the bald monkey protagonist looking placid. I guess you need sex in ads even if it's, er, dead sex.