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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?
I like how he actually called the customers "customers" instead of "consumers". That's right bitches, we're not just mindlessly consuming your bullshit. We're fucking PAYING for it!
I don't know where this distinction got lost but it seems to be part of the problem we face of corporate executives feeling entitled to our money whether we want to pay for their products or not.
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...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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People play games because they then become powerful....
Have you EVER, EVER played a game where the world DIDN'T revolve around you? Where you wern't the guy that had to pull the trigger.... Where you wen't the guy that if you didn't deliver this scroll to the dragon knight by the first full moon the entire world will die?
Even teh sim games (sim city, etc) do this, if you fail, the people blame you, not the rest of the goverment, or other gods whom they could worship.
Games make us feel like we make a difference.
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I'm still waiting for John Romero to make me his bitch.
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I would prefer having a look at it, so I can understand what the ruckus is about :-)
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"
And how is this any different than showing monsters being shot in the face area by our manly hero's giant gun?
Of course I can't speak for what it's like where you are from, but here on Earth, "monsters"=="teh Bad," and beautiful women are entities to be nurtured and protected. I'm no socio-anthropologist, but I seem to recall it having to do with primal instincts and survival of the species. And the whole evil monster thing has got legs deep into heroic mythology and race memories and such; I'd say that you and the rest of your "People for the Ethical Treatment of Monsters" troupe have your work cut out for you if you're really intent on having the image of a slain frost dragon register with the same impact as the depiction of a beautiful woman with a bullet in her head.
But, hey, good luck with that, let us know how it works out...
First, I have in my hand the ad in question. As to its content...well, anybody who thinks that they're trying to sell sex in this game is an idiot. The image of the woman is to play off the headline which is "Beautifully Executed". Yes, the woman is their to catch your eye, but in reality the goal is to make you see the bullethole and read the headline. The sex appeal is merely a side-effect. The reason this ad does not go deeper than that is because this ad is CLEARLY targeting existing fans of the game. Otherwise you would see your typical release ad which has screenshots and nicely rendered images that try to trick the gamer into thinking "Holy crap it looks that good?!".
Forgive the lack of a link to the post, but somewhere in the story thread someone posted that people who are fans of the series just want to know when the next one is coming out, which this ad does very well.
Now...as for the issue of gamer advertising as a whole...yes, it sucks big fat donkey balls and I will be the first to admit it. I have a folder on my desk for all of the bad advertisements I come across and a good portion of them are for gamers. Just leafing through here for a couple examples will find the one for Magic: The Gathering where the headline was "The geek billionaire lifestyle begins with Magic: The Gathering"...and while it was probably made to look intentionally bad...it really just falls flat and plain out sucks.
The next two crappy ads stink of some copywriter who knows nothing about gamers playing a couple online games to pick up jargon and making it sound like it couldn't be more canned if they tried. The recent ads for Sound Blaster have the copy: "You with Sound Blaster X-Fi. Them with Motherboard Audio. Them...PWNED!". The other example is for BF2: Special Forces...and while I love the BF series (aside from the horrendous glitches and bugs and EA) this ad just just made me laugh at how horrible the copy was...."Zipline, flashbang, teargas, grappling hook. So many n00bs, so little time."
Honestly...if these people had done any research they would know how corporate and idiotic they sound. This doesn't encourage gamers to buy your game, it encourages them to mock the hell out of you. If a company doesn't know how to communicate with its customers, how can the customer think that they'll be able to make a product they'll like? Thats the entire point of advertising.
If any game companies or agencies of those companies are reading this, I'd love to discuss it with you in more detail and invite you to email me at mlsrsvp@aol.com (yes...AOL...but its an old account, cry me a river). Seriously, gamers are not idiots. Many of them are young and impressionable, but this new generation has become acutely aware of how companies try to "be like one of them" and they can spot this garbage a mile away. In the end, they might still buy the game, but it sure as hell won't be in any part due to the current advertising out there.
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