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What Do You Think of the 'Hitman' Ad?
GamePolitics brings up a topic well worth discussion, the ad for Hitman currently making the rounds in gaming magazines. Their question is: Sexy or Sexist? From the article: "Her well-kept body lies on a bed of gold satin sheets; her pose is deliberately enticing -- until you realize there is a bullet hole in the middle of her forehead. Then you notice the pool of blood spreading around her pillow. At at first glance, however, the blood seems to be just more accessorizing; it matches her lingerie and high heels. Regardless of your reaction to the photo, one thing is abundantly clear. The ad itself has nothing to do with the game its pimping. Nada. Zippo. Just visit the site for Hitman: Blood Money, and you'll see what I mean." What do you think?
It must be a good ad. It got lashdot and other news sites posting about it. Remember: "there is no such thing as bad publicity."
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
It's neither.
I went to Hitman.com and watched half of a trailer where a guy in a suit walks around looking like he's gonna shoot someone. Meanwhile, the ad in question is a person who was shot. Maybe I've been out of the gaming loop too long to understand why these things are not related.
a game in which the player plays a hitman, someone who kills for money. An ad for this game feature someone killed execution style, with the words 'beautifly executed'...nope not related at all.
It's really just disgusting.
It's an appropriate ad, not sexist at all. Sexy? I like my women live.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Great, linking to article requiring registration. Link to ad in question would be much better.
:wq
The result is the individual game does OK, but the market as a whole stagnates because normal people don't want to be associated with such violent games.
And even make me curius, so it is a good ad.
The pun is somewhat silly though.
The person who wrote the article must be sarcatsic, a picture of a hitman victim having nothing to de with a game about a hitman?
And I'm seriously worried about the guy who though "Sexy or Sexist" is a relevant question. The victim is not pushing any borders for ad standards in terms of being undressed, so the only "sexy" or "sexist" connotation would be for necrophilia.
Regardless of your reaction to the photo, one thing is abundantly clear. The ad itself has nothing to do with the game its pimping. Nada. Zippo.
WTF? It's a game about being an assassin. The ad is a picture of somebody that has been assassinated. How on earth is that "nothing to do with the game it's pimping"?
This is stupid beyond belief. So there's an attractive woman in the ad. That's never happened before in the history of advertising! I repeat: WTF?
And on the purpose of such art:
I'll finish with a definition of art according to the author:
Once you understand these things, seeing the purpose and the nature of the Hitman ad is trivial.
I think the ad is a nice piece of art, artistic in the same way as the beautifully choreographed gunplay ballets in John Woo's Better Tomorrow action films. But, the crucial but, is that it doesn't make me want to go out and buy the game. Why? Because it drives home the point that Hitman is a violent, murderous game in too realistic a fashion. I know some people go for that, and I do like the occasional shooter, but this goes too far for my taste. Even if, the ingame situation doesn't not present such realism, the ad has instilled that idea in me and thus turned me off from the game. So in conclusion, I would say it's great art, but a bad ad because it may be turning chasing away potential customers.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Tell me this isn't a plant by some promotions company.
It totally looks like a Straw Man post, designed to attract attention to the new game.
I think I've been waiting way too long for a new TPS (third-person sneaker) so even if Hitman 2 utterly sucks I'll probably end up finishing it anyway.
There were a lot of things in the first two Hitman games that I found intensely obnoxious (mainly certain aspects of the gameplay and AI) but I played the hell out of both because despite their many flaws, the games really had their moments.
Why people would play a game where you are a hitman, yet complain that the advert for it is disturbing. If you don't like it don't look at it IMHO. Also don't think for a second that this isn't what the advert was meant to do. I had never seen this advert however by getting people talking about it (I would bet money the person who first complained about this advert worked for either the game developer, game publisher or marketing company) they are getting the advert spread to LOADS more people than they paid for it to target. Genius really.
The Salesman: The wind rises, electric. She's soft and warm and almost weightless. Her perfume is a sweet promise that brings tears to my eyes. I tell her that everything will be all right. That I'll save her from whatever she's scared of and take her far, far away. I tell her I love her.
The Salesman: [silenced gunshot]
The Salesman: The silencer makes a whisper of the gunshot. I hold her close until she's gone. I'll never know what she was running from. I'll cash her check in the morning.
Interesting progression anyway. We have tons of movies that sensationalize ideas like this so it's natural to make it more interactive I guess.
There are also tons of movies that show what can happen when we have absolute freedom. Look at how much uncivilized crap gets posted on places like Slashdot and it just gets worse the more anonymous it becomes (eg. Freenet). Indulging in this type of play can't be good for the mind. I feel sick just watching that video for the game.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
Remember the Ion Storm ad proclaiming that John Romero was going to make everyone his bitch? That had little to do with any game that was being made (Daikatana at the time). Fact is, shock advertising works... period.
I got nothin'
In the Hitman games, you play a stealthy killer. Now, so far, I've only played part two (it's the one that is out for Gamecube). The point of the game is that you have a target, you get to the target a sneakily as possible, kill him/her and then sneak out again as sneakily as possible. In part two, you even have the option of knocking people out with cloroform if you need them out of the way and they aren't your target. In other words, unlike a lot of action games, where your goal is to rack up kills, you purpose is just to take out one target without anyone knowing you did it. (I found the second level of part two to be very tough, any pointers?) You get scored on this, the more sneakily efficient you are, the better you do. (In other words, heading in with guns blazing is a way to get a bad score.)
Anyway, the AD isn't intended to be sexist, indeed I think the argument against the AD that I'm seeing is that it should have been sexist.
I.e. if it was a male character, dead in some museum in front of some spectacular work of art and they used "Beautifully Executed," there would have been no controversy for this effective AD campaign. So, the problem is, the AD campaign was insufficiently sexist, not that it was too sexist. Or do people think anyone would have raised such controversy about the other two ADs?
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
It's an average looking broad, white as a sheet (she's supposed to be DEAD afterall), with a bullet hole in her head. What the is supposed to be sexy about that?
Posting on SlashDot for something like this is merely free publicity. I pay SlashDot to not display ads and prefer that the articles themselves not be ads.
I concede that the ad is interesting art for adults, but for advertising in a magazine where kids are part of the target audience, it's inappropriate.
I don't think this ad is nearly as bad as the other one I've seen: A cello player is sitting in a chair with his throat slit, and blood draining down his neck. "Classically executed."
There really are more important things in modern advertisement to worry about than this. How about the utter lies advertisement spreads? I don't mean painting the product in the best possible light, but actual proveably false statements, often known to be false by those ordering and designing the advertisement.
Then the encroachment of ads into everyday space. Where formerly advertisement was clearly visible as such we have product placement, paid-for reviews and other mixing with actual content nowadays. In other words: You can't trust anything anymore. For all you know, all of this could be an ad for my new book on the topic.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
hw is the ad not related you're a hitman and someone is dead on the bed with a bullet throught their skull what isn't there to get i do agree that there needs to be some indication on why she was dead
you can hide, but you can't run Otterk a.k.a Jeff
hmmm... lemme see a game about an assassin:
1. corpse complete bullet hole, although probably not in an optimal location, but it looks good. check.
2. said corpse laid out in situ, as what little of surroundings can be seen. check.
3. corpse is not a hideous bag, but a fairly attractive young woman. check
The ad would seem to add up to a game about killing, with the location of the wound implying to most some sort of expert, so no, I really don't see a problem with it, other than there really isn't much about the game or ANY screenshots in the ad, but this is not unusual. Also, I see no problem with a fairly attractive young woman in the ad, better than any other options.
The game isn't my thing, but the ad is, pretty much, in line with current capid advertising. Put in lots of little suggestions, attractive model, but don't really bother talking about the product other than by innuendo. BTW: this also matches the ad's headline of beautifully executed.
Nothing to see. Move along.
Thanks for the correction.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
Please, dead God, don't let them use Starforce.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Apparently the version discussed on adcritic wasn't sexy enough, because the version of the same ad up now on the hitmanforums website is much more explicit.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
This "news article" is just an ad itself. "Let's post up some news about how questionable our own advertising is and get people even more excited about it!!"
You're a sucker if you actually went to the site and watched their bullshit commerical.
... if the woman was ugly. People like to get others attention by provoking non-sense debates.
yeah! Let's argue on the Internet...
"Have you seen Duke Fame's current album?" ...he releases that he's number three."
"Um... yes, yes."
"Have you seen the cover?"
"Um... no, no, I don't think I have."
"It's a rather lurid cover, I mean...ah, it's, it's like naked women, and, uh...."
"He's tied down to this table, and he's got these whips and they're all...semi-nude.
"Knockin' on 'im and it's like much worse..."
"What's the point?"
"Well the point is it's much worse than 'Smell the Glove'
"Because he's the victim. Their objections were that she was the victim. You see?"
"I see...."
"That's alright, if the singer's the victim, it's different. It's not sexist."
"He did a twist on it. A twist and it's.."
"He did, he did. He turned it around."
"We shoulda thought of that...."
"We were so close...."
"I mean if we had all you guys tied up, that probably woulda been fine."
"Ah...."
"But it's...it's still a stupid cover."
"It's such a fine line between stupid an'..."
"...and clever."
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
Is it sexy? That's subjective, but I happen to be fond of trying to find attraction to things that one shouldn't be attracted to. I'm probably an extremely dangerous member of society.
Is it sexist? In a neutral context, not at all. But it's not in a neutral context, it's in the context of the world that exists today. This society is a sexist society that objectifies women. So to be pragmatic, let's say it is and it isn't.
Property is theft.
There's no technical reason for the game art not to be as good as the box art. Today's graphics cards can do the job. Game reviews should downgrade games where the game art is worse than the box art, because there just isn't an excuse for that any more.
One reviewer noted that it came in a box marked for Customs as "ONE (1) HENTAI RAPE GAME". No deception there.
GamePro has an article about the ads from a few days ago. No registration here. I posted this on my my site.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Mod parent up.
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
Definitely the case. And also Joystiq is whoring in on the media frenzy:
Does this ad speak to you? Does it make you want to buy the game? Is it too edgy? Does it appear to be, in the words of one Joystiq reader, an ad selling a "rape/murder fantasy" type of game? Let's see how well we can deconstruct this ad.
In other words: can we drum up some controversy and direct other sites to link to Joystiq? Is there some evil angle we can work here to drive up ad revenue? Let's see how well we can sensationalize what is an otherwise boring ad so we can sell banner impressions!
Of course, this is what keeps Slashdot going too, but Slashdot is at least a bit more honest.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
"No Women, No Kids"
Leon would not be pleased...
Sig- http://www.dreamhost.com/rewards.cgi?ayefly
I played Hitman 2 on the Xbox and absolutly loved it. The AI needed work, the execution needed work, the graphics needed work - needed the kind of Splinter Cell quality added to it. But the CONCEPT just rocks the socks. This is the kind of game you really hope they can get just right.
The thing is that the problem really doesn't lay with the violence in the ad but with the people that will be or have been exposed to the ad.
When you go to a PG movie all the previews before that movie are also rated PG, or under because it's wrong to knowingly expose minors to R rated video by putting it before a movie that will have a minor audience.
This ad raises a few major questions. Should the ESRB rate ads before the go into print? Should gaming mags, somthing that any 10 year old can buy, self sensor and keep the images in the previews and ads they show at a T for Teen level even if the game it self is M rated? If CBS showed 30 seconds of unedited video from the crazy 88 fight from Kill Bill as an ad the FCC would fine CBS for a sum that would most likly be on par or more than the revinew the ad generated. Should the ESRB do the same?
Our rights as free people are also are responsibility. When we fail in are responsibilities we fail to practice our rights and we put our fragile freedom in jeopardy. Those who would seek to rob us of are rights and freedom are quick to exploit any weakness we the people create through are own irresponsible acts.
Whoa o0; Then again maybe I'm getting a little to deep for just some silly ad that I'm sure wako jacko is drooling over right now. It's really up to the gaming community as a whole to decide. Do we responsibly self sensor? Or do we keep providing the rope the wako jacko's of the world need? Either way we need to hang together or we will surely hang apart at the hands of people like Jack.
an apropos quote... too bad you only got two points, it's a hilarious sequence from the movie...
To be fair, hitman really *is* a murder fantasy/sim.
Don't really catch the rape reference, though.
Browsing with classic discussion, noscript, at -1 and nested
no hidden comments and I only mod UP
People don't mind seeing men killed.
Depicting the killing of a woman, however, is worse than blaspheming God.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
If you would just pay attention to what kind of photographic art photos artistic people send to deviantart this would seem to be pretty normal art picture. I fail to see it sexist. Hitman the whole game serie is about "assasin simulation" if you would like to use those words. If so, then also games such as Soldier of Fortune or Postal should be called "Murder Simulators" which they are or are not depending on who you ask.
I see the ad as art. It's maybe sensational and makers of Hitman: Blood Money want to wake some talk with this topic intentionaly.
Tell me one thing, why people who make movies have allmost free will to do anykind of ad they want? Movies are more brutal these days than they where and if you would just go and take a good look of The Exorcist, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Hard Boiled, Desperado, Man Bites Dog... I would love to add also Kill Bill Vol.1 and Reservoir Dogs as fan of Quentin Tarantino. You maybe could understand what these really are.
Why these movies won't be accused of killing or inspiring to kill people? And yes some of them have been restricted US and are still restricted in some other countries.
I think that I have a sollution this question. I'll start the chain from 50's because it's easier to follow. First there was radio then movies followed by tv and finaly computers. Each generation has their own style and ways, their unique way of being human. Computers and digital, more dynamic, interactive media is newest in the series. People of the previous generation have never understand the newer technological steps or newer generation. It's human nature to deny new things because they are scary. Change is allways leap to unknown exept for the people who are born at the other side of the gate.
So this hitman ad is just about couple things which can be put in this order:
1. it's about shoking older people and getting more mature audience for the game.
2. it's about being opinion...
3. it's very beautiful art picture.
Moral reasons and philosophy comes just only after few minutes of watching the picture I don't have anything against. It's free will and free speech comes first. It might not be most suitable interactive movie (read it as: PC/Console game) ad but makes a very good effort in that.
I could bet that after ten or twenty years people won't make much difference between static or interactive movies. Games are going to be their own category by then.
To answer that question. I cannot say it. It depends from who is watching the ad. And my opinion is that it's not both. It's something more.
-Seeing the problem is ½ of solution-
Kinda bad that I can say that, I am only 32. I remember the year clearly, it was 86 or 87. During my "Formative" stage, a nice little game called Babysitter.
;-)
Now you would think this game would have your nice teeny bopper looking after a group of well groomed kids in suburbia, right!...
Nope. Basically the game started off with "the babysitter" spread over a sofa. She apparently has her boyfriend over. Guess what, you play the boyfriend.
Now what could the point of the game be. Yep, you guessed it. You brought your trusty, dare I say empty, bottle of champagne. (Nope not for drinking.) The bottle is placed somewhere in her nether region. (The game was actually VERY graphic for it's time. I learned plenty.) Your fingers are carasing one breast, and your mouth covers the other.
The object of the game is to get the correct motion of your, uhumm, joystick, to bring her to a screaming orgasm. (Yes, that part was graphic as well.)
NOW, I have to ask, what is sooooo bad about the shows and games today. Oh yeah, their considered political agenda now, that's it.
Should I have had a copy of this? BTW, YES it WAS a COPY. (Probably not.) Did it mess me up for life? I really don't think the game had anything to do with that.
Scott Carr