Real-life Ad Man Guernican is here to give us an industry insider’s perspective on gaming and advertising. Click through for part one…
I’m watching a nice young man on a date with a nice young lady. There’s something about it that reminds me of True Romance: the rooftop setting, perhaps. He flirts. She flirts. There are some pretty unequivocal signals going on. For this guy, the deal is done and the only thing left to worry about is whether he has any condoms left stuffed down the back of his sock drawer.
And then… disaster. No, it’s not a fart with the reverberating trill of a passing motorbike or an inappropriate comment about her weight. No, this guy crashes and burns thanks to a sudden and overpowering mental flashback featuring ravening crazies with insects for heads, breathless firefights in abandoned warehouses and giant, tentacled sea creatures attempting to suck his guts out through his earhole.
Welcome to the ‘viral’ marketing campaign for the latest in Capcom’s increasingly venerable and much-loved survival horror series, Resident Evil. RE5, already labouring under the weight of a little controversy after it was revealed that this year’s zombie intake would be of African origin, has chosen to accompany the usual gameplay clips with a few live-action video shorts. In each we see a buffed and bewhiskered Chris Redfield, looking suitably tortured and angsty, suffering traumatic replays of the game’s fight sequences. The production values are slick as you like, owing more to the CSI school of editing than The Wire’s gritty realism. It’s about as big a game as we’re likely to see this year for console owners, so you’d expect Capcom to sink a few quid into promoting it. And, as it’s too early to be seeing TV spots, the viral and buzz marketing efforts are carrying the load.
We all know that games are big business now, outstripping cinema sales and with a mega-event like Grand Theft Auto IV pulling down more cash in its launch weekend than the Spiderman 3 movie. With that sort of money up for grabs, the amount of marketing budget available to a publisher grows exponentially. On its launch day, Assassin’s Creed publisher Ubisoft bought a full outer wrap of the Guardian’s Film and Music supplement. Alright, so the game itself didn’t live up to the grandiose billing, but that was the first time I’d seen a video game adopt that sort of profile for a launch. It’s the sort of thing a movie - or the new Tom Clancy-a-like bestseller - does.
Then you have something a little smarter.
Tune in tomorrow to find out what it is. Hint: it’s a bit of a readers’ favourite…
Best way to market something: bundle it with free goodies and let word of mouth spread like wildfire.
Failing that, I personally have no problem with properly implemented in-game ads on billboards/TV Screens when playing.
Keeps the game fresh in terms of up-to-date realism with the outside world.
Comment by JohnSketch — Feb 12, 2009 @ 2:07 pm
Bundling is one of the oldest tools in the box, certainly.
But how do you build anticipation, particularly if you have minimal or beta quality footage and you don’t really want to show it?
Comment by Guernican — Feb 12, 2009 @ 2:53 pm
[...] at ThreeSpeech are hard at work on a multi-part feature on gaming and advertising and part one is out now. Capcom’s latest viral marketing campaign and Ubisoft’s past big budget advertising [...]
Pingback by ThreeSpeech Plays And Advertises, Sort Of | PS3 Attitude — Feb 12, 2009 @ 3:57 pm
It’s gotta be hot little fitties, in skimpy atire, holding your fav game, or lolling over the exibition stand. Or maybe it’s just paying a gaming magazine better advertising rates for a good score? Mmm! Controversial!
Whatever it is, it can’t undo a bad demo, like a recent Evil thing I’ve played.
Comment by LordOfRuin — Feb 12, 2009 @ 3:58 pm
Considering I’d been waiting for this game for so long, the demo destroyed all that in a few mintes.
Comment by Terry — Feb 12, 2009 @ 4:30 pm
Feel sorry for Ubisoft’s “Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X (”High Altitude Warfare eXperimental squadron”).
[ http://hawxgame.uk.ubi.com/article.php?news_id=9145 ]
If it wasn’t for the poor reviews it has received so far, the ejector seat was well in (G) force when it didn’t make it to today’s ‘Store update (that was incredibly early; around 12:50pm UK time) as planned.
It will now be available the day before “Killzone 2″ is released.
GAME OVER.
BFN,
fp.
Comment by fanpages — Feb 12, 2009 @ 5:42 pm
Sounds interesting - will check back tomorrow to see what it is!
Comment by PS3 Forums @ GameSlurp — Feb 12, 2009 @ 6:00 pm
PS. “Reader’s favourite”?
Would that be “Grand Theft Auto 4″ considering it is a tag on this blog entry but it is not referenced?
I stayed clear of this title when I spotted a trend of a majority of the failing PS3 console on-board Blu-ray drives reported at AVForums having played this game. “FIFA 09” was also a worrying trend. But I digress.
The reason for my further comment…
I haven’t seen the “Resident Evil 5″ Advertising Virus (and I don’t recall reading about that strain in all the critically mixed press it has got so far).
However, over the course of the last week or so, I have warmed to the game (and before you say it, no, not like the feeling you get when you hold a baby for too long).
I was in two minds to cancel my pre-order (that I had placed as soon as I could), but the multi-delayed “SOCOM: Confrontation” was dropped from my shopping basket instead on Wednesday (after a further delay for European availability).
I’ve just got bored of waiting for that now. Good or otherwise, I’ll wait until it is in the next Christmas sales (that will probably start around October).
Sony doesn’t need advertising spend; it just needs communication channels that provide the consumers with news, reasons & explanations for slipping timescales, and an apology once or twice when expectations are not fulfilled.
A dedicated RSS feed on the PS3’s XrossMediaBar would be ideal but, failing that, just provide (or allow publication by) Three Speech with the same information that the official US Blog & sites such as PS3Fanboy regularly publish.
Often we don’t mind if games are delayed. It’s the lack of acknowledgement of this fact that people have a problem with.
Also, it doesn’t matter how much you market something, if the resultant pricing policy is unreasonably mismatched between regions when the release is finally available, then consumers are not going to bother regardless of how much an advertising campaign costs.
Sorry to be so negative, but we are already a month & a half into 2009.
“The Year of the PS3” beckons…
BFN,
fp.
Comment by fanpages — Feb 12, 2009 @ 6:00 pm
after the demo here’s one more person who’s never going to buy the Resi5 game. in fact, i stopped playing the series at ‘code veronica x’
going to get Resident Evil - Degeneration instead.
Comment by mobiletone — Feb 12, 2009 @ 6:49 pm
@ fanpages - that HAWX site crashed my Firefox…. irony? *feels old*
Comment by mobiletone — Feb 12, 2009 @ 6:52 pm
@Tone
I enjoyed Code Veronica!
Comment by JohnSketch — Feb 12, 2009 @ 6:58 pm
@ jsketch - it’s Alexia!!! backs to the wall *smirks* but i has C:VX = nine minutes of additional cut scenes and a new haircut for Steve plus some other tweaks. the last proper RE game i felt at the time, not fond of those that came after, and really have no love for the new Resi game. times change and we all move on to different things i guess.
looking forwards to teh CGI Blu-ray film though. it’ll save all that bother of actually having to play the thing, plus it’s set in the right place in my i *hearted* resi time line.
http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/residentevildegeneration/
Comment by mobiletone — Feb 12, 2009 @ 8:14 pm
You just need some references to “Airwolf” & “Blue Thunder” and we can play “Buzz! Quiz TV Bingo” instead, ‘tone
(Talking of which, HMV have the “Buzz! Brain Of The UK” PSP title listed for 13 March… the day of release of “Resident Evil 5”. Nuts)
The “…Degeneration” movie has been getting some relatively good reviews. I would be interested on your views before I commit to yet another Blu-ray movie I don’t have time to watch
Perhaps you can put closure to my silly theory that Sheva Aloma is really Jill Valentine.
Meanwhile, in your opinion, how close have Capcom got with transposing Karen Dyer to the digital screen?
I think they’ve done a good job with the visuals, but many people have criticised the artificial intelligence of the in-game character.
I have yet to complete the Demo level with the “new Dr Salvadore” character and hope the full game doesn’t send you back to the beginning when you (or Sheva) don’t make it through a level. Downloadable content is planned too, I have read.
But I only have tonight to try again as GAME have despatched my order of “FEAR 2: Project Origin” this afternoon
PS. I’ve seen some ‘dummy’ shelf boxes for “Shellshock 2: Blood Trails” in-store at GAME for the Xbox 360 variant of the game due out tomorrow, but nothing for the PS3.
The title is the sequel to the PS2 (Windows & Xbox) “Shellshock: Nam ‘67″ by our old friends Guerrilla Games. This new release has been developed by Rebellion Developments.
Who? I hear you ask.
You’d be surprised at their back catalogue (I think).
Amongst many others (for multi-platforms), they have been responsible for PlayStation brand platform shooter titles such as “Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six” (for the original PlayStation), “Gunfighter: The Legend of Jesse James”, “Gunfighter II: Revenge of Jesse James, and “Delta Force: Black Hawk Down” all for the PS2, “James Bond: From Russia With Love”, “Dead to Rights: Reckoning”, “GUN Showdown”, and “Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron” for the PSP and, most recently, “Call of Duty: World at War (Final Fronts)” for the PS2.
They also gave the world “Free Running” [PSP], “Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix” [PSP], “The Simpsons Game” (on PS2, PSP & Wii; not the PS3 version).
A somewhat interesting career to date but, and bringing this comment back on topic, I’ve not seen any reviews or advertising at all.
Shellshocked indeed!?!
(Or perhaps I’m not looking in the ‘right’ places?)
BFN,
fp.
Comment by fanpages — Feb 12, 2009 @ 9:34 pm
PS.
Karen Dyer [ http://karendyer.net ] (Motion Capture & Voice artist)
and
Michelle Jade Van Der Water [ http://www.michellevanderwater.com ] (Face modelling)
BFN,
fp.
Comment by fanpages — Feb 12, 2009 @ 9:57 pm
@Tone
Really enjoyed Degeneration - folk new to the series will go “Meh” but for folk like myself, I Heart teh zombies in CGi!
Comment by JohnSketch — Feb 13, 2009 @ 12:08 am
Games companies want to sell copies to console owners, hardware companies want to sell units. The way to do this is mass media adverts, showing gameplay in jaw-dropping sequences, followed by the game title in huge idiot-proof letters. People who see these should be able to go into a game shop and straight to the game, or to an unmissable pile of bundled consoles with the game. Nothing beats gameplay video to sell a good game. The best ad I’ve seen this year, is the KZ2 death animations to Delibes: perfectly shows off KZ2 and nothing ambiguous, or “huh?” about it. A secondary ad campaign for the console itself should show off what it’s like to own one. I have a PS3 and would like to see some cool dude with a hot chick, in front of his huge 1080p screen, with smug looks of ” We bought this awesome machine which is a big part of a connected life. Love it.”
Too many times Sony have some artsy, info-free student film maker fest which just makes them look like pretentious jerks. Microsoft go the Lucre route - specific game ads followed by the green x ball thing. No imagination and similarly dismissive as the Sony film-fests.
Comment by Englishman — Feb 13, 2009 @ 8:47 am
@ JSketch - i’ve checked out the trailers etc and think i’ll go with the DVD version, doesn’t quite seem CGIed enough to warrent a B-Ray copy. ah, how those PS2 Resi cut scenes seemed awesome, now we have games in that quality i’m all -meh- over Resi 5… there’s always ShellShock 2 for super happy happy fun time zombies though!
Comment by mobiletone — Feb 13, 2009 @ 12:26 pm
[...] read our recent articles on advertising and gaming (parts 1and 2), do you think there are other things that might work as well? In: FUTURE PS3 GAMES, [...]
Pingback by Killzone 2’s ten second TV teaser… | Three Speech: Semi-Official PlayStation Blog — Feb 16, 2009 @ 7:17 pm
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