Shock Game Advertising 93
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?
My reaction.. (Score:3, Insightful)
If the ad makes you stop and look at it, they win.
Weren't you the same people saying "Games aren't real"? Well, they're not. Stop bitching.
And how is this any different than showing monsters being shot in the face area by our manly hero's giant gun?
Re:My reaction.. (Score:4, Funny)
Showing "beautiful woman being shot in the face are a by our manly hero's giant gun" would fall astray of the anti-pr0n groups...
Re:My reaction.. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not so sure about that. Yes, it makes you stop and look. But then? If i see an ad, promoting a magazine by displaying it on a ton of fresh poop, i will stop and look as well because it stands out from the crowd. But that's not a guarantee that i'll buy it. In fact, if my line of thought goes something like this "Hm, nice magazine ... probably .. but wtf is up with that pile of poo? I'm not even going to check out the magazine, because this promises lit
Re:My reaction.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:My reaction.. (Score:2, Insightful)
If you stop and look then the ad has fulfilled the first part of it's job - it has caught your attention. Now that you are looking the ad has to be able to increase your awareness of the brand/product in question - how many times have you thought "that was a cool advert, I wonder what it was for"? Thirdly it has to translate awareness into sales - you have to go and buy the thing.
So the order of events of a successful ad should be, "WTF is that?", "Oh, i
Re:My reaction.. (Score:1)
Re:My reaction.. (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [bbc.co.uk] to jokingly advertise for childrens' theatre tickets...
Re:My reaction.. (Score:1)
If you didn't laugh, you'd have to cry.
Re:My reaction.. (Score:1)
Re:My reaction.. (Score:5, Funny)
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...
Re:My reaction.. (Score:2)
Re:My reaction.. (Score:1)
Re:My reaction.. (Score:2, Insightful)
The contexts of the "games aren't real" argument and that of the bitching in the article are different.
When the industry is fighting the government over regulation of content and legislation of sales, they're defending their rights. Regardless of the tastelessness or immorality of game content, the industry has the right to make and publish that content without government interference. The "games aren't real" argu
customers (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:customers (Score:1)
(Score: -1, Offtopic)
Priceless.
Re:customers (Score:2)
If I were to guess, most people who get upset about the term consumer are equating it with consumerism/materialis
Confusing article... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Akklaim - play the game! (Score:2, Informative)
Really (Score:2, Funny)
Really, what is his name? Come on, outrage over gratuitous violence is one thing, but this is a little bit pansy isn't it. Along the same vein as the UK banning the Austrlian 'bloody' adds, a backlash by the over-sensitive crowd. Just what we need.
The fact is that a lot of games are about violence, and shooting people. If it is the advertising that bothers you - then that is a problem for you. Perhaps it is the fact that you are
Re:Really (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Really (Score:3, Insightful)
Power... in all its forms (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Power... in all its forms (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe that also explains the addictiveness of MMOG's: everyone is trying to make a difference, yet only few can actually accomplish something new. Quests et al are nothing more than synthetic sugar: they eventually reset anyway, so others can accomplish exactly the same.
Re:Power... in all its forms (Score:2)
No, they're pretty much the same. In World of Warcraft, everyone does the same life/village/city/world saving quests. It adds a new level of absurdity to the "world revolves around you" level of play because it happens in the same game world.
"Hey, I just killed the evil Sir Killsalot and saved the town of Redwood!"
"Me, too! I did that last week!"
Re:Power... in all its forms (Score:1)
Of course this makes those occasions where you *do* change the course of the battle especially worthwhile, not least because of the potential to receive recognition of your contribution from your peers.
Re:Power... in all its forms (Score:1)
Ofcourse exceptions are multiplayer games.
Ok the statement i said is false, the computing may revolve round you but the perceived game doesnt need to follow.
Re:Power... in all its forms (Score:4, Funny)
Tetris.
No matter what you do, the bricks just keep falling.
And nothing you can do can ever change that. NOTHING.
Re:Power... in all its forms (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Power... in all its forms (Score:1)
Shocking and misleading ads (Score:5, Funny)
link to the ad? (Score:5, Interesting)
Redundant??? (Score:1, Redundant)
Re:Redundant??? (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Redundant??? (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Redundant??? (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:I for one (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:I for one (Score:1, Offtopic)
Taste my sad, Michael.
Re:I for one (Score:2)
Re:I'M A NECROPHELIAC (Score:2)
Re:Tyler Durden (Score:1)
Not just Games (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone else notice that movie previews are becoming less and less reflective of the actual movie?
For example, take the recent film Jarhead. Anyone who saw the preview of that, with it's thumping "Jesus Walks" soundtrack and huge explosions, would probably be expecting to see a Blackhawk Down style action-oriented war film. Anyone who saw it knows this is *far from the truth*. While it was a great movie, it was absolutely nothing like it was portrayed in the preview.
This is just one example. I can think of other times where the same film was made to look like an action movie in one preview, and a romantic comedy in another.
It's kind of sad that nowadays you really have no idea what the premise of the film is until you go see it, or look it up on a trusted review site. All it takes is for you to be burned once this way before you become cynical about films at the theatre altogether.
Re:Not just Games (Score:1)
See here [throughaglass.com] for a wonderful example of that
Fight Club (Score:2)
Re:Not just Games (Score:1)
Re:Not just Games (Score:2)
I hate that movie.
Re:Not just Games (Score:2)
Re:Not just Games (Score:1)
After seeing a couple recent Tim Allen movies, I'm thinking that Galaxy Quest is probably his best movie by far. And by far, I mean like a parsec...or four.
Because it's the easy way out (Score:4, Insightful)
The target audience for those games is quite easy to spot. It's for one the young, pimple-faced not-yet teenager who wants to show off that he can stomach it when he's ripping some guts out of someone's body (well, virtually at least). And that he gets away with playing a game that's 18+.
The other target audience is the gamer that doesn't care about content as long as there's enough blood dripping out of his screen. He enjoys the shock elements. To a point, so do I, but for example Doom 3 (or was it 4? They start to get blurry when they're essentially all the same) was no shocker. Yes, it was dark, yes, it was jumping me, but it was PREDICTABLY doing that. Open the door and yes, a monster WILL jump you.
It's no suspense and shock when you KNOW it happens.
But making guts sputter out realistically is easier than making a good game with content. Flying guts "only" need a good graphics artist (not wanting to belittle you guys, good artists are rare, but once they know their trade, they're really good at creating freakingly real effects).
For good and exciting gameplay, you'd have to invest more work. You need someone who designs the balance. Is (thing A) in balance with (thing B), comparing their strengths, weaknesses, availability and hardships in aquiring them? You have to spend time playtesting, you have to double and triple check for bugs, loopholes, cheats and exploits.
No such thing if all you concentrate on is eye candy. Worst thing that could happen is a pixel error, a faulty texture or a blur where there should be none. But nothing that disrupts gameplay altogether. And all that without lengthy testing.
Or worse, risking creating something REALLY new and having it bomb. Game studios rely on tested, well selling genres. Shooters and strategy, strategy and shooters. Mix in a handful of sports game (one per year from a well known sweatshop in western USA) and you have the current lineup of computer games.
Adventures? Take massive time for scripting and making an actual adventure.
Turn based strategy? No market and incredibly hard to make interesting and balanced.
Flightsim? Try to hold a candle to MS-FlightSim and INCREDIBLY risky while you need a ton of GOOD and physics-savvy proggers to make it fly (literally).
So face it, we're stuck with shooting things and building stuff up to bomb it down. With the occasional gem, which invariably gets bought up by EA and milked 'til you can't stand it anymore.
Or does anyone still play The Sims?
All wrong. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:All wrong. (Score:2)
Frex: I made it through the game without killing anyone that the mission didn't require, and I never used the sniper rifle. Often this required a great deal of trickery and luck to pull off.
Re:All wrong. (Score:3, Interesting)
FPS games are so much more fun when your goal isn't to go Rambo-style through the level and wade to the heels in blood, but actually try to find your way past, sneak, disguise, hide, wait. And all of that AFTER you spent the time necessary to figure out the hole in their security path and the dead angles of surveillance cams.
But in such a game, I don't care about blood. It's not like I see his guts spill anyway when I shot him from a mile away with the SVD. What matters
Re:All wrong. (Score:2)
Hah, I scoff in your general direction! REAL stealth-game players play only Thief, a series of games that does stealth gameplay and level design better. They dared to make a more mature game that doesn't try to titilate with tits and gore. On harder levels, you are requred NOT to kill, knock out or even get spotted by anyone to succeed.
Re:All wrong. (Score:1)
Re:All wrong. (Score:2)
Generally, in Thief the idea is
Re:All wrong. (Score:1)
Re:All wrong. (Score:2)
Re:Because it's the easy way out (Score:1)
I solved this problem a long time ago... (Score:2, Insightful)
As for everything else, I've even stopped buying PC gaming magazines to read during long flights. It's EMBARASSING to be reading something with 'hawt decaying undead chix' splayed lewdly across the front and back covers, especially in a crowded airport.
MORTAL KOMBAT!!!! (Score:1)
You need these to advertise (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
A little more depth please. (Score:2, Insightful)
What a mornoic statement. I keep thinking more and more that except for Taco, its the editors that hold slashdot back. If it weren't for the great user base and the comments, I'd be on digg all the time.
And why is this statement moronic? Because its just a throw away. Why would you want to buy a game where you put a bullet in ANYONE's head? This is simulated murder. Once you get past tha
Re:A little more depth please. (Score:2)
I usually don't respond to blatant trolls, but I can't let this horseshit slide. First, I love to play FPS and 3PS, yet I don't love to kill. I have never killed anything higher up the foodchain than a fish in real life, certainly not a person or even a warm-blooded organism. In fact, I'm repulsed by actual killing and viole
Re:A little more depth please. (Score:1)
I'll ignore this.
First, I love to play FPS and 3PS, yet I don't love to kill. I have never killed anything higher up the foodchain than a fish in real life, certainly not a person or even a warm-blooded organism.
Well but this is EXACTLY the point I'm making. None of us would ever do these things in real life. But obviously when it comes to gaming many of us do. Lets start with your definition of murder:
the unlawful killing
Re:A little more depth please. (Score:1)
Re:A little more depth please. (Score:1)
You hypocrite bastard (Score:3, Insightful)
And you wouldn't bat an eye if it was a man. Ah, the repugnant stench of publicly condoned hypocrisy.
Just because a woman is killed doesn't mean the murderer is misogynistic. Maybe her sex had nothing to do with it.
Re:You hypocrite bastard (Score:1)
Devil's advocate: What if the ad changed the attractive woman to an attractive man and kept the tagline, "Beautifully Executed"?
Re:You hypocrite bastard (Score:1)
Advertising (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Shock value. (Score:2)
In college I had a classmate in my design class who lived by this. His point was that he wanted people to notice his work. If you've got a magazine crammed full of ads your want yours to stand out. It takes far less effort to create something graphic and shocking than it does to create something compelling and attractive.
I've also dealt with ad agencies who are exceedingly arrogant. It's like they think they're the rock star
I don't feel it. (Score:1)
The ad in question (Score:3, Informative)
It's Startling, but not terrifying.
Err mod parent up? (Score:2)
++ good.
My opinion is people don't like the idea of female form depicted in a violent way. I say get your finger out of your ass! People are overly sensitive. If it was just an issue of violent imagery, the bullet hole, how many people would complain?
People should stop having a biased sensitivity to violence and women, I don't mind sensitivity but not if is it misdirected in that way.
Also the advert has a great play
visceral visceral visceral visceral visceral (Score:2)
Wikpedia: Visceral literally refers to the viscus - the internal organs of an animal.
The term is now often used in a more metophorical sense; a visceral response is one that arises more from instinct or emotion than from rational thought.
10 other ways to express the concept of a physiological response.
So here goes: Emotional, subconscious [is the subconscious tied to visceral ticks?], gut-feeling
This isn't new (Score:2, Informative)
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 c
Flawed view the adverts connection with games. (Score:2, Insightful)
It was not gratuitous, the blood was subtle, the damage
Re:Flawed view the adverts connection with games. (Score:1)
The layout and the title perfectly matched the style that the Hitman games have oozed since day 1.
I have to agree totally with this. I only just got a look at the ad (I didn't see a link for it until