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If You Don't Want to Succeed, Don't Tell Anyone About Your Game.

I dislike commercials. I especially hate those obnoxious flashing banners and ads that pop up when you accidentally mouse over some innocently underlined word. That said, advertisements are invaluable in getting the word out about a new video game, especially one that doesn't have an established following. How many times has some random gamer on some random message board declared that whatever excellent title was overlooked because it wasn't advertised?

The soon to be overlooked title of the moment is Deadly Creatures, a Wii exclusive action game staring a nasty pair of creepy crawlies. The game is out now and the early word on the street is that it's a quality title, but low and behold, THQ will not be running any television commercials for it. Has the game thus been doomed to obscurity?

Posted Feb 11 2009, 10:00 PM by Amber Ahlborn with | with 1 comment(s)

Filed under: wii, amber ahlborn, advertising, deadly creatures

Canada Plays PSP

Unlike the rest of the world, apparently. Ssssssnap!

Sony's pretty good at making me hate their PSP commercials through sheer overexposure. While waiting in the theatre for Revenge of the Sith to start—shut up—the venue played commercial after commercial to give the bouncing audience something to focus on besides throwing popcorn and fencing with rolled-up Tribute magazines. Sony had obviously bought out Mama Multiplex's Advertising Hour because every third commercial was that PSP advertisement that made you want to slay Franz Fernandez.

Posted Dec 19 2008, 11:07 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 5 comment(s)

Filed under: nintendo ds, psp, sony, advertising, media, nadia oxford, commercial, canada plays psp, usa plays psp

Where's the In-game Advertising?

Reuters reports that marketing types aren't quite as enthusiastic about the prospects of in-game advertising as they have been in the past. This new marketing channel has been hyped for over a decade now, but it's shown little growth, certainly not the explosion that was predicted around the time that Munch started drinking SoBe.

Posted Dec 05 2008, 06:26 PM by Cole Stryker with | with 3 comment(s)

Filed under: guitar hero, cole stryker, advertising, sports, oddworld

The "Bike Hero" Viral Video is a Fake...But Should You Love It Any Less?

For a brief and beautiful 24 hours, a guy on a bike gave us a reason to keep living. It's since been revealed that the Bike Hero is a fake; he is not in fact a Guitar Hero/physical fitness guru who's come to Earth to show us all the way. Instead, he's a viral creation of an ad agency called Droga5.

But Gamecyte asks us: should that matter?

If a company produces a legitimately awesome piece of art in the vein of user generated content, does its less-than-humble origin detract from its value? Are any of you angry or disappointed that there isn’t really a part-time McDonalds employee and his friends behind the production — or perhaps that Droga5 tried to make you think that there were?

I am personally at peace with Droga5. I think a little piece of my heart knew the Bike Hero did not actually exist in this paranoid era. Really, if Old Man Macphearson saw a bunch of punk teenagers applying giant coloured tiddlywinks to the suburban sidewalk and street, what would stop him from calling the cops? And what would stop the police from busting up the project? Looking at it rationally (boo, hiss), turning a neighbourhood into a giant Guitar Hero song would be a dangerous endevour. Drivers and pedestrians would be distracted and confused and someone might end up as pate at the end of it all.

Posted Nov 20 2008, 05:42 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 2 comment(s)

Filed under: guitar hero, advertising, nadia oxford, meme, viral video, dupe, bike hero

WTFriday: Play it Loud

Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week.

Once upon a time, video games weren't cool; sure, everybody played them, but from the Nintendo era until the mid-90s, they were regarded as toys for children, manchildren, and the unemployable. But with the debut of the Playstation, Sony changed all that; suddenly, video games were remade as this hip, new product that fit in well with all of the flannel and alterna-rock that dotted the landscape of our country like so many Taco Bell wrappers. It was around this time that Nintendo began to look significantly less cool--and some would say they never regained their cred until the recent wave of Wii-mania. So how would Nintendo try to shape its own image to fit in with whatever those damn kids were into? Why, the "Play It Loud" campaign, of course.

I'm not sure how much good this campaign did for Nintendo, because it certainly ruined the credibility of at least a few games; magazine readers of 1995 may remember the scratch and sniff Earthbound advertisements that did nothing but piss people off--and let's not forget the slogan "this game stinks," built completely around one of Earthbound's minor bosses. Ideas like these had to be fueled by cocaine or at least some mild hallucinogens.

Thankfully, everything that was ever aired on TV is now on YouTube, so I can show you Nintendo's tragic mistakes through the power of streaming video. Ain't life grand?

Posted Oct 03 2008, 09:30 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 3 comment(s)

Filed under: nintendo, advertising, retro, bob mackey, wtfriday, 1990s, play it loud

Street Fighter II in Your Financial Times

This advertisement is full of win. The puzzling pop culture parody features the world leaders who comprise the G8 all dressed up as Street Fighter II characters. The ad ends with, "For millions of the world's poorest, this is not a game." Har har. Your average gamer is not likely to page through the Financial Times, so most people who see this ad are going to be very confused. Time to get a new brand manager, Avaaz.

Posted Jul 15 2008, 12:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with no comments

Filed under: street fighter, cole stryker, advertising

In Defense of In-game Advertising

In-game advertising is nothing new, but it appears that Sony plans to ramp up advertising in their PS3 games. CNET's Don Reisinger thinks this "ruins the experience of playing games".

Let's talk about benefits. Pushing in-game advertising will most likely lead to lower game prices. I recently had the pleasure of playing through a new ad-supported downloadable version of Farcry for free. Farcry's a few years old, but putting up with a few interstitial ads during download screens was well worth it.

Advertisers want to be as unobtrusive as possible with their advertising. What do I care if Solid Snake knocks over a can of Coke rather than a can of nondescript 'Cola'? He already smokes Luckies. Doesn't this hypothetical instance of advertising make for an even more immersive experience? Same goes for in-game billboard advertising in sports games.

Posted Jun 05 2008, 12:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with 3 comment(s)

Filed under: playstation 3, sony, advertising, cnet

Kotaku Endorses Products Unaware

Yesterday Kotaku published a post regarding how Figure Prints, a company that creates 3D models of WoW avatars, ran an ad in a comic book with a testimonial from Axel at Kotaku. The compelling testimonial reads, "Wow... I NEED ONE!!!"

Problem is, no one who writes for Kotaku goes by the name of Axel. It turns out that the company snagged the gushing prose of one of Kotaku's bleating commenters, attributing the quote to Kotaku.com, where it technically appeared. And the commenters are all slapping Axel on the back with hearty shouts of, "Kotaku commenters FTW!!"

Posted Jun 04 2008, 02:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with no comments

Filed under: kotaku, world of warcraft, advertising, journalism, ethics

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.