Pre-Launch Character Creation: a Uniquely Game-centered Way of Advertising

Set to release next week (November 3rd), Dragon Age used a pretty interesting concept as part of their pre-launch advertising. As Brendan Sinclair of GameSpot reported on the 13th, potential players can visit the official website and use the Character Creator feature to physically design Dragon Age: Origins protagonists. These characters can be fully exported to the actual PC retail copy when the game is released.

This is an advertising technique that is distinctly unique to the gaming industry -- it can't really be replicated in book publishing or film production. My guess is that, aside from getting already devoted fans excited, the idea is to help build a sense of attachment to whatever character you make, so much so that you'd be willing to purchase the game to see them "brought to life." On the other hand, it also can express the overall "tone" of a game fairly well using visual cues: the quality of the graphics engine, the style of the fashion, the art direction of the character models, and so forth.

This isn't the first time EA has hyped a game's release by giving players a sneak peek at its character creation tools. The publisher released Spore Creature Creator in advance of Will Wright's Spore, as a free download (with limited features) and as a $5 retail package.

Though Spore might be one of the most over-hyped games in history, it's possible that this tactic of allowing people to see the character creation process assisted in building the raging wall of buzz that surrounded the game pre-release. Though the character creation tool doesn't allow for a taste of gameplay like a demo might, it can be more easily downloaded from something as user-friendly as an official website, and promises a sort of continuation between a prospective customer's online behavior (designing up a quick character), and their gaming behavior.