Teaser Trailers: Not Just for Movies

I've been talking a lot about animations and videos done to promote videogames recently, and today Kotaku covered a new "teaser" out for an unknown, upcoming FPS.

The name of the game and gameplay will premiere during the VGAs on December 12 at 8pmET/PT on Spike. A Halo: Reach trailer is also scheduled for the broadcast.

Teasers are an excellent way to build viral buzz, if done well. Cloverfield is a great example of this for the movie industry. Mystery can become allure very quickly, and 2K Games (the folks behind BioShock, Civ IV, The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, and many other blockbuster titles) is hardly a small-time player.

And when you've got that kind of industry clout, why not exercise it in a less conventional way?

Beyond the Game Trailer: Assassin's Creed II

Assassin's Creed II, which launched this week along with L4D2 put out an interesting bit of content to promote their new game. Most fans are used to seeing cinematic trailers which span 3 to 5 minutes and try to capture you interest much like a movie trailer would. However, Ubisoft took the traditional cinematic a step further when they released a 30 minute short film to tell the story of what happened between the final scene of Assassin's Creed -- a total cliffhanger that frustrated many players (I, on the other hand, kind of liked it) -- and where Assassin's Creed II picks up.

(Go here to watch the full version.)

The idea that more companies might take this route in the future should make any gamer happy: more content is almost always better than less, especially when it comes from big name players. As for advertising, it's hard to say if anyone not already inclined to play the game would sit through a 30 minute movie for it. On the other hand, it's a brilliant way to remind those people who enjoyed the first game to get out there and purchase the sequel!

Special Editions: The Appeal to Eager Fans

Set to launch early next year, the BioShock 2 Special Edition packaged was announced today. Special Editions for videogames are not unpopular when it comes to franchises which have either done well in the past, or have a lot of positive buzz surrounding them. For a decent chunk of change on top of the regular price tag, Special Editions are a really positive way to give eager fans more of the merchandise they want.

The BioShock 2 Special Edition, for instance, supplies the player with tons of concept art, a soundtrack (in both CD and vinyl), and some posters modeled after the ones that hang on the desolate walls of Rapture: the in-game, underwater city. Special and Collector's Editions of games aren't new -- they date back to the Dreamcast and N64 era -- but they have become more fleshed out over the years. Now you can expect to find content ranging from the standard, mucho-glossy concept art book, to figurines and toys.

Wikipedia has a great list of all games which have had Collector's/Special Editions, along with what goodies they were packaged with.

The BioShock: Limited Edition Package

Facebook and Twitter on LIVE: More Ads to Come?

The integration of Twitter and Facebook onto Xbox LIVE was announced this summer at E3 some months ago, the launch came out today.While the Xbox LIVE experience is already one marked by advertisements, not only for games but also partner companies like Netflix, it's not a stretch to speculate that this is another channel through which advertising will approach the gaming market.

Facebook already hosts targeted ads, and Twitter's announcement several weeks back about the upcoming ads in the future make it hard-pressed for me to imagine that these features would be offered for free, sans-ads, on such a huge commercial giant like LIVE.

Microsoft and comScore: Tracking In-Game Ad Data

Not so much a look at advertising itself but at the systems that track the effectiveness of advertising, Mike Sheilds of Adweek posted earlier today that "Microsoft’s gaming subsidiary Massive Inc. has partnered with Web measurement firm comScore in an effort to bring more standardization to the still-evolving in-game advertising industry."

ComScore offers services much like those sold by Nielsen of television's Nielsen ratings. In-game advertising is still a nascent field, but is rapidly growing as companies become more aware of the growing market that lies in the gaming industry. Even Barack Obama put a campaign ad in a videogame in last year during his run for the presidency (the game, if anyone is curious, was a racing genre title: Burnout Paradise.)

As a small aside, racing games are great venues for in-game ads: they come out frequently enough that there isn't as much concern about being irrelevant in 5 years, and a billboard ad in a racing game is hardly out of place. It doesn't break the 4th wall in the way that putting an Obama ad would utterly murder the suspension of disbelief, in, say, my recent high-fantasy game favorite, Dragon Age: Origins. But, back to the Adweek piece.

As part of the arrangement between the two companies, Massive will now be able to provide advertisers with tangible data on the direct impact of their in-game ad campaigns. Specifically, Massive and comScore have jointly developed a research methodology that will help brands track visits to their Web sites or search queries that result from in-game ad campaigns- -- by matching Massive’s ad-serving data with information from comScore’s existing Internet audience panel.

Interestingly, Nielsen Online, a competitor to comScore, is also trying to get into the market of collecting and distributing information regarding the results of in-game ads.

EA Drops $300 Million to Pick up Social Gaming

(Image courtesy of Kotaku.com)

I posted some time ago about the rampant success of social games like Farmville, and this is just a quick update in that realm. Techcrunch, Mashable, Kotaku, and PaidContent each ran a story yesterday on EA Interactives's purchase of Playfish for $275 million up front and $25 in "equity retention arrangements."

On the advertisement front, Playfish games clearly have much of the same appeal as successful games like Farmville: they are sugary sweet, colorful, and utterly playful. Like feel-good movies and mass-market paperbacks, this type of advertising easily draws in people where more typical gaming markets may not reach. Games on social networks, along with innovative practices by traditional gaming companies like Nintendo, are expanding the gaming market from being very genre-specific, to being something that everyone can feel good about enjoying.

A Happy Ending: Modern Warfare 2 Launch

After a slew of Modern Warfare 2 posts, I promise this will be the last. The game officially launched today, though many fans were able to pick up early copies yesterday as well. Unlike the last posts, which have largely dealt with Infinity Ward's missteps, the story of the game took a much more pleasant turn for its release date.

Kotaku published yesterday that Activision "plans to unveil a $1 million backed non-profit corporation designed to help soldiers transition to civilian careers."

After such a string of seemingly odd choices and strained controversies, the Call of Duty franchise appears to want to use its fame and success to help promote a social interest cause. As many players of Modern Warfare have served in the military, the gesture is not likely to fall on deaf ears.

Modern Warfare 2 Sales Unhindered by Controversies

Both GameSpot and GamePolitics reported yesterday that despite the recent controversies surrounding Modern Warfare 2, which is launching next Tuesday, game sales are projected to be huge.

Even USA Today picked up on the story:

"By all indicators, we anticipate Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will be the biggest entertainment launch of all time," says Tony Bartel, executive vice president for merchandising and marketing at GameStop. "As of today, the number of pre-order reservations we've taken for the game is the highest for any title we've ever sold in our 6,200 store network."

James Brightman wrote for Industry Gamers, saying:

Ever since E3 pundits have been predicting huge sales for Activision's upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which many believe will be the top selling title of this holiday season and possibly all of 2009.  Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter, as part of his Activision earnings preview, put in his own two cents.

"We expect global sales to exceed $500 million in the first week following launch, and think that the company can easily sell 10 million units in Q4," he stated.

I think that Infinity Ward's ability to shrug off all the contention surrounding Modern Warfare 2 -- from the removal of Dedicated Servers, to the content leak, to the homophobic advertisement -- essentially comes down to a point I made in a few of my earlier blog posts: gameplay is the best advertising you can get in this industry. Publishers and franchises are to videogames what authors are to novels, and directors to movies, but even moreso.

Dropping $59.99 + tax on a game requires a much greater deal of trust in the product (and its creators) than buying a DVD or novel, or even purchasing a movie ticket. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has become a staple of the online FPS multiplayer experience. Many gamers, casual and hardcore alike, are likely to overlook a transgression or three in order to recreate or enhance the entire they had playing the original title.

More Modern Warfare 2 Controversy

As Destructoid reported on Halloween day, Infinity Ward (publishers of the  upcoming sequel to Modern Warfare) recently pulled an ad for Modern Warfare 2 that had been uploaded to Youtube. The reason? It was perceived as homophobic, and the outcry against it was massive.

The ad made a mock "public service announcement" calling players who randomly toss grenades in online multiplayer "pussies." Furthermore, the fake institution behind the fake PSA was "Fight Against Grenade Spam." The acronym is pretty easy to gather.

The original video has been taken down, so I can't really pass judgement on whether or not it was tongue-in-cheek enough to be poking fun at the standard player-base of Modern Warfare -- who tend to be reknowned for the sexism, homophobia, and racism they spew across Xbox Live -- or if it was an ad that was meant to touch base and connect with these players.

That said, I find myself siding with the folks who were pissed off. As someone who has played quite a bit of online Call of Duty multiplayer on Xbox, there have been times where I've felt so disgusted by other players' behavior -- or times when I was personally harassed, sexually and non-sexually -- that I've just had to turn off my console. I've experienced that attitude on this game more than I have on any other game, and I've played it far less than other online games like L4D or World of Warcraft.

It's a shame because I do like playing multiplayer, but I'm wary of ever bothering to use my headset. Communication is a vital part of the Live experience, however, you become a target for a lot of hatred both vicious and casual (which is even worse), when people can tell (or believe they can tell) that you aren't a white, heterosexual male.

It's surprising that Infinity Ward would release such an ad so very soon after the leak of their controversial gameplay in which the player briefly controls a terrorist. The "boys will be boys" mentality that reigns supreme on Modern Warfare is not something that Infinity Ward should be looking to promote in their new game. Giving a wink and a nod to homophobia to a crowd that is known for going out of their way to make the game less fun for anyone "non-standard" just smacks of terrible policy.

//Edit: Here is a link to the commercial. It is being hosted by a few Youtube users who grabbed a copy before Infinity Ward disabled the official one.