Summary
Developing a video game is expensive; promoting it isn’t far behind. Today, triple-A games run marketing campaigns worthhundreds of millions of dollars. Reveal trailers, merchandising and paying off influencers all come at a heavy price. As audiences switch away from television and browse media at their own pace, it becomes harder to get eyes on your title.
All of that can be swept away if the marketing team has one focal point they can rest on: many studios indulge in ‘meme marketing’ these days. On the other hand, if the game doesn’t live up to the hype, it can lead to derision that takes years to live down. Here are some marketing campaigns that are probably still fresh in your mind.
Earthbound came out at a time when video game advertising relied primarily on gaming magazines. It also came out when RPGs were all but expected to have medieval fantasy settings. While the game could be marketed in Japan on the basis of Shigesato Itoi’s involvement, the North American division had its work cut out for it.
The solution: an ad that relied on gross-out humour, featuring a scratch-and-sniff sticker that released a foul stench. It was meant to convey how bad the game’s monsters smelled, but backfired: when your game already has the odds stacked against it, telling people it stinks is a bad idea. It took years before Earthboundcaught on in the US.
Resident Evil Village’s reveal trailer was fairly balanced, featuring lycans, lords, and series stalwart Chris Redfield. The narration set up an ominous figure, Mother Miranda, as the villain. However, Capcom quickly figured out we were focusing on avery different type of mommy.
From the very first trailer, fans were enamoured with the tall and imposing Lady Dimitrescu, to the exclusion of everything else. Capcom obliged by featuring her heavily in the marketing: telling us her shoe size on social media, creating life-size statues, and generally being horny on main. Lady D isn’t the main villain of RE Village, but she is certainly the mascot.
Rather than focus on the atmospheric horror of the first title, EA promoted Dead Space 2 on the grounds that it was so violent your mother would hate it. An entire website was set up to show middle-aged moms reacting to the game, looking horrified and asking why anyone would play it.
EA wasn’t entirely off the mark. The 2000s were the age of edge, and bad attitude marketing was still in vogue. React content would take off in the 2010s, making this campaign a pioneer. But EA generalized one demographic to appeal to another: it would have been cool to see some moms wholovedDead Space 2. Despite selling four million units, the game failed commercially.
5Sega Genesis
Genesis Does What Nintendon’t
The slogan worked, for a while at least: although no Sega console has ever surpassed Nintendo in lifetime sales, the Genesis came closest. The focus onarcade-perfect ports, sports games and blast processing led to the Genesis outselling the SNES for years. No, we don’t know what blast processing is either, but it sounds cool.
Today, Dead Island is just one of many cash-ins onthe zombie trend. However, the game would likely have slipped under your radar if not for its incredible reveal trailer. Set in reverse chronology, it depicts the tragic fate of a family overrun by zombies while on holiday.
The trailer surprised even its own studio with the degree of success it attained, and Dead Island became a widely anticipated title. Unfortunately, the actual game lacked the emotional depth of the three-minute film promoting it. It ended up setting a bad precedent for trailers being visually spectacular while conveying nothing about the gameplay.
Hello Games' vision for No Man’s Sky was ambitious, to say the least. Forget procedurally generated worlds - the reveal trailer promised a procedurally generateduniverse.Audiences quickly latched on to the idea of a game that was essentially limitless in its potential.
An indie studio creating a game of that scope was absurd, but you shouldn’t blame the customers: Hello Games and Sony had done nothing to temper expectations. At launch, the misleading marketing was subject to relentless criticism. But in a subversion, Hello Games actually took the time to improve their product: No Man’s Sky did not live up to the hype on launch day, but it sure does now.
2PlayStation 4
Official PlayStation Used Game Instructional Video
Sony isn’t a stranger to winning a console war in seconds: in 1995, it followed Sega’s unveiling of the $399 Saturn by simply announcing the PS1’s price - $299 - and walking away. In 2013, it dealt the Xbox One a similar blow. Shortly after Microsoft announced plans to limit the used game market for the Xbox One, Sony saw the backlash and added fuel to the fire.
Formatted like a tech tutorial, the instructional video had a single step: sharing the game. It featured two Sony employees doing just that while barely holding back their laughter. Microsoft quickly reversed its policies for the Xbox One, but by then it was too late.
1Sega Saturn
Segata Sanshiro
In the West, the Sega Saturn is deemed a failure and blamed for the Dreamcast’s demise - there simply wasn’t enough goodwill left. However, the system did well in Japan, not least because of its genius marketing campaign.
Segata Sanshiro is the greatest advertising mascot in video game history. His ads had a story arc: initially he would beat people up and command them to play the Sega Saturn, but he soon morphed into a heroic figure with his own theme song. Nearing the end of the Saturn’s life, he went out in a blaze of glory by rescuing Sega employees from a missile strike.
These commercials were short, snappy and often focused on a singular game, promoting both the console and its library. The character is remembered fondly even in the West, a demographic he was never meant for.
