Yesterday during football games they were running a new borderlands 2 commercial with live people. I thought it was fantastic, first time I saw it, it took a few seconds to figure out what it actually was. I was watching with one of my brothers who doesn't play games and he was asking what it was. Sorry I didn't post the video cause I didn't find any good posts on the internet yet.

I saw it a couple of days ago. I, for one, think it's hilarious and accurately captures the insanity of Borderlands. The only version I can find online is low-quality, but here it is.

This one? 

As cool as that is, it seems weird for a game that's known for its bitchin' art style to have a live action trailer.

@Peanut: That was....weird...

@Hitchenson said:

As cool as that is, it seems weird for a game that's known for its bitchin' art style to have a live action trailer.

Yeah, it's definitely missing that, plus any kind of humour.

Why a live action commercial instead an in-game one? This is weird.

This is nowhere near as good as that one live action Call of Duty trailer. I think it had Sam Worthington in it? Anyway, it was a noob and a really good player and it showed scenes from the game, only in live action, set to AC/DC, and was appropriately nuts and fairly entertaining.

This just looks like your run of the mill stupid ad. Why not use the game's humor and art style?

@believer258 said:

This is nowhere near as good as that one live action Call of Duty trailer. I think it had Sam Worthington in it? Anyway, it was a noob and a really good player and it showed scenes from the game, only in live action, set to AC/DC, and was appropriately nuts and fairly entertaining.

This just looks like your run of the mill stupid ad. Why not use the game's humor and art style?

I think it's supposed to be that way. Everything looks like it was bought at a dollar store and the special effects are dick. It seems purposefully low-budget and weird, and I rather dig it.

Eh... i like it but im not sure it dose anything to sell the game to people who know nothing about it. Borderlands is hardly mainstream enough to think people know what its about.

Their advertising budget must be huge...I've been seeing ads for Borderlands 2 on giant ass billboards, at bus stops, and even on the sides of buses all over the place in the San Francisco.

I think if at the very end they cut to a in game clip of all four of the duders (actually I dont even want to act like I know if Zer0 is a duder) together and showing off their action skills would have been much better as a hook, but I still enjoyed it

My nephew was like "look at the clowns!!"

...I would totally watch a Borderlands 2 movie.

I take it a lot of people bought the first game. I never saw this much advertising last time around.

I typically hate any ads or trailers for games that don't show gameplay, but if this gets more people to buy it, then i guess I dont really care.

Because marketing.

Why does this even exist? =|

@PrivateIronTFU said:

I take it a lot of people bought the first game. I never saw this much advertising last time around.

@MB: Yep. They said they doubled their budged after pre production was done because the first game kept on selling and selling for a long time post release. Guess a chunk of it went into advertising, not surprisingly.

@BeachThunder said:

Why does this even exist? =|

Because they want to cast a wider net and sell the game to a wider audience, hence it's on TV, not for people like us but for muggles and mass market CoD consumers etc. People who didn't even know this game existed. I've read some reports on official boards of gamer's relatives who never played the first game seeing the trailer and being interested to follow it up, stuff like that.

@dudy80: That's actually the entire point, to make people who don't know about it aware that it even exists. it's outlandishness leaves a better advertising imprint too.

@believer258: Because unlike gamers, the average public would just zone out on seeing in game graphics at least more so compared to the wacky irl stuff.

They also had Claptrap messing around with the robot animation that runs during the NFL on Fox, they showed him during the pregame stuff in the morning.

That reminded me of Tank Girl.

That commercial was pure cheese. Like munster or brie cheesy.

Are they not doing those hilarious Claptrap trailers? Those where the best!! (or where those for the DLC? Either way they should do those again!)

@SoothsayerGB: Roland is not a playable character.

@shadows_kill: Not purely claptrap but he does show up in these http://www.giantbomb.com/borderlands-2-heavy-drop-edition/17-5722/http://www.giantbomb.com/learn-just-some-of-the-many-ways-to-kill-things-in-borderlands-2/17-6327/

This is what happens when you hire marketers.. "so ye, we need to reach the non-gamer market which seems to react well to live action trailers", completely disregarding the unique style of the game. Oh well, gotta say I'm just glad we don't get pelted with bad videogame ads that much over here.

That was... different. But still awesome as hell!

I can see that trailer being effective with the kinds of people who don't follow gaming news.

I have a feeling this is supposed to be emulating those goofy ass video game commercials of the 80's and 90's. I'm twenty though, so what the fuck do I know.

I don't know why live action stuff like this bugs me. It feels like games are trying too hard to be taken seriously by the mass population. Why not just show the game instead of showing stuff that happens in the game in live action? Why not celebrate what you are instead of trying to aspire to be something that you're not? This is in response to games that use live action in order to be serious. I don't mean this to be used against comedic live action game commercials like Crash Bandicoot ads.

@Phatmac: Knowing gearbox, I'm more inclined to believe this is an attempt to mock other games for employing "serious" live action commercials, similar to how they were mocking the over use of dub-step in trailers with their debut trailer.

i will gladly take this cheese over standard game ads

@MikeGosot said:

...I would totally watch a Borderlands 2 movie.

I imagine it'd be more successful as an over the top sort of anime series.

I would watch that until I died.

@MB said:

Their advertising budget must be huge...I've been seeing ads for Borderlands 2 on giant ass billboards, at bus stops, and even on the sides of buses all over the place in the San Francisco.

Yeah they did the same thing for Duke Nukem Forever, Gearbox must just love plastering the sides of SF's buses.

@jacksmedulla said:

I have a feeling this is supposed to be emulating those goofy ass video game commercials of the 80's and 90's. I'm twenty though, so what the fuck do I know.

That's what I got. Either that or its trying to look like the terrible Tank Girl movie, or any other bad day-glo 90's comic adaptation.

This ad looks like it dropped right out of the early to mid 90s. I don't think it'll sell as many copies as one with actual gameplay footage, but I think I like where their heads are.

@MikeGosot said:

...I would totally watch a Borderlands 2 movie.

I imagine it'd be more successful as an over the top sort of anime series.

I would watch that until I died.

@MikeGosot said:

@Sparklykiss said:

@MikeGosot said:

...I would totally watch a Borderlands 2 movie.

I imagine it'd be more successful as an over the top sort of anime series.

I would watch that until I died.

Wait, you would watch the movie or the anime series? I mean, the movie's plot could be a guy narrating "Four mercenaries... Finishing a mission. They need to kill a man. They need to get some..." then a psycho says "LOOT!" and BOOOOOOM 2-hours nonstop action scene. The characters barely have dialogue, and when they do, it's about skill trees.

Both would be great. I'm really bad at making wording stuff, sorry about that. If it were a cheesy anime, it could just be filler of action and nonsense.

Or a Claptrap anime.

Make into full feature film please.

/thread

@MikeGosot said:

@Sparklykiss said:

@MikeGosot said:

...I would totally watch a Borderlands 2 movie.

I imagine it'd be more successful as an over the top sort of anime series.

I would watch that until I died.

Wait, you would watch the movie or the anime series? I mean, the movie's plot could be a guy narrating "Four mercenaries... Finishing a mission. They need to kill a man. They need to get some..." then a psycho says "LOOT!" and BOOOOOOM 2-hours nonstop action scene. The characters barely have dialogue, and when they do, it's about skill trees.

Both would be great. I'm really bad at making wording stuff, sorry about that. If it were a cheesy anime, it could just be filler of action and nonsense.

Or a Claptrap anime.

Saw it during football. Me and my buddy thought it was pretty weak.

@Nadafinga said:

I typically hate any ads or trailers for games that don't show gameplay, but if this gets more people to buy it, then i guess I dont really care.

Because marketing.

It only bothers me when it seems like they're purposefully trying to hide the gameplay. Old Republic was a perfect example of this, where it seemed like they poured millions into fancy CG trailers because they were embarrassed by the actual gameplay.

For things like this, we've already seen plenty of gameplay, so it's not like they're trying to hide anything, it's just an attempt to reach a bigger market.

As someone who is extremely hyped for this game, that looked incredibly wack and stupid.

@jacksmedulla: I'd buy that for a dollar.

@Sparklykiss: Like what they did with the DIABLO III animated short movies? I was thinking that something like that, cheesy or not would be cool regardless.

I felt like I was watching the CoD: Black Ops commercial for a second.

@PrivateIronTFU said:

I take it a lot of people bought the first game. I never saw this much advertising last time around.

@MB: Yep. They said they doubled their budged after pre production was done because the first game kept on selling and selling for a long time post release. Guess a chunk of it went into advertising, not surprisingly.

@BeachThunder said:

Why does this even exist? =|

Because they want to cast a wider net and sell the game to a wider audience, hence it's on TV, not for people like us but for muggles and mass market CoD consumers etc. People who didn't even know this game existed. I've read some reports on official boards of gamer's relatives who never played the first game seeing the trailer and being interested to follow it up, stuff like that.

@dudy80: That's actually the entire point, to make people who don't know about it aware that it even exists. it's outlandishness leaves a better advertising imprint too.

@believer258: Because unlike gamers, the average public would just zone out on seeing in game graphics at least more so compared to the wacky irl stuff.