Teasing, Marketing, and things that piss me off a little bit.

Hello People who might be reading this.

I want to share some thoughts I have about marketing and teasers as they exist in todays crazy world of video games.

If you have followed the Bombcast for the last couple of weeks, you probably already know what I'm talking about.

Ironically enough, my frustration really stems from arguably  two biggest video game franchises in recent histroy: Metal Gear, and [Call of Duty - can we even say that anymore?] Modern Warfare.

The pedigree of both franchises above are absolutely ridiculous. They are great games, no doubt, and have sold fucktons of copies throughout the years with their many iterations and sequels. I love COD games, and I love MGS games, but recently they have been giving me kind of a headache, and lets examine why that is, shall we?

Ill start with the Metal Gear franchise here, because I don't want to seem unfair.

Hideo Kojima is a crazy, diabolical mastermind when it comes to teasing information. I mean this guy may have very well wrote the book on how to get millions of rabid fans to foam at the mouth when he is going to release a game. It's like in my mind, Kojima IS Kojima productions' marketing department. It seems to me like everything done up till now with regards to teaser sites, tiny information leaks has all been as a result of crazy shit he just comes up with off the top of his head. All of that kind of stuff is just so indicative of Kojima's style.

But seriously, did anyone get a little bit sick of that teser site that was up recently with a countdown timer that resets itself a million times? Couldn't the goal simply have been achieved by him letting out a release every couple of days - starting with "Hey everyone, we've got some MGS stuff in the works, more information to follow, to tide you over, check out this picture!" I think that either way, people would have gone crazy with anticipation for news, was it really necessary to put a freakin clock on a website?

While they might not have had any actual videos to show at this years E3, whether it be the inducements of Metal Gear coming to 360, or the new PSP game coming out, might it have been a bit better to hold off on the announcements until E3 itself. Does an announcement like that really need to have a teaser anyway?


Next up Modern Warfare 2 - the teaser of a teaser of a teaser videos.

I mean really? A 15 second clip of a teaser that will fully be uploaded the next week and that teaser will be about 15 seconds longer than the first teaser.... wow.

I mean, didn't the community manager at Infinity Ward already twitter that MW2 was coming out anyway? Do we really need to have a "Hey guys, here's 15 second teaser of the 30 second  teaser that will officially confirm the un-offical confirmation that Modern Warfare 2 is officially in development".

...What?

People actually got PAID for that shit! And I mean there were meetings, people had sit downs, phone conferences, data correlation, market testing and justified man (and woman) hours for this kind of stuff. For a 30 second teaser without even a hint of gameplay.

We're talking about Modern Warfare 2 here, any announcement about its release will collectively make millions blow a massive hole out of the seam of their pants. Did they really need to be that extravagant and take that much panning to tease the release of a game as popular as Modern Warfare 2? In my mind, they could have got a guy who works at Infinity Ward, with a name tag that says "Hi my name is Tim" get on camera and say - "Hello, I just wanted to tell everyone that Modern Warfare 2 is coming out, check back into infinity ward.com in a couple weeks for a trailer" and it would've had the same effect. The internet would crap itself, site visitor numbers would have soared and they wouldn't have had to spend a penny on getting a marketing team on that stuff.

Instead they put adds on the side of bus panels, then tell you to go to gamestop and then gamestop tells you to go watch football.

...What?

Now I'm not saying that marketing your games in a smart way is not important for any videogame publisher to make sure as many people know about your game as possible. But with these two latest examples, its kind of like someone is constantly tapping on your shoulder saying "Hey, did you know [insert game name] is coming out?!?!"

Yes. I know its coming out because you wont shut the fuck up about it already.

Anyone else annoyed? (Why do I think I'm going to get my ass handed to me for this blog.... maybe its better if no one reads it....)

Hello People who might be reading this.

I want to share some thoughts I have about marketing and teasers as they exist in todays crazy world of video games.

If you have followed the Bombcast for the last couple of weeks, you probably already know what I'm talking about.

Ironically enough, my frustration really stems from arguably  two biggest video game franchises in recent histroy: Metal Gear, and [Call of Duty - can we even say that anymore?] Modern Warfare.

The pedigree of both franchises above are absolutely ridiculous. They are great games, no doubt, and have sold fucktons of copies throughout the years with their many iterations and sequels. I love COD games, and I love MGS games, but recently they have been giving me kind of a headache, and lets examine why that is, shall we?

Ill start with the Metal Gear franchise here, because I don't want to seem unfair.

Hideo Kojima is a crazy, diabolical mastermind when it comes to teasing information. I mean this guy may have very well wrote the book on how to get millions of rabid fans to foam at the mouth when he is going to release a game. It's like in my mind, Kojima IS Kojima productions' marketing department. It seems to me like everything done up till now with regards to teaser sites, tiny information leaks has all been as a result of crazy shit he just comes up with off the top of his head. All of that kind of stuff is just so indicative of Kojima's style.

But seriously, did anyone get a little bit sick of that teser site that was up recently with a countdown timer that resets itself a million times? Couldn't the goal simply have been achieved by him letting out a release every couple of days - starting with "Hey everyone, we've got some MGS stuff in the works, more information to follow, to tide you over, check out this picture!" I think that either way, people would have gone crazy with anticipation for news, was it really necessary to put a freakin clock on a website?

While they might not have had any actual videos to show at this years E3, whether it be the inducements of Metal Gear coming to 360, or the new PSP game coming out, might it have been a bit better to hold off on the announcements until E3 itself. Does an announcement like that really need to have a teaser anyway?


Next up Modern Warfare 2 - the teaser of a teaser of a teaser videos.

I mean really? A 15 second clip of a teaser that will fully be uploaded the next week and that teaser will be about 15 seconds longer than the first teaser.... wow.

I mean, didn't the community manager at Infinity Ward already twitter that MW2 was coming out anyway? Do we really need to have a "Hey guys, here's 15 second teaser of the 30 second  teaser that will officially confirm the un-offical confirmation that Modern Warfare 2 is officially in development".

...What?

People actually got PAID for that shit! And I mean there were meetings, people had sit downs, phone conferences, data correlation, market testing and justified man (and woman) hours for this kind of stuff. For a 30 second teaser without even a hint of gameplay.

We're talking about Modern Warfare 2 here, any announcement about its release will collectively make millions blow a massive hole out of the seam of their pants. Did they really need to be that extravagant and take that much panning to tease the release of a game as popular as Modern Warfare 2? In my mind, they could have got a guy who works at Infinity Ward, with a name tag that says "Hi my name is Tim" get on camera and say - "Hello, I just wanted to tell everyone that Modern Warfare 2 is coming out, check back into infinity ward.com in a couple weeks for a trailer" and it would've had the same effect. The internet would crap itself, site visitor numbers would have soared and they wouldn't have had to spend a penny on getting a marketing team on that stuff.

Instead they put adds on the side of bus panels, then tell you to go to gamestop and then gamestop tells you to go watch football.

...What?

Now I'm not saying that marketing your games in a smart way is not important for any videogame publisher to make sure as many people know about your game as possible. But with these two latest examples, its kind of like someone is constantly tapping on your shoulder saying "Hey, did you know [insert game name] is coming out?!?!"

Yes. I know its coming out because you wont shut the fuck up about it already.

Anyone else annoyed? (Why do I think I'm going to get my ass handed to me for this blog.... maybe its better if no one reads it....)