Favourite Game Marketing Campaigns (Good or Bad)

[Aerosteam]

My absolute favourite has to go to Homefront's balloon stunt, where they set free a ton of helium-filled red balloons, each with a flyer attached. This happened during GDC 2011 at San Francisco:

[vimeo=20860694]

An interesting sight, it surely catches peoples' attention with the idea of the balloons eventually falling near random people. However, most of the balloons landed in San Francisco Bay:

It became a danger to the animals that live or visit there, resulting in the company responsible to be fined $7000.

And what's yours? Could be a stunt, trailer or whatever which companies have done to try to market their game.

 

[SmallHatLogan]

I don't know if I have a favourite but the PS2 ads have stuck with me after all these years due to how bizarre they were.

Spoiler: Not really sure what their goal was to be honest.

 

[Wintermute_v1legacy]

I was 14 at the time I think, and my love for first person shooters was at an all time high back then, so

 

[Myria]

The aforementioned Daikatana is probably the most memorable of all time, if for all the wrong reasons.

On the positive side, I would call Blizzard the undisputed king of creating and riding marketing hype whilst rarely, if ever, letting it ride them:


Wildstar's marketing was really fun, sadly far more so than the game itself:


Star Wars: The Old Republic had a lead-up series of cinematics that were incredible, easily some of the best work this side of Blizzard and perhaps even surpassing Blizz to a certain extent. Again, IMHO, the marketing campaign was far better than the eventual game, but I still go back and watch those videos every once in a while:


The Elder Scrolls Online marketing I found really strange. The videos included some nice CG work, but told a disjointed (at best) story that seemed bizarrely removed from the game. Just didn't work in so many ways, which is perhaps fitting given what a broken mess the game was in at release (though, granted much of that has since been fixed):


Lastly, there's Destiny, another game that was more than a bit of a mess at launch, but one that has managed to hold on to a gargantuan playerbase and has fixed a lot of (though, IMHO, far from all) of its issues. The live action trailers were somewhat polarizing, some people liked them and some hated them. Personally I liked them for what they were:


I still refer to The Cabal as space turtles.


For the Destiny 2 trailer they're going with all CG, presumably in part so they can include in-game characters. Personally I thought the reveal trailer was pretty meh, in large measure because I'm sick of them leaning on Cayde6 as the only character with any depth (albeit that of a parking lot puddle) and he (both the character and voice actor) gets on my nerves a tad. Problem is, if you don't know who Cayde6 or Zevala are, the reveal trailer is going to mean little or nothing to you, it was obviously firmly aimed at those already playing. I feel that's a bit of a mistake, but presumably they don't intend to continue to preach to the choir. More should be clear after the gameplay reveal on the 18th, I suppose.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Daikatana is of course a classic, but who can forget these gems?

- "Your mom will hate Dead Space 2"
- Delivering a ticking package to an Asutralian media office (Watch Dogs)
- Dante's Inferno. All of it.

Spoiler: Playstation Portable White is coming

 

[Imre Csete]

Dragon Age: Origins Warden's Quest competition was pretty fun, 10 teams having a 24 hours go at the game before release.

Seeing the game in motion helped a lot with marketing.

 

[CaitSeith]

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon.

 

[Lilani]

To this day I am extremely fond of the Portal 2 promo videos. All of them are brilliant, but the Cave Johnson ones are the perfect combination of gameplay hype and story teasing that any trailer needs. They also balance showing old gameplay elements and new ones, showing that they haven't strayed too far from the Portal formula but there is definitely a new dimension to it. And they're all just brimming with Portal's amazing humor.

They start out basic, with the panels.
So much going on in that one video. You get the introduction of Cave Johnson, the first human apart from Chell we know is associated with Aperture. The introduction of the two bots which we later learn are for the co-op mode, who are also playing cooperatively to hammer home that point. And of course the introduction of the crusher.

Then they officially introduce something entirely new: co-op.
More gameplay elements are also stashed away in this video: faith plates, and laser redirection cubes.

Then something familiar again, turrets.
Nothing new here, but pretty funny.

Then something familiar but with a fancy new look, the boots.
The "we're between banks right now, so just make those checks out to cash" line is a little hint about the state of Aperture when Cave Johnson is around, confirming the suspicions of many that Portal 2 would be exploring Aperture's history and eventual downfall.

And then some others, for giggles. The perpetual testing initiative (online test creation and sharing, and Valentine's day.

 

[Tanis]

Tru dat?!?!

 

[Casual Shinji]

The Ratchet and Clanck commercials never failed to get a good laugh out of me.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

This one speaks to me on a personal level because I'm the kind of person whose done exactly this before...well, not exactly this...It was Yoshi's Woolly World and she was hogtied and...oh shit, is this TMI?

I also really liked this one:

 

[Mcgeezaks]

The BELIEVE campaign for Halo 3 was really good, with the old UNSC soldiers talking about the battles in Halo 3, how Masterchief saved them and all this while being in a museum with weapons, vehicles and other stuff from the war that took place during Halo 3.

Also this

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I don't know if I have a favourite but the PS2 ads have stuck with me after all these years due to how bizarre they were.

Spoiler: Not really sure what their goal was to be honest.

It's what you get when you hire David Lynch to do your TV spots.

 

[Nuuu]

I'll never forget the Dead Island trailer, but i'll always forget the game.

Spoiler

Also the Kirby Air-ride commercial and slogan "If you can't beat em', eat em'." is a childhood memory I hold on to. The game was a blast too.

Spoiler

 

[Marik2]

Metal Gear Solid 5 had a good marketing campaign. Lots of good unorthodox trailers.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Halo 3's marketing campaign is the undisputed king. Between Landfall and the Believe advertisements, nothing ever really reached the same level of saturation back in the day.

That being said, Gears of War 1's Mad World commercial is still a classic.

 

[PurplePonyArcade]

I was going to say Mighty No.9 but most of you have picked better examples than that. Still Mighty No.9 commercial awfulness was great.
Though someone showed me an advert from an American magazine years ago of Gundam Battle Assault figuring a badly injured hand that really grabs your attention. I will show it here if I figure out how you upload images here for I am sadly dumb.

 

[Kerg3927]

The Witcher 3 launch trailer is way better than the game... really, really well done...

 

[Asita]

Well Myria already mentioned SWTOR and Blizzard, so I'm going to say Sony's "To Michael" Long Live Play commercial

Spoiler

And on lighter notes, we have CD Project Red's April Fools video

Spoiler

And we have EA Sports "He's just that good"

Spoiler

 

[Tanis]

I was gonna post a PSP comic...until it turned out I already had...months ago.

;