Marketing Effect 3

marscentral

Where's the Kaboom?
Dec 26, 2009
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Marketing people are almost universally soulless monsters with little to no idea of the product they're trying to promote or their customers'tastes. That's why soooo many adverts are annoying, some to the point that you actively avoid the product in question or deliberately choose their competitors.
 

TitanAtlas

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Oct 14, 2010
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The trailers of mass effect 3... are kinda boring...

They all try to grab the idea of 1 man that is going to save the universes... what about the other soldiers that sacrifice theyre lives in-battle? Aren't they worth anything in this process?

If they told me there would be a man that would lead humanity into salvation i would be better... but no... 1 man to save everything and everyone...

Action movie cliché, and then everyone is depending on him, giant space battles.... all so very cliché and now boring...

I expect a lot from the game i do (even if it's on EA's hands... and i really hate EA), but the trailers... they are really crappy...
 

Andrew_C

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Mar 1, 2011
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I think Shamus is overreacting, but I totally understand where he is coming from.

This video is just plain awful. It's trying to so hard to be funny and ironic it's just painful to watch. And it's selling preorder DLC. That just makes it worse.

The fact that all Gamestop ads are are terrible or that its trying to be funny arre no excuse. It's indefensible. But Shamus could have picked any of the ME3 ads and trailers to rant about, they range from bad to terrible.

Saying that the ads are aimed at the shooter crowd doesn't excuse them either. Why should we have lower expectation for a marketing campaign because of that? Are you really saying shooter fans wouldn't understand anything better?
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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Chevalier noir said:
Zachary Amaranth said:
This became a gears clone last iteration. Why are people still surprised they're focusing on chest-high walls?
That is being a little mean, the series definitely lost me at the second game though.
It's slightly hyperbolic, but not particularly mean.
 

michael87cn

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Jan 12, 2011
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Unfortunately the game exists to make a corporation money - its important to keep this perceptive in mind always . . . that way you can take everything they do with an "oh, yeah, that's why".

Also, I'm pretty sure developers and the other people that work very hard to make a good game get pissed off just the same, when marketing does stuff like this, but, its important to "get the game out there" and that's what they're trying to do.

It's entirely possible to ignore the trailers and just enjoy the game when it arrives.

Also... as to complaining about their referencing to Shepard being only male -- think about how difficult it would be to make a GOOD trailer that blurts out rather breaking the 4th wall a bit saying "Or if you're a girl :3 teehee!" okay, I was kidding but you get the point? You can't just add a backslash after man and say "save the universe as a man/woman!" the point is, they know that most (not all, but most) of their target audience are male. It's just simple business practice at work.

In any case . . . blah? :(
 

vrbtny

Elite Member
Sep 16, 2009
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Irridium said:
Pretty much all the trailers are weak. All they seem to focus on are the combat and Shepard being badass or whatever. It's like a crappier version of Halo's marketing.
I know what you mean. Mass Effect 3 has had dozens of trailers and hype video released for it, all about how it's the end of the world, the reapers are here, blah blah blah

All of it combined has had less effect than that one Cortana line "This is how the world ends."

It kind cuts out all that pretentious hero speech bullshit and states plainly. "IT'S THE END OF THE WHOLE FUCKING UNIVERSE!!!!"
 

Zenode

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Jan 21, 2009
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In my opinion, this is just REALLY REALLY bad nitpicking and being really over the top harsh against Bioware/EA.

Its a trailer to MARKET the game, go on have a crack at Modern Warfare 3's marketing about how stupid it is.
 

Moonlight Butterfly

Be the Leaf
Mar 16, 2011
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I agree completely look at what marketing did to Lara Croft...

Nothing sexual at all about the game, shes a competent Indiana Jones like figure, smart athletic, does everything herself. She's a decent role model for girls.

All the marketing goes on about is her boobs.

Good game.
 

Dhatz

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Aug 18, 2009
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Being the best of the bad doesnt make it great, only successful. I wish I didnt have so many resons to increment my disgust with each sequel.
xXxJessicaxXx said:
I agree completely look at what marketing did to Lara Croft...

Nothing sexual at all about the game, shes a competent Indiana Jones like figure, smart athletic, does everything herself. She's a decent role model for girls.

All the marketing goes on about is her boobs.

Good game.
And the best that happened to LC is being combined with Indiana Jones to form Daring Do(but not officially).
 

Littaly

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Jun 26, 2008
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This is the main reason I've cooled down on the Mass Effect franchise over the years. It seems as if they're pushing it as less of a sci-fi space opera RPG, and more as Call of Duty in space. Which is probably going to appeal more to some people, but it appeals a lot less to me. Shamus seems to assume that it's just the way they're marketing it, which is sad in it's own right, but I'm concerned for what's actually going to be in the game.

Sure, Mass Effect was always sort of militaristic, but at its core it felt like something more. Mass Effect 2 definitely felt like it had less substance in favor of more big words and militaristic glory, I hope to god Mass Effect 3 doesn't push it further :-/

I don't know, I'm still gonna buy it, so maybe I should just shut my mouth and withhold judgment until I've actually played the game >,<
 

Zom-B

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Feb 8, 2011
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Whelp.... honestly, without trying to be a troll, I don't see what the hoopla is over these games. I should start off by mentioning that I've only played the demos for ME2 and ME3. I might still be inclined to play ME2 now that it should be really cheap, and I don't have an Xbox to play the original on.

Anyway, nothing about the demos has made me say "Oh shit, I gotta get this game." In fact, as I was playing the ME3 demo last night, I was at turns laughing and at others overly focussed on the ridiculously sour expression on my female Shepherd's mouth. She had this permanent downturned frogmouth frown thing going on. Speaking of female Shepherd, I didn't count, but I felt like aside from the buzz cut look and the chin bob, all of her hairstyles were a variation on the ponytail. Boring.

I was laughing, because watching Shepherd and Anderson run during the demo was absolutely ridiculous. I don't know if Bioware used mocap or just winged it with the animations, but watching Anderson sprint with his back ramrod straight, arms and legs pumping like some weird robot... I was giggling uncontrollably.

I think the ME franchise probably has a lot to offer, and a lot to offer me, a big sci fi fan, but unfortunately I think that the hype machine surrounding the franchise really pushes me away. When we get guys writing article like this: http://io9.com/5886178/why-mass-effect-is-the-most-important-science-fiction-universe-of-our-generation, I cringe a little bit.

I'll probably pick up ME2 one of these days, after I'm done Skyrim, Yakuza 4, finally finish Demon's Souls (finished Dark, but Demon's seems way harder) and a couple other games. Hopefully by then I can grab ME2 and see what all the fuss is actually about. And maybe by then the marketing machine will have died down and I can enjoy it without being inundated with ads to buy DLC and pre-order on PSN and join up with Origin.
 

VoidWanderer

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Sep 17, 2011
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Since when have EA done good advertising?

And isn't that their entire marketing campaign? "Let's piss people off and get word-of-mouth advertisement with Internet Fury, and if we're really lucky, Prime Time TV slots in the news."

As depressing as this makes me, it is effective because of threads like these, so I applaud the irony of people getting their panties in a bunch and helping EA.

Well done, guys. Bravo
 

Invariel

The Wizard That Did It
Apr 10, 2009
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The real problem with this marketing campaign is that it is furthering what is easily the worst "innovation" in video games ever.

The idea of multiple, different, pieces of DLC offered to different types of people for (pre-)ordering at different retailers. It is a slap in the face to 100% completionists, the pieces of DLC aren't just different skins for the same basic thing, and if you don't have a particular retailer in your area, or you live in entirely the wrong country, you can easily miss out on the thing you actually do want.

Day one DLC is already a terrible thing (when that content is included on the printed disc and you are getting/buying an unlock code), and splitting up your potential day one content amongst different sources of revenue is only making things worse.
 

honestdiscussioner

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Jul 17, 2010
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I wish I could say I'm surprised to see Shamus screw up again with something Mass Effect related, but I'm not. When he criticized [a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/experienced-points/8868-What-s-Wrong-with-Mass-Effect-2"]a lot of supposed plot holes in ME2[/a], I felt the need to [a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/6.283688.11167963"]correct his misunderstandings[/a], and now it seems I have to do it again.

He has two main points "They make Shepard sounds like someone who isn't Shepard but rather some lunk-head", and "the DLC sucks, look at how bad this commercial is".

His first point is reminiscent of his earlier problems criticizing ME2: He doesn't immediately get it so there is no way it actually could make sense. He seems to be forgetting the part about the Reapers being scary as hell. No single force in the Universe stands a chance against them. People may attempt to flee such a situation, and it must be made clear that running away isn't an option. The Protheans tried that and the best they could do was allow a small handful to survive, a number so small that they didn't have enough genetic diversity to continue breeding.

Thus, Shepard must convince everyone that the choice is between fighting and having a chance of survival, or dying. This is actually a rather old philosophy going back to Japanese Bushido: "If a warrior goes into battle with the knowledge that he will die?then he will not. If he is unsure?he will surely die?. This is something Shepard echoed even more closely in the latest trailer [a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/116120-Mass-Effect-3-Launch-Trailer-Redefines-Epic"]here[/a], when he says "Each of you needs to be willing to die. Anything less, and you're already dead." There are times when such a line would be over the top, but with what they are facing it is entirely appropriate.

The other point is his diatribe against the EA commercial. Now it does seem to be a pretty stupid commercial, but his beef here is with EA, and this seems to be a trailer for Gamestop to encourage people to get it there rather than Amazon. It's also unfair to use this clip as something that is supposed to represent EA marketing with ME3 overall. Most of the video clips I've seen, and I've seen plenty, have been quite excellent. Shamus even admits to this in the beginning. What he has done is take the worst example and tried to paint the entire campaign with the same brush.

Now the commercial is about pre-order DLC, so he also attacks that. The fact that EA is offering the pre-order DLC is not the same as the marketing for said DLC. You can appreciate the marketing for something you hate, like my appreciation of the Bud Lite commercial where the [a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bmotlurx0EM"]guy jumps out of the plane to get his beer[/a], or you can appreciate the product and hate the marketing. Thus, I'll leave whether EA should be doing the DLC for another time.

Shamus has this problem with the marketing specifically:

Shamus Young said:
"We've got this awful dissonance where the "Take Back Earth" trailer tries to sell us on this universe of loss and hopeless odds, and then we've got other commercials telling customers the game is all about "LOL Gunz!!!"
Yes, it's almost as if EA is trying to market to multiple groups and its primary concern is not what you alone might want. The truth is, the game has both of these things. These things will appeal to two different groups. People will play for the story, people will play for the guns, and others will appreciate both. This isn't "dissonance", its a nuanced approach to marketing that widens the market as much as possible. People who only want a good gun game might actually start appreciating deep and engaging story, but may never had tried it out because they assumed they only liked games with lots of guns and explosions.

Shamus, the marketing isn't saying it's big, dumb, and loud. They are saying "Hey, if you like story, holy *#!% is there an awesome story. Oh, you want intense military action? Holy $#!*ing %*#! is there some awesome action in this game". Please, start looking beyond your immediate first impressions.
 

370999

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May 17, 2010
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Isn't everyone in the gaming world already aware of Mass effect, I've never played the games but I know who the Reapers are, what a Qunarian is, that Miranda has an ass, the people have a disturbing fetish for an incredibly ill space jew/gypsy and her sweat, etc.

So isn't the point of the advert to appeal to people outside that demographic and get them to play (and more importantly buy) the game?