Marketing Effect 3

Shamus Young

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Marketing Effect 3

The portrayal of Mass Effect 3 in EA's marketing doesn't match the game.

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Apr 28, 2008
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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.
 

Mortakk

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Apr 8, 2009
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"In the not too distant future" always makes me sing the MST3K theme in my head.

I find it odd that they advertise the DLC guns like that, though. Not that I'm a marketing expert, but I wonder if they were attempting to get people to see that they added more selection in ME3 than was in ME2, which honestly was one of my biggest problems with the game... that and the fact that Garrus never fixed that giant hole in his armor (and that you couldn't upgrade anyone else's armor except cosmetically). If so, they chose a weird way to go about it.
 

AJax_21

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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 actually found Halo's trailers much more effective and emotional than the entire ME3 marketing. The entire marketing campaign have been awful from the start.

Also, I'm turning "We eat or we starve!" into my new daily catchphrase.
 

Soviet Heavy

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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.
The difference being that the dialogue from the trailer matches the Halo franchise far better.
 

Alpha Maeko

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Apr 14, 2010
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I understand why it bothers you, but personally I found it to be at least chuckle-worthy.
 

Wolfram23

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I think the problem here is pretty obvious. Developers made a game you find to be very deep.

Marketing wants to sell lots of shit. They probably don't know anything about the game. They just want to appeal to the populace, and when CoD is breaking all sales records then of course they want to make it sound like "super shooter awesomesauce" in the hopes that those shooter junkies will pick it up and make them bajillions of dollars.
 

Albino Boo

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Shamus Young said:
Mass Effect 3 takes place around 2186-ish. So, over a century and a half from now. I don't think even an Asari would call that "near future".

Depends on your point of view, looking at your photo you are about the same age as me. So the odds are that you have known someone who knew someone who was alive 150 years ago. In my case, it was my grandfather who knew his grandfather. 150 years isn't that far away, its just about twice for the average life expectancy for a someone living in a developed county. Personally, I can have reasonable expectations of being alive in 2050 and the odds are someone reading this post could make it to 2100.
 

paronomasiac

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Nov 15, 2010
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At the risk of shilling for another website: http://tinyurl.com/7tjy2hh For those who don't want to (or can't) follow that link, it enumerates the primary problem with Mass Effect 3 DLC: to get all possible DLC for the game requires an investment of approximately $860. As well, nearly all of that is for peripherals or inconsequential fumetti that happens to come with a new and different gun for Commander Shepard to use.

I understand marketing tie-ins and pre-order bonuses. I don't necessarily agree with that manner of "incentive," but I do understand. But this price tag is completely ludicrous. I cannot fathom how it was deemed a good idea to release so much of the game piecemeal over so many unrelated products.
 
Feb 13, 2008
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Shamus Young said:
It's the one thing that makes Mass Effect stand out from a lot of other games about a dude in body armor, lugging an assault rifle through a showcase of chest-high walls.
And there's the problem. Standing out makes it unmarketable in a market designed for yearly releases. The market relies on familiarity now because its main focus is on those who decry critical reasoning.

It's a sequel - so you already know you like it. It's like a re-imagining. Nice and safe.

Why do you think they held back on Femshep for so long? And then made her into Samas Aran. People might think it's a new series; and change scares them. They need a name they can trust, that won't let them down, that will be released on the Friday closest to Easter every year, where the main hero comes back from the dead and shephards humanity before...

Hold on...
 

aaron552

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paronomasiac said:
to get all possible DLC for the game requires an investment of approximately $860.
The vast majority of the extra content seems to be "Collector Assault Rifle unlock DLC/Powerup" over and over again. I'm sceptical that it will be possible to upgrade the Collector Assault Rifle 7 times using DLC codes.

And then there's 3 retailer-specific guns. They will almost certainly be the equivalent of the Incisor sniper rifle (preorder bonus) from Mass Effect 2, relatively useless and replaced fairly quickly.

As for the rest, it appears to be largely multiplayer-only and, based on what I've seen of multiplayer, likely either cosmetic or possible to be obtained (or superseded by other gear) by playing the game.

I still don't like retailer-exclusive DLC (or any preorder DLC) but it's not as bad as it looks at first glance.
 

paronomasiac

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Oh, I don't mean to imply that anything beyond the $10 'From Dust' is integral to the complete game experience, or even useful to players. My complaint is that it exists at all. I can't think of another game that, even considering multiple pre-order bonuses and collectors editions, came anywhere near that incomprehensible price tag.
 

Zhukov

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Dec 29, 2009
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Shamus Young said:
Why was so much rage aimed at Portal 2, and so little aimed at Mass Effect 3?
Wait, what?

You, uh.... you don't spend much time on forums, do you?

There's been a lot of rage.
 

Fr]anc[is

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Congrats, it took you 2 pages to explain that a Gamestop commercial is terrible. Anyone could have said that. And this next thing I say without sarcasm since you seem to be trying to avoid spoilers. People ARE pissed at ME3. Very very pissed. Portal 2 was nothing.
 

Nimcha

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Sheesh, it's just a 30 second commercial that's meant to be funny. It's just a punchline, the actual dialogue doesn't matter at all. The vast majority of people watching will have a reaction to the reveal of Garrus being the voice over, and not pay attention at all to what he actually says.

That's not bad marketing.
 

Knight Templar

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Shamus Young said:
Why was so much rage aimed at Portal 2, and so little aimed at Mass Effect 3?
Wiat, there isn't tones of rage being leveled at ME3? When did it all drop away, is it noew hidden somewhere?

On a more serious note, this isn't overly new for EA. Remember the marketing for DA:O? Remember how most of it was a decent representation of the game? No you don't because the marketing had very little in common with the game. They used the tagline from a song "This is the new shit" to market a return to older styled RPG's.
 

MasterSplinter

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Well regarding the trailers, I just think it's a way to expand the playerbase. Let's say you've got a fan of the first 2 games, did all the side quests, talked to all the characters and actually thought and weighted the outcome of every answer in conversations. THAT dude (or dudette) is the person that would jizz in it's pants with a "well written" trailer. The thing is, that person has already been marketed to, throughout two entire games. He/she will buy ME3, the trailer makes no difference to him/her.

Now, you have to assume any person that doesn't live under a rock and wasn't born yesterday has heard of the mass effect series and decided he/she didn't care about it. Maybe that person likes more action packed, testosterone oozing, one liner spouting explosion fests. And that's OK. But it is also an untapped audience.

If you have a finite amount of money to make the most amount of costumers, do you market to the people that will already buy the game or the others?

This is still a business, and this ain't no assassins creed. Maybe people would buy an ME4 but I'd wager the cost/benefit to even try to milk this cow dry isn't worth it. They probably have to make the most bang for their buck this time.


PD:
Also that last trailer isn't so bad, i mean, the few seconds that we see Destiny Ascension coming to help earth leaves you thinking just how somebody convinced the asari to risk their flagship to help the poor earthlings. And that's more thinking that most seconds have any right to produce.
 

Moosejaw

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Oct 11, 2010
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If you aren't finding any rage about EA's marketing on ME3, you have clearly been looking in the wrong places.