Visceral Proves Your Mom Hates Dead Space 2

[Therumancer]

When my mom saw me playing Dead Space she asked me if the poor disfigured people in the game could be cured of their terrible condition, rather than being shot. I was left speechless. My mom is awesome.

While contrary to my other posts, my response probably would have been able to say:

"No, no, they are totally corrupted by the evil space demons. Only the church of Unitology is our salvation, see the glowing script on the armor I downloaded? That protects me!"

Then after saying "Unitology" due to the similarity of the name to scientology I'd make some "innocent" inquiries about Tom Cruise, what she thinks he's up to, and whether or not you could go meet him at his church.

If you got her to do a double-take before realizing it's a joke, you did it right.

The monsters might be the ugly part of the game, but I think the creepiest part is actually that the good guys seem to be a group of ancient-alien worshipping cultists who see the artifact involved as a pseudo-divinity (and in a twist, it is sort of the hero of the piece in a lot of ways in both the game and the animation, being what was holding the evil in check).

 

[Wintermoot]

pretty cool ad campaign I wont buy it (I,m easily scared) but still good idea
but I,m also dissapointed that there are still people that are so close minded about games

 

[Jorias]

I know by now this has already been said, but just in case...this is a commercial released by Sony now, and a damn funny one to boot!

 

[TheAceTheOne]

You'll be able to make your own mother think you're a possessed devil worshipper...

Given my tendencies to listen to heavy metal and occasionally doodle stuff you might find on the album covers, in addition to my (occasionally dark) writing and my antisociality, I think she already thinks I am.

OT: Videogames and mothers have never gone hand-in-hand, from my viewpoint. Either way, I will still play Dead Space 2. And I most likely will scream like a baby when something tries to eat my head. And I'll love every minute of it.

 

[Theesacpee90]

I have been waiting for this game to come out for awhile now, and I love these video! lol Going to have to give this game a go on the Move as well.

 

[ShadowKirby]

pretty cool ad campaign I wont buy it (I,m easily scared) but still good idea
but I,m also dissapointed that there are still people that are so close minded about games

Yes, how dare they not like a spectacle of gore without any context given to them. How close minded of them.

 

[solidstatemind]

Understand something else, it doesn't much matter if it's a gag promotion or not given what's going on right now on this front.

As far as guys doing the marketing knowing what they are doing, one would normally think that, but as sites like "TV Tropes" show, these guys do misfire horribly. This is one of those ads where if you look at the political situation, it's not hard to say "WTF were they thinking".

What's more, while this is intended to entertain people, the article from The Escapist here says that this was a real "gag", as opposed to actors paid to pretend they were upset moms (which would normally have been my thought). At a time when the industry is trying to make a point about itself, it's behavior, and similar things launching a campaign like this and punking a bunch of middle aged mothers seems counter productive. The message here seems to be "this game is awesome, your parents won't let you play it, but you should get it anyway!". At a time when the industry is pushing for parents to regulate their kid's gaming as opposed to the goverment, a message seeming to say "disobeying and freaking out your parents is cool" is hardly a good idea from an industry trying to sell it's professionalism.

Hrm. You've actually been around longer than me, Therumancer; but in this situation, I'm going to have to respectfully disagree.

It is not a marketing team's job to sample the political currents-- PERHAPS that might make an impact on their campaign, but I assure you: the bosses aren't really going to care about the theoretical 'fallout' due to political issues that might be on the table for the current Supreme Court docket: they are only interested in what will generate numbers. If it helps to think of them as being blind creatures only feeding on marketing numbers, then knock yourself out-- that's probably pretty close to the truth.

Secondly, while it might not be be to the industry's best interests that this sort of marketing gimmick was pursued, guess what? I doubt very seriously that the EA marketroids care about what is 'best for the industry'! Just like the Blizz/Activision marketing folk don't take that into account. Nor the Epic marketing gurus, nor the Konami employees responsible for marketing...

The point here is this: do NOT expect the people responsible for trying to drive revenues and profits to do 'the responsible thing'. Honestly, if that were a consideration in their minds, there would be no such thing as Porno.

 

[Plurralbles]

I just saw this ad on television.
FUCK THAT FUCKING COMPANY.

Fuck them to hell.

Just making gratuitous violence for the, "OMG" factor from people is exactly what SAW does.

Wait... if it is just like what SAW does, then I actually have decided to support this game. I mean... if that stupid movie can be protected, games can definitely be protected.

 

[Dfskelleton]

I love you Visceral. That was hilarious. I had a few doubts on Dead Space 2, but this was so funny and awesome that my worries were put to rest. Thank you.
They just jelly 'cause they aren't awesome enough to stomp on space babies.

 

[Exile714]

This campaign makes me less likely to buy Dead Space 2. I thought Dead Space was alright, somewhat atmospheric if a little cliched, and not quite scary so much as jumpy. But I still liked it.

So, my expectations for Dead Space 2 are: keep the atmosphere, purge the cliches, make the story as psychologically satisfying and maybe even get some real scary in there. And what do they advertise? Blood, vomit, flamethrowers and jetpacks. That's like asking an eight year old how to make the original Terminator film better. "Um. More explosions, more robots, less talking and boobies!" Sure, it sounds good at first, but it would make a terrible movie wouldn't it?

 

[mr_rubino]

Aw, I still remember when we were getting this kind of advertising back in the 90s to advertise all manner of edgy, violent, and totally radical game-play experiences. I wonder why it fell out of favor...

 

[Wintermoot]

pretty cool ad campaign I wont buy it (I,m easily scared) but still good idea
but I,m also dissapointed that there are still people that are so close minded about games

Yes, how dare they not like a spectacle of gore without any context given to them. How close minded of them.

one of the mom,s called it a demonic weapon or something and the other "not a game" that,s pretty close minded (IMHO)

 

[FluffyJones26]

I love Dead Space and I am dying to get my hands on Dead Space 2 when it comes out on the 25th. BUT as a person who wants to see games be elevated to the level of art rather than toys, I hate this approach to advertising the game. I am a huge fan of the "Extra Credits" show on here and I highly suggest all the episodes. I feel that the gaming industry is already looked upon as bad, extremely violent, and corrupt and with commercials like this who blames them! The company took mothers who 1. Don't play video games 2.Seem to be mothers of younger children and last but not least 3. Don't understand video games as an art form like they think of film and books. Then they go on to show the most VIOLENT and EXPLICIT content possible, not the most IMPORTANT parts of the game just the violent ones.
This Commercial also hints that they are targeting children even though it is an M rated game. It makes the game industry look like it's TRYING to get around the rating system and target an audience that shouldn't be playing the game in the first place. Visceral games makes it seem like kids should be playing these games and that their mothers are the ones who are wrong. I'm sorry but if I was a father and I was shown gruesome clips of a game,movie, or graphic novel that I had no idea about and then was asked if I would let my 7 year old son Link play it, fuck no.
Dead Space is an adult game and the real target audience doesn't care about what their mum has to say about it. This puts a blemish on everything video games are trying to achieve in our culture. Can you blame our legislators for wanting to make laws against stuff like this? It made my heart sink when I saw this commercial on t.v. for the first time last night. I can't fathom how one company who makes quite a good story and aesthetically pleasing game could degrade video games to "You blow dead infected peoples limbs off!"...(spoiler alert not needed) I get why some people here support this because it's funny, I'm not saying it isn't but you have to think of the state of the video game industry before you do something like this. This is the kind of thing that makes gamers look immature, like they get off on killing things, and ultimately I think we'll see a drop in sales of M rated games if not all games as a result.

 

[beefpelican]

Am I the only one who would feel immature playing this game now? Like I'm just doing it to spite my parents? It makes me feel like some preteen who tries to be edgy just to get a rise out of people.

Yeah, it seemed like kind of a dick move on Visceral's part. Imagine telling all of these women afterwards "We don't actually care what you think, we think you are stupid and your opinions are stupid." I understand many game devs are bitter about the whole video games cause violence thing, but still.

You do know that those women are actors right?

Even so, it's not advertising by pointing out good things about their games. Its advertising by pointing out things they dislike about people who don't play their games. And that's silly.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

This video is actually quite funny.What mother in their right mind would go "Oh that's a great and visceral game you got there.I'm definitely recommending this to my son!".

The answer to this was so predictable is a bit sad

 

[Kenko]

Wow, americans never cease to amaze me. America, you're mothers are lame. The fact that they dont realise its a game for ADULTS and not CHILDREN. Say's more about their collective intelligence then it does about mine after my previous statement.

 

[Fenra]

I took the whole thing very lightheartedly (highly doubt it was real for a start), so cant say I'm having the reaction a lot of people in here seem to be. Valid points in some cases about making games seem immature and what not but all in all I dont see this as being a nail in the gaming coffin

What I did take away from it is... well visceral, if you ever wanted a quote for the back of your game box:

"its not a game... its a mind numbing, mind altering, demonic weapon." <-- that'll do it, should shift a few more units

 

[SmokingMirrors]

Despite finding this immensely amusing I consider it wasted on something like Dead Space 2... and before anyone makes any assumptions and decides to start sharpening their farm implements for use on my face, allow me to preemptively state that I did in fact enjoy its predecessor.

But not quite enough to give me an incentive to ignore this particular pet peeve of mine and forgive it for the sin it has committed.

 

[DanDeFool]

And that's a group of moms that won't be buying Dead Space 2 for their 13 year olds. See? Well-educated parents are more than capable of keeping their children from potentially harmful violent video games.

Game-banning legislation just got kicked in the junk.