Extra Credits on EA Marketing
polycounter lvl 11
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2794-An-Open-Letter-to-EA-Marketing
Just thought this was interesting and that I should share the link. What do you guys think of the overall message?
I wasn't even aware of that ad campaign for Dante's Inferno before watching this.
Just thought this was interesting and that I should share the link. What do you guys think of the overall message?
I wasn't even aware of that ad campaign for Dante's Inferno before watching this.
Replies
Big fan of the show too.
Fuck I hate the people who make those extra credit escapist videos. They sound so douchey!
Guess what, not all advertising is targeted to game snobs!
I think his issue is also with the game itself not just the advertising!
The issue with games is that we are still all under one media umbrella, Mario Galaxy is seems the same as Dead Space 2 whilst in film and so on the media regards genres differently, Saw 4 is regarded differently to Schindler's List.
I hope the industry can continue to broaden so that pish like Dante's Inferno develops it's own niche and doesn't bring sensible and intelligent games down to it's level, but with EA at the helm that's never going to happen. I worked at EA bright Light for a while and it was the least creative place I've ever worked, they have no clue how to make interesting games and have to spend a fortune advertising crap as the games just don't stand up!
Exactly. It's painfully ironic that he rails on EA for portraying gamers as being immature and "the worst stereotype of adolescent boys," while speaking with a voice that's been digitally altered to sound like a prepubescent twelve-year-old.
I've seen a couple of these Extra Credits videos before, and while the guy is articulate and the commentary is well written, I can't get past the helium voice. I also think he has a tendency to treat the subject matter with a bit too much gravitas, as if he's covering the Libyan uprising or world food shortages. I understand you're passionate about games and aspire for them to be treated as a legitimate artistic medium, that's great, but maybe kick it down a notch or two.
I was expecting an onslaught of bad marketing mistakes, the only valid one he had was a few from the dantes inferno marketing.
I would go to say that the "your mom hates deadspace2" was extremely good in terms of marketing, people spread that link around a ton.
A little annoying.
Sometimes it just sounds like they dislike some games/designs/advertising because it hurts their "cool and intellectual" image.
Don't take stuff too seriously all the time.
and a unknown sum on PC.
It would be funny to watch EA and Activision cut their own throats if it wasn't so tragic for the people who work under them.
Freedom of expression means you don't always have to constantly seize the moral high ground. No one is asking this guy to try to keep his white robe clean while tromping through a muddy field, just stay out of the field, don't like the people tromping through the mud, don't watch, he should probably be at home ironing his socks anyway...
You don't walk into a porn shop and expect to find Shakespeare on the shelves. You may not approve but you don't need to try and goad a big publisher into always taking the high ground. The more choices in games they offer up the better. Dante didn't appeal to me so I ignored it, but I'm not going to try and force my decision on everyone else.
If people want crap and it makes money then maybe profits from the crap game will go toward something I like to play. I don't like the sims but I don't think EA should only publish games I like. That's how the publisher game works, they have a wide menu and you don't have to eat everything on it. For those of us who like variety and choices its probably a good idea to STFU when tempted to chastise big publishers for not catering to just one persons tastes.
With that said, there is some truth to what he's saying, marketing departments do aim pretty low and I would like to see them aim a bit higher more times than not. But they normally succeed in getting the name out there one way or another.
As for the fake protesters that actually came off as semi cleaver and took the wind out of the sails of future honest protesters. Nice! Take that zealot soccer moms! It also let people know, this is not Mario, this is some serious fucked up shit, if you want that kind of stuff get in line, if you don't, we'll be done with he marketing soon enough.
Now if they had marketed it as "princess pretty bubbles runs a pet beauty salon" and then stood out front of a preschool and passed out copies with scratch and sniff stickers over the rating then I guess someone could climb on a high horse and try and slay some dragons.
I don't think they threw the industry under the bus with MOH, they changed Taliban to Opposition or "bad guys". It wasn't that big of a deal unless you're a nerd looking for EA to never bend to your nerd rage.
Summary: Shut the f*ck up "Big Brother" let people make and play what they want. =P
Other than that, I don't think it was all that bad. The Dead Space 2 stuff is neither here or there, but seems to have been effective either way.
I wouldnt call it low but to the general population who have no clue about this, they would definitely freak out. The rest was pretty smart IMO based on the art direction and playing off on the content. I thought the one where they sent money to editors of gaming blogs was pretty ingenious.
Didnt the Homefront dev's hire people posed as North Koreans to march in the US?
What if a significant portion of the people who play your M rated games are teens? Is it just how it looks to the public that bothers you?
(I don't care if teens play M rated games. Especially if their parents are ok with it.)
According to the ESA, about 25% of gamers are under 18, 26% are over 50,
and majority (49%) of the market is between 18 and 49 years old.
http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_Essential_Facts_2010.PDF
I agree. What does it matter if parents allow their teens to play M rated games. That's their choice. I don't think the government should be legislating morality or playing the parental role. The industry does a good job of putting information out there, but the parents have to take an active role in their child's gaming interests if they care what their kid plays.
So personally, I roll my eye's at EA's marketing tactics. But honestly, are we going to start being critical of what content the industry puts out because someone finds it disagreeable? If that mentality ruled, we would have nothing but Mario Bros., Pokemon, and Farmville (I'm exaggerating, but you get the picture).
The problem is that it is against the ESRB, and most people would consider it unethical.
http://www.esrb.org/ratings/principles_guidelines.jsp
That may be, but this is a really gray area we're talking about here and it would have to be pretty blatant for anyone to reasonably claim that they are marketing outside of the given rating. There's a lot of overlap when you compare mature to teen appropriate content.
It's pretty black and white for anyone with an agenda.
This is my bet, considering over 50% of the games 18-25 year old target audience still lives at home.
Yeah, you can look back on EAs history and lament that they're not the same company that they used to be, but take a look at most publicly traded companies in the US and I'd bet you'd find similar traits. Bottom lines and shareholders probably have a lot more to do with the situation than the poor guy whose email box they're blowing up right now.
On another note, it's funny to read the endless comments on that page about 'Email it to EA!', do they think that game developers are completely oblivious to the outside world or something? I can almost guarantee that the video has made the rounds at EA already.
The public has a poor view of video games, they think every ten year old boy is going to play bulletstorm and shoot up a school, I wouldn't mind games trying to be a bit more mature and meaningful.
I'm just saying it doesn't help games look good when EA does some of the crap it does, I was really disappointed when EA renamed the Taliban just to please a few loud silly people.
The public also thinks being gay is a sin and 90% of Muslims are terrorists. Fuck those guys. So, I guess I agree with your last statement?
The overarching theme of the Extra Credits series is that games can be more than what they are now and they we as game developers should strive to move the medium forward. I think people are missing the point of this particular episode. While they single out EA as a scapegoat, the point is not specifically about one studio, but about how the industry as a whole would be far better off if it could move beyond the kinds of base, immature themes into something with some more cultural merit, for perhaps want of a better term. I'm inclined to agree and I would hope others would too.
People always sight that "games are a new medium and that they'll eventually evolve into something more relevant", but if people are inclined to reject this type of academic discussion without consideration then I think the evolution is going be significantly slower.
I know a lot of these academic types can come off as extremely naive at best and extremely annoying at worst, but I think there is much that can come from bringing these sorts of topics to the table for dissemination.
I think there's probably another thread to be made here, tied in with the concerns that Zwebbie raised in the 7-Way Scuffle thread recently.
'You innelecshuals! Not everything needs to be highbrow you know'
How can you disagree with this video, honestly? You thought what they did with the Dante's license was a good use of it? It was just an unrelated, mediocre shooter that anyone who actually knew the original wouldn't be drawn to. The marketing was aimed at 7-year olds, and almost everything was to create a buzz around a title that left nearly everyone yawning. Sure, you could counter 'that's business', but as a large company with plenty of income, that seems like an overly desperate tactic, certainly if you consider how many titles never see the light of day because they failed to impress the publisher.
And then the Dead Space 2 stuff... did that really accurately portray the game, do you think? Is this a modern-day carmageddon? Because that's not what it felt like to me. It sells the game as being 'shocking for shock's sake', which it never was in my eyes.
Not to mention just how juvenile it all was.
The part that bugs me is that he seems to be making a call on EA to always raise above and only put out edutainment. I guess if you're a little guy trying to get a giant to take a step in a direction it doesn't feel comfortable with, you have to shove it pretty hard hoping it will lift a toe. Still, I think a bit more balanced realization that not all games must take the high road.
It's also interesting that they choose to take on an older game that has pretty much dropped off the radar and choose to ignore Bulletstorm, wonder why that is?
Plus his voice or choice of modulation bugs the shit out of me... heh
The same goes for other games, such as Dragon Age. They weren't bad enough to grab headlines, but they did portray the game as being quite juvenile. Formulaic rock, a focus on the blood, awful oneliners... it had me quite worried the game was going to be terrible, really.
Anyway, why they choose to discuss this in Kyle Broflovski's voice I don't know. Unless that really is the man's voice of course, in which case it's fine. I can get over it, mostly because I agreed with the content so much.
Let's not start slinging mud in what has so far been a civil discussion.
Let me preface this by saying I haven't played Dead Space or Dante's Inferno for more than maybe a few minutes, they're just not my type of game. Do I think the use of the Dante's IP was squandered? I don't know, maybe it could have made an interesting artsy game, but that's not really the business EA is in. I was working on another team at EA when Dante's was in pre-production and I wasn't really a big fan of the concept.
Visceral Games shtick is that they make controversial violent games and it appears that there is a segment of the market that is willing to buy them since sales have grown steadily with each game. The marketing of their titles has also been on the controversial side intentionally and is likely supported by focus testing and sales statistics. So EA is supposed to drop this because of some group of gamers thinks it makes them look bad? EA is a publicly owned company, that means that they have shareholders to report to, what are they supposed to say? 'Well, we had increasing sales, but it upset some people, so we decided to make an art game instead.'
The video claims the game is marketed to kids and you claim 'The marketing was aimed at 7-year olds', really? What time slots do the ads air in and on what channels? The videos are age locked on the website and on Youtube. On top of this, kids are STILL going to need an adult to buy them the game. Just because the commercial has moms in it doesn't mean it's being targeted at kids, as I mentioned earlier, over 50% of the games target audience still live at home. My girlfriend also brought up an interesting point that parents that have seen the commercials might actually be less likely to buy their kids the game.
The video also claims lackluster sales of MoH, around the 2m mark, yet other statistics say 5m+, that's a pretty large gap. The whole,'We support this free speech, but not that free speech, because it offends us.' argument seems a bit silly.
The video then goes on a nostalgia trip about how far EA has 'fallen'. EA is a very different company now than they were in 1980 and the business climate has also changed pretty drastically, not to mention most of the people that founded the company are no longer there. Do they always make decisions I would approve of? Hell no, otherwise I'd have benefits and salary, but I understand that there are reasons that things are the way they are. Do they need to change? Yes, I'd like to see some things change, like more innovation and less outsourcing.
Basically what I'm getting at is if you don't like the game or the advertising, vote with your dollar and don't buy it. Overall, I think this video is important, as it show gamers coming together to voice their opinion to a large developer and maybe it will change some things for the better (maybe they could make a video about hiring more full time developers next). However, people do also have different tastes and I don't think EA necessarily needs to be blasted for catering to a niche of the market that does like what they're doing.
Oy.. sorry for the excessive text, I'm just a sucker for a debate. If I come off as 'heated' or a jerk, I don't mean to, I think that these discussions and opinions are actually very important to the industry. Oh and they really should have fact checked their stuff before putting it into the video.
The problem is that the game and its marketing are two very different things, which is something to consider about this whole argument. I'd bet good money that EA had little to do with the writing or production of those campaigns; they're usually outsourced to ad agencies, and only OK'd or vetoed by the client. Point is, it's quite likely that no one that had anything to do with making any of those games had any input about how it was presented to the public. Game =/= Marketing.
Another thing to consider is how close we all are to this. By the very nature of membership here, we're either enthusiasts or professionals, and know all too much about the ins and outs of these companies. It's easy for us to say 'oh, that's just EA doing such and such' or 'whatever, it's from Studio X, I'm totally getting it', and forget that the general public has no idea about any of that. All they see are the commercials, the banner ads, the marketing campaign. The name Electronic Arts doesn't mean anything to them. They don't know about layoffs, EA wives, or the studios under their banner, they just know that the 30 second spot they watched completely insulted their intelligence (or didn't...whatever the case).
I'm not pulling for the bourgeois higher ground, but if video games are ever going to rise about kiddie toys and sweaty dudes in their parent's basement, having them sold to the general public as overly violent shitstorms of debauchery ain't helping matters. Conversely, just a little restraint in marketing might do wonders.