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Let's respect the craftsmanship of a good marketing campaign

Haunted

Haunted

Member
I usually find the celebration of trailers and other gaming marketing materials fairly tasteless. Fucking anyone can fast-cut game footage and lay some generic dubstep over it and the kids just eat that shit up. But sometimes, you just have to give credit where credit is due. There's real creativity and craftsmanship to be found in a good marketing campaign.


What made me create this thread? Years later, and TF2's Meet The Team videos are still some of the best marketing videos out there.

"Some people think they can outsmart me. Maybe. Maybe. I've yet to meet one that can outsmart bullet."

"Professionals have standards. Be polite. Be efficient. Have a plan to kill everyone you meet."

"I'm an engineer. That means I solve problems."

"Boink!"

"What makes me a good demoman? If I were a bad demoman I wouldn't be sittin' here discussing it with you, NOW WOULD I?"

"If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight!"

"*ahem* Gentlemen."

"Now, let's go practice medicine."

"Hahahahahahaha!"

The writing, the musical cues, the animation - just top notch.

What are some of your favourites?

Some ground rules:

1) no generic trailers
2) no embarrassingly sexist magazine full-page ads from the 90s
3) no upcoming games you're excited about - the ideas should already have stood the test of time

Let's highlight some of the clever and outstanding ideas people have come up with over the years in order to sell us their games.
 
T

Toxi

Banned
Those Meet the Team videos are still comedy gold mines.

"Not a 'crazed gunman', dad, I'm an assassin! ...Well, the difference bein' one is a job and the other's a mental sickness!"
 
T

Tall4Life

Member
The Nuclear trailer from MGS V, of course. That trailer sold a version of the game that was never fully realized, sadly.
 
M

MattyG

Banned
I really love Wolfenstein: The New Order's marketing. It had a super consistent look (red and black color scheme, very clean, almost in-universe looking). The trailers had "real" footage of the alternate history 60s, most of which was really well done, and they were backed by real hit songs that were reimagined as if they had been written under the rule a Nazi world order. They even created a fake record label for these songs.

It was fantastic, and really sold you on the alternate historical setting before the game even came out. (I'd post links, but I'm on mobile.)
 
X

XANDER CAGE

Member
Ein Bear said:
Halo 3 had a fantastic marketing campaign. The Believe ads with the dioramas were amazing.
Click to expand...

I always felt those were a little saccharine. They really didn't fit the game at all, especially the Chopin one.

Ilovebees was a cool Halo marketing thing, though. Cool way to get fans involved in some of the fiction.
 
S

slavesnyder

Member
kevin-butler.jpg

Kevin Butler
 
S

soultron

Banned
Wolfenstein: The New Order (2014) had a fantastic marketing campaign, IMO.

The trailers were clever. They had amazing graphic and motiongraphic design. Bethesda & Machinegames even went so far as inventing a Nazi record company (Neumond Recordings) that reimagined many English-speaking hit songs from the '40s and beyond, but this time in German. This fed into the alternate history angle the game's plot took, wherein the Nazis won WWII and took over the world.

EDIT: beaten by MattyG like the Nazis in Wolf TNO.
 
M

Mory Dunz

Member
I'm assuming splatoon had a good one...though I don't remember anything.


Well, except the song and the paintball thing irl
 
P

PSqueak

Banned
I always loved the Classy ads for Gears of Wars game (you know, like the mad world one) even tho im not a big fan of the series.
 
E

eyeball_kid

Member
While not a full campaign, I remember that before Total Annihilation's release they put out a unit viewer application you could download. Every week they'd release another of the units which you rotate and watch them perform actions. Simple thing, but since this was the first ever 3D RTS game, selling this aspect was a good focus and it was really impressive at the time.

Some day I want to see someone big pull a David Bowie and just drop a new game in our laps. No previews, no interviews, no E3 demos, no hype train, nothing. Just, here's this new AAA game, download it now, we hope you like it. People would flip their shit.
 
Haunted

Haunted

Member
soultron said:
Wolfenstein: The New Order (2014) had a fantastic marketing campaign, IMO.

The trailers were clever. They had amazing graphic and motiongraphic design. Bethesda & Machinegames even went so far as inventing a Nazi record company (Neumond Recordings) that reimagined many English-speaking hit songs from the '40s and beyond, but this time in German. This fed into the alternate history angle the game's plot took, wherein the Nazis won WWII and took over the world.
Click to expand...
The beginning and end of this are fantastic (dat ref) - inbetween it delves into fairly rote trailer territory, but I appreciate the effort that went into the alternate universe music industry. They also made good use of that idea in the game itself. Really helped to sell the world.
 
C

capitalCORN

Member
The greatest marketing movement in history belongs to the Shareware model. No skimpy, 30 minute 'demos', but a full blown chunk of game, enough to satisfy but leave you yearning for more. And what did it cost? Whatever bandwidth to upload it to a uni FTP, and just let it propagate. Hands down the greatest gaming movement for me.
 
M

More_Badass

Member
Stanley Parable

The brilliant demo (including the brilliant idea of creating personalized versions for different YouTube channels, here's Adam Sessler playing it)
The "making-of" trailer
Raphael
They all demonstrated the game's humor and style without showing the game itself

I also felt that SOMA's live-action trailers did a great job at building haunting intrigue and establishing the vibe and themes that the game would have
Vivarium - http://youtu.be/lLVOif6CHgE
Mockingbird - http://youtu.be/eytOzwyfiCA
Archive - http://youtu.be/pCXqRdurmkM
 
J

Jumping Chief

Neo Member
I thought the Halo 5 marketing campaign was great. Hunt the Truth podcast, and more awesome live action Halo trailers, had good hype behind it. Sadly Halo 5 didn't live up to that hype.
 
Haunted

Haunted

Member
More_Badass said:
Stanley Parable

The brilliant demo (including the brilliant idea of creating personalized versions for different YouTube channels, here's Adam Sessler playing it)
The "making-of" trailer
Raphael
They all demonstrated the game's humor and style without showing the game itself
Click to expand...
Oh yes, brilliant example.

So much thought and work of the original creators went into the marketing, you could meaningfully say it was all part of the experience/performance/videogame art installation or whatever you want to classify the Stanley Parable as.
 
A

Aters

Member
Sony spent a shit ton of money on FFVII, while Nintendo aired an anime series before Pokemon even came out. This is what it takes to make a JRPG franchise mainline in the west.

Dangansona said:
Persona 5 trailers have been really good, even if they have been spread over a long period of time.
Click to expand...

You are not supposed to watch those Japanese trailers you know. The marketing in the west hasn't started yet.
 
Deft Beck

Deft Beck

Member
Aters said:
Sony spent a shit ton of money on FFVII, while Nintendo aired an anime series before Pokemon even came out. This is what it takes to make a JRPG franchise mainline in the west.


You are not supposed to watch those Japanese trailers you know. The marketing in the west hasn't started yet.
Click to expand...

What's funny is that Persona managed to get mindshare for a while without animes, until recently.

And the primary audience of Persona will watch the JP trailers immediately, regardless of the lack of subtitles. Marketing across regions has less regional barriers than in the past.
 
DonMigs85

DonMigs85

Member
The one where the kid hits himself over the head with a dead squirrel to see color on the Game Boy
Genius creativity right there
 
Q

quesalupa

Member
Assassin's Creed III's marketing was so damn good that it made me hate the actual game more than I probably should have.
 
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