Well duh, every crossover opertunity is a marketing opportunity. How is this marketing opportunity and the pachislot machine which is another marketing opportunity, any different? It's the crux of the argument. Capcom is putting Donte's face on cross promotional opportunities rather than old Dante's. That is exactly what we're talking about. Then you came in and gave a short list of other marketing opertunities, most of which originate from last year before DmC ever came out, and are saying that it's different.
Your point is that in the past 8 months, Dante has had a stronger marketing presence than Donte, which is FALSE. All the examples that you brought up are from projects originating from 2012 or earlier or are meaningless website filler (twitter icons? Seriously?). Whether DmC is flailing or not, there is no doubt that the strongest franchise presence for Capcom regarding anything Devil May Cry has had Donte's face on it.
And you have failed to refute that.
First of all, not all crossover choices are simple marketing ploys. Some are celebrations of a company's history. Like MegaMan in Smash. Or ViewtifulJoe in Marvel.
So, you argued was that PSASBR was indicative of a company choosing a representative, but now you agree it's just a marketing ploy. They put DmC Dante's face in PSASBR in order to promote a game coming out in the next few months, mostly because of all the bad press the game had up until that point. It wasn't the passing of a crown that you're making it out to be.
I don't have to refute anything because PSASBR is not a point worth replying to. If nothing else it delegitimizes any point you might have.
So I'm gonna drop something on you, and I haven't researched this very much, and I'm going off memory so bare with me, but:
When was the last time you saw old Dante on American television?
The last time I saw old Dante on American Television was during commercials for DMC4. Now why do I bring this up? Devil May Cry HD collection came out in March 2012. Capcom didn't see fit to engage with an American ad campaign that wasn't word of mouth, online or print. For a game that they had a physical disc release, Capcom decided to not actively advertise for old Dante using traditional methods. Between August of 2012, 5 months after the DMCHD collection was released, the marketing blitz for DmC began with trailer blitzes, interviews, a wide spread games press push, hell the new york times wrote a piece on it a month before the demo was released.
So what's my point? Even when there was a new Devil May Cry game on the market, HD remake collection or no, The marketing blitz for DmC was 10 times more pervasive than any attempts made to make the HD collection successful. So if you're trying to tell me Capcom is now suddenly having a change of heart and is pushing to make old Dante the face of the franchise again, you're going to have to go a lot deeper than a couple Capcom Unity made twitter icons and a Pachislot machine for a 6 year old game to be convincing.
Like someone in this thread said earlier, I think there's a better chance of Capcom killing the Devil May Cry franchise for good than there is scrapping all of those DmC assets and starting over from scratch. It doesn't make fiscal, promotional or long term sense to abandoned DmC, no matter how much vitriol the gaming community may have for it.
This is a far better argument, but I don't think it quite works out for me:
1. I haven't seen a TV spot for ANY Capcom game in the past few years. Videogame marketing leans far heavier towards viral campaigns, youtube, gaming publications, and blogs now. And I did see some of that for the DMC HD Collection, though certainly not as much as DmC. It was a different time back when DMC4 came out.
2. Dismissing the differences between the release of an HD Collection and a brand new entry (they arguably had to market it like a brand new IP) is silly. You can't just say "HD Collection or no" because there's a fundamental difference between the two in terms of budget and "proving oneself".
You're conveniently ignoring the timing, substance, and role of everything in your analysis. You're comparing apples to oranges, and then accusing me of doing the same thing. I presented a list of facts. You choose to dismiss and ignore those facts and then make a circumstantial argument, and then tell me to refute it?
When it comes down to it, I could see either you or Retro winning the bet. But I was never taking sides in that to begin with. This all started with me pointing out something flat out wrong in your argument that is completely and utterly undebatable.
