Support NeoGAF

[DashReindeer]

Question: How do you market a game several months prior to release? It's a bit too early for print ads, and way too early for TV and web ads. And Nintendo isn't in the whole preorder thing for some reason.

Wonderful 101 got about as much (or little) marketing as Pikmin 3, and more than any other 2013 Wii U game so far. It's just that the press, the primary marketing tool at this point in the release cycle for most games, doesn't seem to care much about it. The hands on previews are very positive, but don't get much exposure. Not enough money hats, maybe.

Yeah, people can blame Nintendo all they want, cuz that's hip around here, but they did their best to prominently features W101 in all of their marketing efforts this E3. It had at least 5 demo stations in their booth. They demonstrated it live on Gamespot and on IGN and I imagine a few other gaming outlets as well. Trailers have been a big part of every Wii U Direct since last E3.

I really don't think that Nintendo is going to completely ignore this game like they might if say it was a Chibi Robo title or something like that. I think they know that gamer credibility is important, so we will start to see some more of a tangible marketing push when the game is a little closer to release. We'll see, but Nintendo did say they pushed most of their marketing budget into the second half of the year right?

I think the bigger issue with this game is that for whatever reason (art style) it has been unable to capture the attention of the "hardcore" gaming press. They really don't seem too interested in the game at all, so the coverage just doesn't seem to have the enthusiasm that we are expecting considering how hyped some of us are for this game.

 

[JDSN]

Bayonetta wont do that hot either, Nintendo is not concerned about creating brand awareness to bring the hardcore in or even porting the original to their console to give Nfans a taste of it.

These games look more like token evidence to show that they have variety rather than genuine interest in creating new functional brands.

 

[hunnies28]

Not only that, they should be flooding the stupid nintendo video thing on 3ds with trailers for these games instead of the inane garbage that gets put on their time after time.
Why they do not use these outlets that they have at their disposal I will never understand.

Please understand.


To be quite honest, I did not have a clear idea of what this game was about until a short time ago.

Still, I'm getting both games. Just for Kamiya.

 

[zoukka]

Not only that, they should be flooding the stupid nintendo video thing on 3ds with trailers for these games instead of the inane garbage that gets put on their time after time.
Why they do not use these outlets that they have at their disposal I will never understand.

Yeah all the apps, message, video and so on were deleted by me pretty quickly. They just dropped the ball with those.

 

[Petrae]

Here in the US, anyway, no amount of marketing will save The Wonderful 101 from irrelevance. Launching just 48 hours before one of the two biggest games-- and easily the most anticipated game-- of the year (in GTA V) puts this title in a difficult spot to succeed.

I also don't see it as a system-seller, which limits its sales ceiling.

 

[Spieler Eins]

Yeah, people can blame Nintendo all they want, cuz that's hip around here, but they did their best to prominently features W101 in all of their marketing efforts this E3. It had at least 5 demo stations in their booth. They demonstrated it live on Gamespot and on IGN and I imagine a few other gaming outlets as well. Trailers have been a big part of every Wii U Direct since last E3.

They pretty much ignored the game in any interview I've seen, the footage it got in the E3 Direct was completely forgettable and would have made no sense to anyone who didn't know what this game is already (the Direct before that barely revealed the game's logo, without footage) and there was also no developer talk, which even Bayonetta 2 got on Nintendos E3 page.
They didn't even try to make journalists report on this imo.

 

[Can Crusher]

Personally I don't think this game is any more niche than Mario or Donkey Kong, or Mario Kart or whatever. Hell it's much less niche than Pikmin.

Nintendo should've put some Nintendo characters in it. They wouldn't need the marketing anyway that way, and the game would be the same.

 

[moltonasty]

ugh. wii u has some nice games that could actually sell systems. but nintendo probably won't advertise em for shit. wtf? when the developer for one of your best upcoming exclusives is complaining about your advertising on twitter, you know you got a fucking problem. i want nintendo to succeed but this is just bad business.

 

[ElectricBlanketFire]

I've seen 3 or 4 trailers for this game and I still have no idea what's going on.

 

[wsippel]

Here in the US, anyway, no amount of marketing will save The Wonderful 101 from irrelevance. Launching just 48 hours before one of the two biggest games-- and easily the most anticipated game-- of the year (in GTA V) puts this title in a difficult spot to succeed.

I also don't see it as a system-seller, which limits its sales ceiling.

I'm not sure how relevant GTAV is here. GTA is not on Wii U in the first place, and while the target audiences might have some overlap, they're still very different.

 

[McLovin]

Too bad, if 101 was super successful then maybe more devs would look at the Wii u again. 101 was one of the few games I really wanted.

 

[dancingphlower]

If they want to sell more Wii Us, Nintendo better up their marketing game. TW101 looks fantastic but I bet the mainstream audience will never know what it is.

 

[Sorcerer]

From the current issue of EGM:

From Kamiya's Twitter: If you hate to finish a game the next day, (after) you buy it , you better not play the Wonderful 101.


Well I get what he is saying and it could be an awesome game with replay value , but telling people not to play (his own creation mind you) it because its short I think is damaging.

It seems Nintendo is not the only one who needs lessons in marketing.

 

[zoukka]

I've seen 3 or 4 trailers for this game and I still have no idea what's going on.

You transform to little super heroes, enlist civilians who then help you by morphing into giant hands, guns and whips so you can destroy invading aliens and space dragons sometimes by striking their projectiles with a baseball bat. It's quite simple really!

 

[leng jai]

I've never heard of this game until this thread.

 

[Meccanical]

He should ask his mom.

I'm sure somebody has said that already but I just felt like saying it again.

 

[DaBoss]

It's launching in August 24th in PAL regions and Japan right? My guess is TW101 being promoted soon after Pikmin and others release.

 

[Kazerei]

I'm concerned for W101 too. Feels like it's gonna bomb

 

[joe2187]

I've seen 3 or 4 trailers for this game and I still have no idea what's going on.

Magic

pure magic.

 

[zoukka]

I've never heard of this game until this thread.

GAF doing what Nintendon't.

 

[skypunch]

I've seen 3 or 4 trailers for this game and I still have no idea what's going on.

Then that's your problem. It's not exactly rocket science to understand what the games about. You fight robots that have invaded Earth with a group of heroes. How hard is that to grasp?

 

[Petrae]

I'm not sure how relevant GTAV is here. GTA is not on Wii U in the first place, and while the target audiences might have some overlap, they're still very different.

GTA's relevance really centers around any chance of TW101 of moving hardware and thus increasing its sales potential. Unless Wii U is the only platform option for a consumer-- which would make TW101 an obvious choice-- many multiplatform owners will likely forego it for GTA V, possibly coming back to it at a later time.

The target audiences are very different for the two games, but one is immense while the other is much more limited in scope. At least, if TW101 was a bit more spaced out from GTA's massive release, more on the fence in the bigger audience might have been compelled to buy it out of curiosity.

 

[duckroll]

From the current issue of EGM:

From Kamiya's Twitter: If you hate to finish a game the next day, (after) you buy it , you better not play the Wonderful 101.


Well I get what he is saying and it could be an awesome game with replay value , but telling people not to play (his own creation mind you) it because its short I think is damaging.

It seems Nintendo is not the only one who needs lessons in marketing.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/interview/34703

In The case of Wonderful 101, we really try to pack a lot of different ideas into it, and it got a lot bigger than I thought. And in fact we estimate that a normal play session would be 20 hours. Personally I think that I kept piling stuff on and I realized "Wow, this is going to be a pretty big game." But that notwithstanding, replayability is a really important factor, it has to be sort of easy to play in the sense that you don't get tired of playing it, and you would be able to ultimately play it in a day.

 

[Grizzlyjin]

Too early for print and tv!? Are you guys crazy. It's July, the game comes out in North America in September.

Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag had commercials running in March...MARCH. That game comes out after W101. The Last of Us had its television marketing campaign essentially start during The Walking Dead finale on March 31st. The game came out in June. Batman Arkham Origins comes out an entire month after W101, and their tv marketing campaign started two weeks ago.

Right now is the time to start getting people interested so they go out and pre-order. In this day and age you don't try to get people to go buy your game next week, you gotta have them latched in months ahead of time. There should be commercials on Saturday Mornings now. Not a week before it comes out and then disappearing.

 

[JDSN]

I've seen 3 or 4 trailers for this game and I still have no idea what's going on.

Here, this is the one that matters:

http://www.gamespot.com/the-wonderful-101/videos/project-p-100-wii-u-e3-2012-stage-demo-6380810/

 

[Kouriozan]

Everything can happen really. They're going to wait until Pikmin 3 is released to market W101.
Also remember that everyone thought that Kid Icarus : Uprising would bomb for about the same reason and it didn't.
Wait and see...

 

[Veidt]

Nintendo should tell him to go use his own brain.

 

[Nibel]

From the current issue of EGM:

From Kamiya's Twitter: If you hate to finish a game the next day, (after) you buy it , you better not play the Wonderful 101.


Well I get what he is saying and it could be an awesome game with replay value , but telling people not to play (his own creation mind you) it because its short I think is damaging.

It seems Nintendo is not the only one who needs lessons in marketing.

MGR:R can be finished in 4-5 hours and has more replay value than 90% of games released this year ( not counting indie games)

 

[Petrae]

Too early for print and tv!? Are you guys crazy. It's July, the game comes out in North America in September.

Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag had commercials running in March...MARCH. That game comes out after W101. The Last of Us had its television marketing campaign essentially start during The Walking Dead finale on March 31st. The game came out in June. Batman Arkham Origins comes out an entire month after W101, and their tv marketing campaign started two weeks ago.

Right now is the time to start getting people interested so they go out and pre-order. In this day and age you don't try to get people to go buy your game next week, you gotta have them latched in months ahead of time. There should be commercials on Saturday Mornings now. Not a week before it comes out and then disappearing.

Bingo. The "too soon" excuse is awful. AssCreed III ran spots way before release in 2012, too, and it sold well.

You *want* to generate hype and make people want the release date to arrive. Strong and numerous TV ads help (Hey, the MLB All-Star Game is coming!), along with the typical online assault of promotion and info drip. Strong campaigns know how to string this together and milk it from early on through launch day.

Problem is that, while Nintendo knows games, its marketing prowess has disappeared.

 

[Spieler Eins]

Everything can happen really. They're going to wait until Pikmin 3 is released to market W101.
Also remember that everyone thought that Kid Icarus : Uprising would bomb for about the same reason and it didn't.
Wait and see...

Kid Icarus had a trading card game coming alongside it, some small anime, the character was known and it had two significant E3 showings during the conferences.
(And still it was ,,only'' a million seller, after several months)

 

[Andrew.]

The release date (right next to GTA) alone is enough of a death sentence.

 

[Duxxy3]

It's been a year and I still don't know what is going on in this game.

 

[PhantomR]

Holy hell, the game doesn't come out for another two months. Pokemon X and Y is going to be Nintendo's biggest game this year, and there hasn't been ANY marketing yet for that either.


Goddamn.

 

[Various Artists]

I feel really bad because Platinum usually creates games that deserve to sell WAY better than they actually do. I could see W101 and Bayonetta 2 not selling that well do to the small user base of the WiiU. Its too bad Sony didn't save the project and have it release at launch for PS4.

 

[Tenki]

I have yet to see one commercial.

Hell I remember seeing quite a few Bayonneta commercials when the first one came out.

Guess SEGA did a little better job.

Maybe you should wait until, you know, the games comes out or it's near launch. It's still a month and a half in Europe and more than two months away in the US.

 

[wsippel]

Bingo. The "too soon" excuse is awful. AssCreed III ran spots way before release in 2012, too, and it sold well.

You *want* to generate hype and make people want the release date to arrive. Strong and numerous TV ads help (Hey, the MLB All-Star Game is coming!), along with the typical online assault of promotion and info drip. Strong campaigns know how to string this together and milk it from early on through launch day.

Problem is that, while Nintendo knows games, its marketing prowess has disappeared.

Wonderful 101 is no Assassin's Creed. Assassin's Creed probably has a yearly marketing budget bigger than the entire development budget Wonderful 101 had. Games like that or Batman need insane amounts of marketing to have a chance to make their money back, and they release on an installed base making such a feat possible in the first place. You won't spend $50 million marketing a game on a platform with a 5 million installed base. That would be completely irresponsible.

 

[ElectricBlanketFire]

Then that's your problem. It's not exactly rocket science to understand what the games about. You fight robots that have invaded Earth with a group of heroes. How hard is that to grasp?

From what I can tell, it looks like a Pikmin-type game mixed with a beat 'em up.

Am I close?

 

[Xav]

I played the Wonderful 101 just over a week ago at a Nintendo event and it's insanely good. If you don't buy this game then you simply don't like games period.

 

[jj984jj]

Holy hell, the game doesn't come out for another two months. Pokemon X and Y is going to be Nintendo's biggest game this year, and there hasn't been ANY marketing yet for that either.


Goddamn.

Yeah, we got to Pokebomb VII on nothing. Appearing at expos isn't marketing at all.

Edit:

That's not marketing. I'm sure they set it up for free!

 

[The Abominable Snowman]

To most gamers, the Wii U release schedule looks like:

Mario 3D
Mario Kart
Smash Bros.

I don't know why most other games have these lofty aspirations for them. I expect Pikmin and even Donkey Kong to disappoint, sales wise.

 

[batbeg]

From what I can tell, it looks like a Pikmin-type game mixed with a beat 'em up.

Am I close?

It's not like a Pikmin game - your group moves together as a single unit. Think of the units as a superficial presentation of a single character. The number of heroes you have helps determine your strength, and of course they "unite" to make the sword/fist/gun/gelatin/whip/whatever but you could just as easily think of this as the main attacks of a single character if it makes it easier.

It's an action game, basically.

 

[Anth0ny]

It's also released the same week as GTA V in NA...

 

[Shrennin]

Generally, I don't think Nintendo markets very well regardless.

Anyway, while we're on the subject of Platinum (kinda), who made Metal Gear Rising? Kamiya?

 

[out getting ribs]

I don't understand how this is coming as a surprise to Kamiya; Nintendo barely knows how to market their own games and systems.

 

[90TilInfinity]

It's also released the same week as GTA V in NA...

Yeah, what were they thinking? It's out mid-August here in several different languages.

 

[gamergirly]

Kid Icarus had a trading card game coming alongside it, some small anime, the character was known and it had two significant E3 showings during the conferences.
(And still it was ,,only'' a million seller, after several months)

Just because a game is marketed doesn't mean success. Just attention. 1 million units sold is pretty good in retrospect

 

[Yawnier]

Holy hell, the game doesn't come out for another two months. Pokemon X and Y is going to be Nintendo's biggest game this year, and there hasn't been ANY marketing yet for that either.


Goddamn.

Pokemon is at least going to sell itself as it is already a very established brand/franchise.

Wonderful 101 on the other hand, welp.

 

[Satch]

I like that if that was Nathan Drake or Isaac Clarke or a Quantic Dream QTE it would get lombasted but a Kamiya game? High praise.

I like them all by the way, because I understand there is more to the game than that. Just an observation.

well most people dont want QTEs even in kamiya games

but im sure it helps that the QTE is punching a giant lizard robot in the face and then pushing his head up against a skyscraper using the power of 100 little tiny superheroes (some toilet themed) as opposed to preventing zombie/regular dude with a gun/smarmy cop/rapist/etc from hurting you

 

[skypunch]

From what I can tell, it looks like a Pikmin-type game mixed with a beat 'em up.

Am I close?

Yeah, I guess so.

My post to you didn't mean to sound temperamental, it's just that when people say stuff like "...What the hell is going on in this game?", "...I still don't know what's going on in this game." It just sounds as if they're actively trying to devalue it; as if it's the games fault that they don't understand what's going on, therefore the game MUST be shit.

 

[Linkhero1]

It's also released the same week as GTA V in NA...

Should have been an August release -__-