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Namco's Dark Souls 2 marketing: "We're treating this as a massive, massive AAA title"

Shinta

Banned
Dark Souls 2: Balls Deep

edit: damn I was beaten lol.

But really, you guys are being ridiculous. When Sega doesn't market something there is endless criticism. Now Namco is saying they are going to try and market it heavily and there's still criticism. It's really damned if they do, damned if they don't. There is literally no pleasing some people.

I think the dumbing down concerns were really minimized with their footage a while back that consisted of little more than repeated death sequences, over and over.
 

RoKKeR

Member
So, BurnoutBrighter was right after all:

ibeUJ9fM99ipCX.jpg
 

Nekki

Member
"Dark Souls 2 |OT| Won't treat YOU like a massive, massive AAA game"

Hey, it's my first time trying this! :(
 

Jac_Solar

Member
So, they want to increase the marketing budget; but, after looking at the costs involved, they'll go over to the developers and make them "casualize" the game.

It seems like Demon's Souls and Dark Souls were relatively cheap to make, and they both, most likely, made a nice profit.
Treating the marketing campaign like a massive "AAA" game is ludicrous -- they would most likely have made made a nice profit if they used the standard Dark Souls marketing campaign, plus perhaps a little extra. There most certainly isn't a Skyrim sized market for this kind of game.

Yet.. the publishers keep complaining. They hire massive, monstrously inefficient teams to make an "AAA" hit, then roll out a ridiculously expensive marketing campaign, and then, even if they make a profit, they complain.
 

Superflat

Member
Quote sounds like it's saying the game is getting the AAA treatment in relation to how it's marketed. Which says nothing about the game. People get so up in arms so easily :O
 
They should advertise during Game of Thro.... oh wait.

They should use product placement within Game of Thrones' season finale.

Example scene:
Jaime, back against the wall from an encroaching enemy, spots a marking on the ground.

"Try two-handed" the marking reads.

Jaime smirks, but his moment of respite is short lived. He dodge rolls the attack and positions himself behind his attacker for a backstab.

After acknowledging his victory, Jaime pulls out an orange soapstone, kneels, and places the stone against the earth to forge his own message. He retreats off towards another quest.

Camera pans to view his message: "I did it!"
 

RiccochetJ

Gold Member
I think the fact that they gave the announcement at the VGA's shows that they've already started doing this.

The 10 minute video did a lot to make me feel better though.
 

Data West

coaches in the WNBA
It's not that much of a surprise that Bamco would want to really push this franchise though. Do they have ANY other properties with mainstream penetration in the US?

Gies is going to call it shit. It's Japanese.

Can we get the betting pool going now about how long the thread for Gies calling it shit will be?
 

Johnas

Member
I can see the commercials now.

"The world is in turmoil, and it needs a savior."

"Go balls-deep and guns-blazing!"

"Dark Souls 2"

I have little doubt there will be some type of dude-bro angle to it.

We'll see if that actually translates into increased sales.
 

Thorakai

Member
I just hope this doesn't lead to outrageous sales expectations that many AAA games have these days. I remember there was a thread about making a profit with modest budget allocations with Dark Souls as the poster child, would be quite ironic if Namco followed the path of Tomb Raider, Dead Space 3, Darksider 2, etc., etc.
 

MormaPope

Banned
It's not that much of a surprise that Bamco would want to really push this franchise though. Do they have ANY other properties with mainstream penetration in the US?



Can we get the betting pool going now about how long the thread for Gies calling it shit will be?

They are making a Pac Man cartoon in collaboration with some company and are also producing a abysmal looking 3D Pac Man platformer that will be dead on arrival.

Thinking about it, the people at Namco might be loopy at the moment.
 
Dark Souls 2: Balls Deep

edit: damn I was beaten lol.

But really, you guys are being ridiculous. When Sega doesn't market something there is endless criticism. Now Namco is saying they are going to try and market it heavily and there's still criticism. It's really damned if they do, damned if they don't. There is literally no pleasing some people.

I think the dumbing down concerns were really minimized with their footage a while back that consisted of little more than repeated death sequences, over and over.

Get that common sense out of this thread.

Can't wait to not play this load of casual crap.
 
RIP In Peace Souls franchise.

AAA marketing means at least the equivalent of the entire budget spent on marketing and more sales needed to cover that cost. Namco bout to Squeenix themselves.
 

Log4Girlz

Member
There go the profits. Seriously, with all the good will and inevitable increase in high margin PC sales, they should just do more of the same. The reputation garnered by the previous entry is free advertising at this point. Now they'll need to sell 5 million to break even like every other AAA title :/
 

Orayn

Member
I'm okay with Dark Souls II being more aggressively marketed. The series is an untapped, pressurized well of sales potential, it just needs a little more polish and better publicity.

Ideally, From Software would be free to work on the game without Bamco looking over their shoulder, and Bamco would be free to sell this thing as hard as they can.

Just waiting for the first video with QTEs.

RIP In Peace Souls franchise.

AAA marketing means at least the equivalent of the entire budget spent on marketing and more sales needed to cover that cost. Namco bout to Squeenix themselves.

PbWY2MY.gif
 

george_us

Member
Quote sounds like it's saying the game is getting the AAA treatment in relation to how it's marketed. Which says nothing about the game. People get so up in arms so easily :O
My fear is the game doesn't sell the 5 zillion copies required to make up a relatively large marketing budget, which Namco uses as an excuse to mess with Dark Souls 3.
 

MormaPope

Banned
Dark Souls 2: Balls Deep

edit: damn I was beaten lol.

But really, you guys are being ridiculous. When Sega doesn't market something there is endless criticism. Now Namco is saying they are going to try and market it heavily and there's still criticism. It's really damned if they do, damned if they don't. There is literally no pleasing some people.

I think the dumbing down concerns were really minimized with their footage a while back that consisted of little more than repeated death sequences, over and over.

A similar situation would be if THQ saying they would match GTA in terms of marketing for Saints Row. Some things are futile, Dark Souls may never have more fans than it has now.

But fuck moderate success I guess. Go AAA or go home, dollar dollar bill y'all.
 
It kind of reads like an Onion article really.
It does sound like parody.

I think we talked about it before, but publishers trying to turn titles into something they aren't and/or, as a whole, trying to be on a scale they aren't, is what will bring their downfall.
 

Shinta

Banned
A similar situation would be if THQ saying they would match GTA in terms of marketing for Saints Row. Some things are futile, Dark Souls may never have more fans than it has now.

But fuck moderate success I guess. Go AAA or go home, dollar dollar bill y'all.

They didn't really say they're matching anything. They just said they're putting a lot more into marketing.

He even said specifically that they don't expect every Skyrim player to pick this up.

They know it's a gamble, but that's business. They're going to give it a shot and see if they can pick up some players. It's certainly not impossible.
 

MormaPope

Banned
That could happen anyway. And is actually more likely without a marketing push.

So current Dark Souls and Demon Souls fans will skip out on the next entry? What you said makes no sense.

They didn't really say they're matching anything. They just said they're putting a lot more into marketing.

He even said specifically that they don't expect every Skyrim player to pick this up.

Can't wait for the results from this, will be extremely happy if I'm wrong. But I'm not hopeful at all.
 

RedSwirl

Junior Member
Oh my god they're putting a lot of resources into marketing this game and ensuring that it'll be as successful as possible and, gag, reaching out to fans of other RPGs to share in the franchise.

Oh god, preorder canceled.

I just hope they don't expect this game to actually sell Skyrim numbers.
 

Kazerei

Banned
I'm glad DS2 will have a larger marketing budget, but hearing the PR guy say "balls-deep" and "guns-blazing" made me cringe. Hopefully the actual marketing will be more thoughtful.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
It does sound like parody.

I think we talked about it before, but publishers trying to turn titles into something they aren't and/or, as a whole, trying to be on a scale they aren't, is what will bring their downfall.

On rare occasion it has panned out, but yeah, overwhelmingly this tends to end badly.
 

Midou

Member
Can't believe after everything they have said and done, including footage they shown, people still lack faith. Considering some of these replies I thought this was a bump from when the game was first announced.

They don't even say 'we made skyrim, come here skyrim players' they say 'this game is way different and we'd like the audience of a hugely popular game to come to our game', people are reading way too much into this for no reason.

Pretty obvious the entire thing is about advertising, which is great, they should advertise Souls more.
 

Orayn

Member
Uh... Hopefully they're just talking about the marketing.

They are, From Software are the only ones developing the game, and apart from Miyazaki's weird "not my decision" comments, they've made it sound like Bamco is giving them plenty of space and not interfering with development.

They didn't really say they're matching anything. They just said they're putting a lot more into marketing.

He even said specifically that they don't expect every Skyrim player to pick this up.

That's the thing, I'm sure a pretty high proportion of Skyrim players would have picked up Dark Souls and liked it. It's just that the game didn't get a ton of coverage in the mainstream press, and it got the undeserved reputation of being insanely difficult when it really just required more patience than most modern games.
 
http://i.imgur.com/PbWY2MY.gif

I wish the best for the franchise, but when I hear "...treating this as a massive, massive AAA title" for something that hasn't been that, I hear the Grim Reaper's scythe dragging across the ground ready to strike.
 
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