Promotion of video games

Promotion of Video Games
2014 Examination Topic

Facts
• The examination will be
held on Wednesday
June 11th 2014
• The pre-release
material will be issued
on Monday May 12th
2014
• The examination is
worth 40% of your final
grade
• It lasts 1.5 hours
• There are 4 tasks /
questions to complete
• Each task is worth 15
marks

Key Concepts - LIAR
• Language – the words
you need to use
• Institutions – the
companies and
organisations that are
relevant
• Audience – the
consumers of video
games and the
promotion of them
• Representation – how
people, places and
events are portrayed in
the promotion of video
games

Language - genre
What
would
you call
the genre
of each of
these
video
games?

Simple genres
• Puzzle
• Rhythm
• Sports
• Music
• Shoot ‘em up / shooter
• Role Playing Game
(RPG)
• Adventure
• Hack n slash
• Fitness
• Strategy
• Indie
• Platformer
• Beat ‘em up

Genre prefixes and suffixes
Prefixes:
• First-person…
• Third-person…
• Indie…
• Action…
• Stealth…
• Puzzle…
• Retro…
Suffixes:
• …shooter
• …beat ‘em up
• …action
• …platformer
• …adventure
• …puzzle
• …RPG

Genre conventions
How do we recognise different
genres?

Franchises
A franchise is when a single game
becomes a series or elements of it
are licensed for use in other products

Franchise activity
• Choose a video game franchise and come up
with one product idea that could be sold
• Mind map the product, target audience and
USP (unique selling point) of each product

Brand
Design, Images, Shape, Colour.
DISC

Brand – select one game and mind map how it
constructs its brand using DISC

Brand – mind map how the two games
create a brand using DISC

Narrative
• What narrative or story can you see being told
in the following promotional texts?

Text 1: Amnesia Trailer (2010)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1nY_5-
UrY4

Text 2: Professor Layton and the
Unwound Future trailer (2010)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAB6QbsY
mrU

Text 3: Metal Gear Solid V Trailer
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRSZy12E
OSs

Forms and conventions
• Using a venn diagram, compare the print and
video adverts
• What are the conventions of each media
form?

Forms and conventions – writing task
• Compare the print advert and video trailer for
either Just Dance 2014 or Dark Souls 2
• How are the conventions different between
the media forms?
• How does each text try to attract its target
audience?

Gamedevmap.com
• This site shows you the location of game
developers around the world
• Developers are people who design and create
games

First and third party
First party developers:
• Sony
• Nintendo
• Microsoft
Third party developers:
• Infinity Ward (CoD
series)
• Bethesda (Elder Scrolls,
Fallout series)
• FROM Software (Dark
Souls 1 & 2)
• Mojang (Minecraft)

Institutions task
• Produce a diagram tracking the institutions
involved in the following games:
– Battlefield 3
– Just Dance 2014
– Skyrim
– Candy Crush Saga
– Farmville
– FIFA ‘14

Advertising campaigns
Mind map the promotional
campaigns for Call of Duty:
Ghosts and Candy Crush
Saga
Show how each game
campaign uses a variety of
media forms and platforms
How are the campaigns
similar and/or different to
each other?
Consider:
• Pre-order bonuses
• Tie-ins with other media,
e.g. music
• Video
• Print
• Websites
• Blogs
• Social media
• Merchandise

Some facts and figures
Call of Duty: Black Ops II
• Approximate cost of
development and
marketing: £250m
• Approximate revenue:
£660m
• Profit (before tax):
£410m (you could buy
NUFC and SAFC for this)

Some facts and figures
Minecraft
• Approximate cost of
development and
marketing: £10,000
• Note: initially Minecraft had
no marketing budget at all,
it spread through word of
mouth or Two-step flow
theory
• Approximate revenue:
£30m
• Profit (before tax): £29.99m

Ratings Bodies
• PEGI
• BBFC

Regulatory bodies
• The Advertising
Standards Authority
apply the codes of
practice to adverts
• The Committees of
Advertising Practice
write the codes of
practice

Banned Wii U advert
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMVfIe536
J0#t=32
• Why do you think this advert was banned?

The reason?
• 3.1 Advertisements must not materially
mislead or be likely to do so.
• 3.2 Advertisements must not mislead
consumers by omitting material information.
They must not mislead by hiding material
information or presenting it in an unclear,
unintelligible, ambiguous or untimely manner.
• 3.10 Advertisements must state significant
limitations and qualifications. Qualifications may
clarify but must not contradict the claims that
they qualify.

Banned (pre-watershed) CoD: MW3
advert

The reason?
• 32.18 Violent or sexually explicit material
must not be advertised in or adjacent to
programmes targeted particularly at
audiences below the age of 18.

The reason?
• 4.1 Marketing communications must not
contain anything that is likely to cause serious
or widespread offence. Particular care must
be taken to avoid causing offence on the
grounds of race, religion, gender, sexual
orientation, disability or age. Compliance will
be judged on the context, medium, audience,
product and prevailing standards.

Question
grid
Is? Did? Can? Would /
could?
Will? Might?
What…
Where…
When…
Which…
Who…
Why…
How…

The reason?
• “This was seen by the ASA as possibly
‘condoning and glorifying real violence’.”

The reason?
• The ASA said the slogan, combined with
images of a car that seemed to have crashed
at high speed and a burning tyre, could be
seen to condone dangerous driving and anti-
social behaviour.

The reason?
• The Advertising Standards Authority has
banned a UK TV advert for Midway’s John
Woo Presents Stranglehold which it
considered was “likely to be seen as
encouraging and condoning violence”.

Starter – are these games / franchises
casual or serious?
• Call of Duty
• Super Mario
• Legend of Zelda
• Candy Crush Saga
• Professor Layton
• FIFA
• The Sims
• Battlefield
• Metal Gear Solid
• Dark Souls
• The Elder Scrolls
• Angry Birds
• Temple Run
• Minecraft
• Worms
• Assassin’s Creed
• Just Dance
• Singstar

Casual or serious?
• Create a Facebook profile for a ‘casual’ or
‘serious’ gamer
• Compare and contrast the ways in which
promotion and advertising is used to appeal to
them

Video game audience stats
Source: www.iabuk.net
Who plays games?
• 82% of 8-65 year olds
• Over 27.6 million adults
• Over 5 million 8-15 year olds

Gaming is social
• 72% of adult players
play socially, either in
person or online
• 96% of children play
socially

Writing task
• What three conclusions can you draw from
the statistics you have been given?
e.g. “Whether the audience plays video games is
not dependent on their gender as 49% of
gamers are female, and 51% male.”

Games are about social interaction
• 72% of players have played with others
• 81% have played with others in person
• 54% of social network players have played
with others over a network
• 41% of browser games are played with
strangers

Bioshock Infinite
• moroboshi
• “The cover is generic,
boring, has nothing to do
with the game, and is
artistically bankrupt. It’s
the very definition of
design by committee.
• Levine should never have
allowed something this
ugly to see the light of
day.”
• Posted on Dec 8, 2012 |
6:43 PM

Gender
How is gender represented in video
games?

Assassin’s Creed / Tomb Raider /
Uncharted

The gaming experience
How is the experience of playing
being represented here?

Choose two contrasting games
• Thinking about:
– Maslow’s Hierarchy of
Needs
– The Uses and
Gratifications Theory
• Explain what kind of
experiences are being
promised to the
audience
Uses and Gratifications:
To be informed, to be
entertained, to escape, to
socially interact, to relate to
characters

Failed promotional campaigns
Why did they fail?

Context
John Romero
Co-creator of the
hugely successful
Doom and Quake
series of games.
Doom was ranked in
the top 20 games ever
by Edge magazine

Daikatana
In 2000, John was about
to release a new game
called Daikatana.
The marketing
department of Eidos came
up with the following
magazine advertisement

PSP White
• In 2006 Sony were about to launch a white
version of their PSP console

All I Want for Christmas is a PSP
• Also in 2006, Sony launched a fake viral video
that was represented as being created by a fan

Sony later issued this ‘apology’
“Busted. Nailed. Snagged. As many of you have
figured out (maybe our speech was a little too
funky fresh???), Peter isn’t a real hip-hop maven
and this site was actually developed by Sony.
Guess we were trying to be just a little too
clever.”

Question
grid
Is? Did? Can? Would /
could?
Will? Might?
What…
Where…
When…
Which…
Who…
Why…
How…
In 2002 Akklaim
offered parents
$10,000 dollars
to name their
new-born child
Turok.

Two years later…
• Akklaim went bankrupt in 2004

Dante’s Inferno
• In 2009 EA staged a
protest against their
new game Dante’s
Inferno outside their
headquarters

The same year…
• Genuine Christian groups actually protested
against the protest; they said that it portrayed
Christians in a negative light

Resident Evil 6
• In 2012 Capcom opened a ‘human meat shop’
in London

Promotion of video games

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