EPISODE IV - A New Hope (in Advertising)
Greetings
once again earthlings, I am emperor Dean and it's time once again for Confusions
of a Gamer *cue the scary music and cheesy special effects*. I'm going to get
straight to the point today instead of dillydallying about with useless
information. Today's article is about video-game advertising, ranging from way
back in the NES days to today with movie-like PS2/Xbox/GCN ads. Yeah, I said
Movie-Like GCN ads, there are a few out there. The picture I've headed today's
article with is actually quite appropriate, I'm a walking advertisement for two
consoles. Firstly, the NES with the 'know your roots' and the old controller on
it. And even though it's not visible in the picture, those dog-tags are from E3
and they have SOCOM II on them.
Back in the days of the NES, Nintendo was really the only company doing gaming advertising. Sure Atari was doing it's respective 'thang' but since this is a Nintendo website, we focus on Nintendo, alright class? I think one of the first ads I can remember seeing (and understanding) was the Super Mario Bros. 3 advertisement, with all the kids wearing different coloured t-shirts and the camera zoomed out to see that North America was one big Mario face. It was ads like these that kept Nintendo ahead of Sega (and I'm sure the Super Mario Bros. Super Show helped as well) and their juggernaut of Sonic cartoons. Fast forward to the short-lived VirtualBoy advertisements... To comment on these would be a waste of time, so in the shortest possible way, here we go: They tried to recreate what 'you saw' in the headset, on a television screen. Selling a supposed 'console' with half-assed red lines on a TV really didn't cut it, I think I only saw that commercial once and that was it. Moving on to the N64, when it launched I rarely saw any ads for games on that system until the legendary Super Smash Brothers commercial. Not only was it insanely clever but it made a lot of people buy the game. Up until this point Nintendo's franchises were all good and fun, living in their fairytale worlds -- but once Super Smash Brothers came along, that was all going to change. Who would have thought pitting Nintendo's famed franchises together in a fighting game would ever happen? Well, it did, and it sold well. Well enough to warrant a sequel on the GameCube and undoubtedly rumours of a third game began surfacing. Nintendo did good, real good; but is it good enough?
In terms of N64 advertising, we didn't really get much more than game play footage and some cheesy taglines that only imprinted Nintendo's kiddy image further into our brains. Meanwhile, Sony was already starting their league of extraordinary advertising with their CG-Heavy commercials and only a smidgen of in-game footage which ultimately fooled enough gamers to buy Sony's games only to be fooled by the shoddy graphics and jaggy's galore. This trend continued with Nintendo's lack of third party support, and the firm belief that it could survive on the success it had with Mario64, Nintendo turned a blind eye to the changing trends in the advertising market for games, this was perhaps the final nail in the proverbial coffin. At the end of the N64's life-cycle, Sony announced and launched its' PlayStation2 console -- blown away by greater graphics and even more movie-trailer like commercials, Nintendo got it's head in the game with various ads for Conker (who can resist a squirrel having sex and throwing up on National television?) and Perfect Dark with some ads that tried to emulate Sony's style, but it just didn't fit.
Jump ahead a year or two, the GameCube is just about to be launched, and the PS2 has been out and thriving in a next-generation market of it's own; and we finally hear from Nintendo. Not only do we get (in my opinion) one of the coolest imagery-heavy commercials from them in a long time, it made me really want a lot of the games being advertised. Originally created to be played in theatres before movies, Nintendo's first GameCube commercial was very cool -- The cube in the mall lobby, with the samurais and all that crazy jive stuff that made everyone go insane... that is, until the PS2 started coming out with their even more artistic commercials that made absolutely no sense, but were still cool in their own respect. The PS9 commercial comes to mind, and the original wXrld commercial was also something of note. Sony had outplayed Nintendo once again, and the GameCube hadn't even launched yet.
Nintendo quickly returned fire with their GameBoy Advance commercials, taking 'advanced' spins on every day life (Hotel lobby advanced, airport terminal advanced, and so on). Not only did they advertise their newest handheld, but they were able to throw in subtle advertisements for their launch games as well, such as Super Mario Advanced 1 and 2. This was Nintendo's first real show of being aware in the realm of advertising. They contracted various directors and institutions to create commercials for their upcoming games; and I can't fail to mention the success they had with their Eternal Darkness films project and the interesting, albeit spooky short films that resulted from it.
Enter Microsoft. Yeah I know, as if they couldn't get their hands in every cookie jar, they just had to come up and smash ours. With their game-play centric approach and attempt at cool imagery, the Xbox quickly made it's way into movie theatres and onto our Television screens. After being under much scrutiny for photoshopping their launch game screenshots, Microsoft quickly made up for that with their advertising campaigns. Halo was Microsoft's killer app, and they toted it as such -- using the in-game engine for commercials to promote the game was something unseen of nor attempted before. Nintendo continued with its' style of advertising until it died out and what we ultimately received was a monstrosity in the form of the Super Mario Sunshine commercial. I don't know if the big N was trying to be cool with this, but I really don't want to see game play footage, then having it paused, then hearing a kid taking a piss in the background because the game uses a water cannon. That didn't sell the game at all, and in fact almost turned me off from the entire concept of buying it.
Salvation for Nintendo didn't happen until recently, when Metroid Prime and Metroid Fusion were about to be released. They combined live-action with game play footage in a way where a lot of it you couldn't tell which was which. The Prime commercial was seen in movie theatres and on television, and it was seen a lot. Nintendo's partnership with MTV and the then WWF helped spread word of Prime to teenagers all over North America. Unfortunately, for Fusion, the same-styled commercial was only seen during Late Night TV. (Speaking from experience I was only able to see the Fusion commercial twice while watching Much Music no earlier than Midnight). When Nintendo started the advertising campaign for The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, a commercial was released into theatres that took the perspective of a girl (his sister) trapped in the highest tower, and all was good - it was a dark and epic commercial that hadn't been seen since Ocarina of Time was released, and it was what Nintendo needed to sell the game; that is until, it showed the actual game play footage which did not mesh well at all with the mood of the other shots. Wind waker looked too happy, too bright, much like Super Mario Sunshine looked too bright -- how could you feel the peril of your sister's kidnapping in a lite-brite colourful world?
Recently however, Nintendo released its GameBoy Advance SP with a variety of artistic commercials -- my personal favorite is the forest with the moths, which flock to the front-light of the SP which then changes in to the word 'beautiful', and that's the commercial. That's it, straight to the point and concise. Breaking it down you can see that it's something new, it's small, and it is front-lit -- everything GBA fans were waiting for was here.
With yet another new generation of consoles upon us, and Nintendo finally getting it's head in the game, what can we expect to see on our television screens in the near future? Sony is planning its PlayStation Portable, and Microsoft continues to advertise heavily its Xbox. Nintendo needs to make a choice, and unfortunately for them, the choice they are likely to make is the wrong one. As a hearty cry to Nintendo, I think I speak for a lot of us that Nintendo needs to listen to their fan base, or what's left of it. If they want to shake their kiddy image which they seem to acknowledge they have, they need to stop ignoring the fan base they are catering to. Wake up Nintendo, it's about time you do.
That brings a close to our Confusions of a Gamer series, in addition to our ongoing forum topic, another topic is talking specifically about advertising, feel free to join in and register at our forums.