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On The Quality Of Videogame Commercials 105

Posted by simoniker from the and-the-quality-of-mercy dept.
Thanks to GameSpy for their opinion piece discussing why many videogame TV commercials sell the product short. They cite the Final Fantasy Tactics Advance spot, in which: "Three kids, pretending to be three characters from FFTA, were pretending to man phone lines, urging kids to call in to help them progress in their quest", and a recent Everquest PS2 commercial in which "a businessman, a slacker/skater, a punk girl, and some other stereotype get together to play EQ after the businessman makes a call on his cell phone, proclaiming, 'It's time to slay the dragon.'", suggesting that "If gaming is to truly grow up... then it really needs to get its act together with its commercials." Which game TV commercials work for you, and what do companies need to do to improve them?
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On The Quality Of Videogame Commercials More

On The Quality Of Videogame Commercials

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  • First Zelda commercial sold me (Score:5, Interesting)

    by setzman ( 541053 ) * <stzman.stzmanple ... sandremoveit@org> on Tuesday September 16, 2003 @10:21AM (#6975617) Journal
    A couple of links (...) so you can see it for yourself:

    http://www.fileplanet.com/files/110000/112186.shtm l [fileplanet.com]

    http://zc.zeldaxtreme.com/movies.shtml [zeldaxtreme.com]

    and google [google.com]

    If fileplanet doesn't work for you, please use zeldaxtreme or google, but don't slashdot any of these fan sites.

  • SOCOM (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MORTAR_COMBAT! ( 589963 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2003 @10:26AM (#6975672)
    The PS2 online commercial where the guys are getting smacked down by the actual Navy Seals is priceless.

    Fragged: "Who are these guys?"

    Seal: "Like shooting fish in a barrel."
    • Yeah, I happened to enjoy that one as well. The whole composition of that particular ad really worked, with the little headsets and everything. :)

  • For some examples... (Score:3, Informative)

    by WiredOni ( 593210 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2003 @10:37AM (#6975789)
    Try gametrailers.com's tv spot [gametrailers.com] section.

    I thought the one for GTA III was nicely done. It was just like a movie trailer; it showed some of the action, showed some of the cut scenes, along with clips of audio which gave us a feel for the plot and game.
    • The XBox Live commercials in Japan were some of the worst I'd ever seen. Some drug-addled woman slinking along a wall while pies were thrown at her, and she'd stop to taste the pies.

      The ones in the US for the Getaway were bad. Some guy jacking a car in real life, and it ending with the text, "You've just witnessed a recreation of a scene from the Getaway." Retarded.

      The Blockbuster and N-Gage print ads are also blights upon society.

      I liked the 3dfx ones where they make the chips that can solve world hu
  • I was wondering the same thing, WTF are the FFTA ad people thinking.

    Probably the best game commercial would have to be for Xenosaga. Evidently the game sucked, but you never would have guessed that from the commercial. Zelda:Wind Waker had good commercials too.
    • Evidently the game sucked

      I could see a lot of people saying that. It is very hard to get in to at first because it seems everytime you take a half step you are moved in to CGI. I didn't think that that could be a bad thing, but it really does break up the game play. If you can get past the beginning though, there is a much better balance between the movies and game play. The movies are absolutely incredible, and the story is engaging. I would reccomend it to any RPG fans who enjoy the FF series. You
  • It's not for a particular game, but I love the playstation commercial with the policemen talking about different weapons, and the bodies that just disappear.


    • The one with the old lady in the rest home is pretty cool too. She babbles on and on about impossible sounding stuff, and her daughter just nods "Uh-huh", then the grandson leans over and whispers "grandma, you should have used the magic stones", and she smiles with enlightenment.

  • Are they that bad? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2003 @10:42AM (#6975848) Journal
    I haven't seen either but the Everquest one doesn't sound too bad.

    And both are certainly better than that athlete's foot cream commercial where the animated fungus rips off a toenail and starts creating boils on the exposed flesh. With that one, I usually close my eyes first and only then blindly grab the remote and hit a random button.

    So, no, I game commercials don't strike me as worse than anything else. The best ever, by the way, were the old 3dfx commercials, "We have a chip with undreamed -of power. It can make the world better in all sorts of ways. So we're using it to play games."

    • " I haven't seen either but the Everquest one doesn't sound too bad."

      Well, you'd quickly change your tune after you saw it. It stank of corporate cheese. The impression I got after it was (and I preface this by telling you that I work in advertising) was "hey, a bunch of people got together, thought up a bunch of stereotypes for the type of people they WISH would buy their game, instead of the people who currently do buy it, and will do so anyway." And to anybody who is actually a gamer, to listen to th

  • The ads for the both GTA3 and Vice City I thought were fantastic.

    They both used bunches of cutscenes and gameplay footage (granted it was usually using the rarely used cinematic camera) and had music from the in-game soundtrack playing as the commercial track. No other frills or voiceover was necessary. Just your character, shooting people, blowing shit up and running from the law. What else do you need to know? Of course, for me, both sets of commercials were unnecessary since I had planned to buy or alre

    • Right. Great way of showing the game.

      I hate when they just show FMV scenes, or scenes not even from the game. Wow me with what the game actually looks like.
      • I agree on that 100%. Who cares what the CG looks like, hell CG looks good on a PSX but once you play the game who knows. FF Origins has a nice CG scene at the beginning but once you play the game, it's old 8 bit NES style.(i love the game, not complaining at all) If someone bought the game based on the CG, they'd be pissed.
    • Advertising is unnecessary when the product stands up. I've been personally responsible for about fifteen copies of GTA being sold by being the first one to ring and 'urge' people to go buy it. That's the best advertising that they can get, and that was because the product 'didn't suck'.

      GTA:VC's ad was good, but at that point I'd already bought the game.

      Recently they had a 'SOCOM' ad in the UK that was fairly normal until the closing scene...(pans down a street with some guys draped all over one of th

  • The commercials that really piss me off... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Incoherent07 ( 695470 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2003 @10:49AM (#6975927)
    are the ones that don't actually show gameplay footage at all. This was an especially big problem in the PS1 generation, where you'd have commercials composed entirely of the game's FMV. It's false advertising at best when you play off the entire game to look like the FMV.

    And then, of course, there are the completely unrelated commercials, but those have always been around even before video games.

  • Do it like the Japanese (Score:5, Funny)

    by bconway ( 63464 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2003 @10:52AM (#6975956) Homepage
    Video game advertisers in the US really need to take a lesson from the Japanese. If I saw commercials like this [northarc.com] on TV, they'd get my money every time.
  • I enjoyed the clever commercials for FFTA the reviewer saw for the first time while "waiting for Triple H to beat the snot out of Goldberg." ...

  • In the UK... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Andy Smith ( 55346 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2003 @11:01AM (#6976119)
    Game commercials in the UK are truly awful. I hesitate to say that they're consistently the worst commercials, but I can't immediately think of any worse ones. (Okay I've thought of one now, a pan-European tampon advert that was dubbed very badly, but that's one ad out of thousands.)

    Suffice to say that game ads seem more concerned with showing the publisher's logo and announcing their (generally cringesome) slogan with a laughable voice-over. I always feel kinda embarrassed when a game ad comes on TV because they're just so silly. They would have been appropriate, maybe, 10-15 years ago, but they're unsuitable for the multi-billion dollar industry that games are nowadays.

    Methinks most game ads are dreamt up by the publisher, not a professional ad agency that might actually have a clue how to, ya know, sell stuff to people. No doubt a lot of them are produced in-house too.

    And the worst offender? Well, I imagine the boys and girls at Electronic Arts are already waving frantically so let's all wave back now. Hi guys! Your ads suck! :-)

  • My Favs (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Cap-America ( 689943 )
    Only a few come to mind.
    First: Metroid Prime, this add was just so freaken cool! I got such a rush from it when I saw it on the big screen. I was wishing it was really going to be a movie.

    Second: Orignal Super Smash Bro. This one was just to funny. seeing Yoshi, Mario, Pikachu and DK walking threw a feild with happy music playing then all of a sudden their kicking each others butts.

    Third: Zelda Wind Waker, there was just something about it that just made this a great ad.

    • I love the Zelda ad! I saw it, and went nuts, until I found out it wasn't for Playstation (Of course it wasn't but a guy can dream...). When I found that out, I got pretty upset. ;)

  • GTA3 (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Deanasc ( 201050 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2003 @11:07AM (#6976228) Homepage Journal
    That Grand Theft Auto 3 commercial with the mafia guy saying "You do this and you'll be a made man" that ends with a car jumping over the footbridge accompanied by opera music. I like my video games to have a story and Damn if there wasn't a good narrative to that commercial. That commercial made me want to get a PlayStation just to get that game.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Japan (Score:3, Informative)

    by n0wak ( 631202 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2003 @11:27AM (#6976488) Homepage Journal
    The commercials here royally suck. Often, they're just over-hyped crap "blast processing", "power of X" etc etc

    Japan, however... why can't we get weird ads like they do. Here's a bunch:

    http://hyahhou.hp.infoseek.co.jp/housou/cm.html [infoseek.co.jp]

  • Haven't yet found a commercial that sold me (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Cecil ( 37810 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2003 @11:35AM (#6976571) Homepage
    I have trouble believing that people can actually watch some contentless logos and pictures and find that it somehow entices them to buy a product in any way shape or form. I know it's supposedly true, but I simply can't fathom it.

    It does admittedly make people realize that this product exists, but I can't imagine anyone wanting to buy it on anything other than it's merits. I don't see how having a sexy woman or a hilarious concept in your ad will help. But then I guess that's why I'm not in marketing.

    Personally, I've given up on the "push" style of advertising, and gone with "pull" instead, especially for things like video games. Check out companies I like to see if they've released anything new, check review sites (admittedly a form of advertising, but with a lot more content and a lot less biased, although that's not neccesarily saying much.) It's kind of the Internet way of doing things; Go out and do it yourself, rather than waiting for someone to shove things in your face until you see one you like, which may not be for a very long time.

    I dunno. I just don't see how video game commercials, of all things, have any effect on a largely intellegent and information-enabled group of gamers. There are just so many better ways to do it.
    • As far as I can tell (and I am not an advertising major, so I could be wrong), that pretty much is the reason for an ad for a game. Get it out there. Let everyone know that it exists. But, the trick is you have to make it look as cool as possible. Make it stick in your mind long enough for you to perform an action - say, look up reviews, rent it at your local Hollywood Video, pick it up in the EBGames bargain bin when it hits a few bucks. Basically, enough of a "push" to get you to "pull" in the rest of the
    • Actually, the most of the ad is disposable. The only important part is the logo at the end.

      Ads aren't really intended for the people who buy those, or similar, products regularly. Take video games, for example. Judging from what I've heard around here, Half-life 2 could go without advertising at all and most of us would still buy it. But a kid's dad sees the ad but doesn't think much of it. Big deal, right? But come birthday time, he goes to Wal-mart and sees an aisle of games. Most likely, unless he's

  • What I believe is that to have a good game commercial is to have a good preview of the game. Not just some bland commercial where a person is drinking coffee and saying oh yeah that game was great. You need some action, fantasy, adventure, etc. You know those games that have gun fighting and they show it on the tv screen. Bullets ricoteching into the screen, blood going every which way whethere it is blue or red blood. Show the great side of the game. That is what gets me intrigued!! I hope you all agree. w

  • GTA & Vice City (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mrpuffypants ( 444598 ) * <.moc.liamg. .ta. .stnapyffuprm.> on Tuesday September 16, 2003 @11:47AM (#6976736)
    All of the GTA ads that I saw were great. They were classy aand had real productions values (just like the games)

    You get out of the trailer thinking that "this game isn't like any other" since they don't try to pander to anybody. Plus they say right in it that it's a "Mature" game
    • Yeah, i totally agree with what you are saying. They were both pretty good commercials. I am a gaming person. I know a lot of games and commercials and some of them really blow! They show you the worst part of the game? what is the point of that? That just makes people not buy it or they show the best part of the game and thats the only good part. People are stupid

  • DOA commercials (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Sinistar2k ( 225578 )
    I enjoyed the DOA3 and DOAXBV commercials. They were funny and surprisingly honest, plus they showed actual game footage.

    The commercials I really hate? The ones that show gameplay footage but then show the sections of the game where the framerate drops to the 10-20 FPS range. If you're trying to sell me a game, for goodness sake, don't show me how it sucks!

  • xbox ads (Score:3, Funny)

    by michael.creasy ( 101034 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2003 @11:50AM (#6976781) Homepage
    For bad commercials, there's no power greater than X
    • Ah, another pet peeve of mine: selling a game for a specific console, like all the Soul Calibur commericials. For some reason I hate that.

      Plus, even as an x-box fan, I have the "power greater than X" slogan. Stupid stupid stupid. My ideal slogan: "Memory cards? We don't need no steenking memory cards!" But that's just because I have 'em. Even on my beloved 'Cube.

  • I'm absolutely thrilled with low-quality commercials. When's the last time any of us has actually bought a video game based on a fricking TV commercial? I'd rather the devs spend the money either 1) addding extra content to the game, or 2) lowering the price of the game instead of spending millions of dollars on a TV advert.
    • In a perfect world, this idea would work. You could forget about advertising dollars entirely and focus on making the best game. Releasing the game to market would lead to great profit margins because of the overall quality of the game. Unfortunately, advertising affects how many units are shipped to your local game store. Without the money spent on advertising, you may not be able to get a copy of that great game. Another point I would bring up is that if the game isn't sent to reviewers in the advertising
  • When Warcraft3 was in season, Blizzard was running full film resolution trailers of some of their animated cg sequences.

    They are the same sequences you see in the game, but all blown up and with the theater sound they are very impressive.

    Seems like they got a "approving murmer" every time I've seen them.
    • Unfortunately thet Blizzard trailers weren't much higher resolution than the in game versions, if any change at all. It was terribly pixelated, to the point that everyone I was with immediately commented on it.

      Then they showed a trailer for PS2 games, using in game footage. That was really painful to see on the big screen.
  • When FF7 came outfor the PS1, Sony aired a series of commercials that absolutely blew my mind. It was (as I'm sure you all know) a revolution in the RPG genre and cinematic, CG-based game presentation, and the commercials documented the awesome production values and thematic, character-driven storytelling of the game. I went out and bought a ps1 and the game with 6 months of allowance and lawn-mowing profit the day the game came out, mostly due to those commercials (I had never played an FF game before that
  • Ad was good enough for me to buy the GC just so I could play that game.

    (No, I haven't touched the GC in months...)
    • Ugh, why not? Ikaruga, Wind Waker, Soul Caliber 2 (with Link!). Mario Sunshine was a fun game (not groundbreaking, but every game doesn't have to be).

      • Re:Metroid Prime (Score:1, Flamebait)

        by BigBir3d ( 454486 )
        I found Zelda to be profoundly boring. Not to mention friends of mine that beat the game in a sitting or two. My review of it is something like this; "pretty boring graphics, walked around some, played with fake sword that I had to give back (lame!), walked around some more, caught the pig, threw it in the water. It swam back to shore. That's kinda neat. Bored now." That was it.

        MP was my own fault. I made it to a place that I could not backtrack to get a protective suit (heat I think) when I needed
        • Boy, thanks for jumping in with your veiled "GC sucks" comment.

          • Re:Metroid Prime (Score:1, Offtopic)

            by BigBir3d ( 454486 )
            Uhh... there is a thing called opinion.

            If GT4 is available for the GC, that is what I would buy. The PS2 I have access to is not mine (roommates).

            The GC itself does not suck, I just don't like the controllers that come with it, or most of the games. I bought it for nostalgias sake. I won't be doing that again, for anything. Life lived, lesson learned.
      • ooh ooh!

        and F-Zero and Eternal Darkness and...It's a great system, really. Great games, great games. Too bad about the steenking memory cards, though.

  • -gulp- Enter The, uh, Matrix? (Score:3, Funny)

    by superultra ( 670002 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2003 @01:11PM (#6977696) Homepage
    In terms of keeping with the movie, the ad looked cool?



    please don't hit me?
  • Don't you hate it when you get to the big gold Buddha... AND YA PICK THE LEAF WITH THE VIRUS ON IT?! GAH!

    why would I want a 32 bit system, when I could have a 64 bit Jaguar?

    "When are you bringing back my daughter?" You want her back?

    YOU ARE NOT READY!

  • One of the funniest ever. (Score:5, Funny)

    by crazyphilman ( 609923 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2003 @02:00PM (#6978148) Journal
    Now, I never played "Magic, the Gathering" because I never got into the card games and could never figure out the attraction (I'm more of a first person shooter kinda guy). But their commercials were hilarious.

    There was one where a bunch of scientists are looking down on a lawyer type through a set of high-set glass windows. He was in the middle of a big, roundish room with huge steel doors in the back, and he was basically sitting around, fiddling with his watch, etc. So one of the scientist types says, "Ok, bring in the troll." They press a button and open the doors, and a huge, at least fifteen foot tall troll with a huge club comes in and roars. The lawyer shrieks, and the next thing you see is a view through the windows over the scientist's shoulders, as the lawyer flies up into the air, spilling papers all over the place. A scientist takes a note down on a pad, saying, "Troll beats lawyer..." (or words to that effect).

    Those commercials were FUNNY.

  • Morph-o-Ray ad (Score:2, Informative)

    by raiderx ( 612720 )
    I loved this ad and ended up buying Ratchet and Clank. Probably not directly because of the ad, but it did steer me toward the reviews, which in turn convinced me to give the game a try.

    QT movie of the Morph-o-Ray (aka Chicken Gun) ad [217.153.29.18]

    I am considering FFTA, despite the ads on TV. Certainly, if I were a parent looking for something to buy for my kid, I doubt that commercial would inspire me to go out and buy the game. Honestly, I doubt a non-gaming adult would be engaged enough to realize there was a g
    • The Ratchet & Clank ads are some of the funniest out there. The inflatable dummy on the riding lawn mower run over by the SUV, the rocket launcher that destroys some guy's boat in his backyard, they're just hilarious. There's a really funny Syphon Filter 2 commercial from way back that was using in-game graphics (but not gameplay footage) of the main character on a train about to shoot some guy. The guy was wondering if he could be shot with something a little less painful so he goes through his arsena
  • The commercial for DJV was perfect for its target audience - loud hip-hop, in game shots, shots of the special Def Jam rapper/wrestlers. I guess that's one of the reasons why EA has sold so damned many copies of the game.

  • Old sega commercials (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gades ( 683750 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2003 @02:24PM (#6978370)
    I really liked the old SEGA commercials. They seemed to be pretty popular with the target age group. Gotta love it when that guy would scream "SEGA!" at the end =)
    some old sega aommercials [gaming-age.com]
  • Video game commercials as a whole aren't any better or worse than other commercials. People complain about the commercials being too low-brow, failing to represent the product in any tangible way, or simply being stupid, but how is that any different from any other commercial?

    Commercials CAN have artistic merit, and they CAN be informative. Most of them fail on one or both counts, but that's not really interesting in itself.

    Could soap commercials be better? Sure, but no one is writing websites about tha

  • Trailers (Score:3)

    by robbway ( 200983 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2003 @02:53PM (#6978656) Journal
    Video games are in the entertainment category. They are very much like movies in that regard. The obvious tactic seems to be the movie trailer. Final Fantasy VII did this and completely drew me in. So did Shenmue. However, if the game doesn't have a movie-like story scripted behind the game, other tactics may be required.

    Another tactic that works particularly well is the what happens to you when you play this game. I'm not talking about the people turning into game characters--that's stupid. However, the "she kicks high" DOA3 ad implies the people, mostly guys, are turned on by modeled characters. The Mortal Kombat 4 ad has Shao Khan trying to bust out of a guys stomach because he's possessed.

    You should always show the product, and it's best if it fills the TV screen the way it will appear when on the video game system.


  • One of my more recent favorite commercials is the GTA 3. You all know it... It's the one where they play the Opera Music and show clips from the game....
    And finaly it ends with the Don say to Tommy " I see a great future for you"... or something to that effect. (please don't quote me).
    AHHHHHHH Magnifique!!!!!!!
  • It occurs to me that the 30 seconds or so an ad lasts isn't the ideal medium for selling games.

    People like gamespot, ign, penny-arcade and the myriad of smaller more specialised sites are the only people I go to when looking to buy a game. Because they either give me the article+screenshots+video clips I need to make my mind up or they give me the opinion of people who's opinion I've learned to trust.

    30 seconds of eye candy just isn't ever going to convince me to part with 60.
  • Whats important to you?

    Dialog: Sleekness, style, the ability to launch napalm into oncomeing traffic.
    (something like that, its been awhile)
    Image: woman in flowing dress running her hand along a very nice car, as the last line is said bullet holes apear, then in game footage
  • I've seen my fair share of lame game commercials - the Sims commercials seem a tad dumb, IMO - but I wouldn't say gaming needs to "grow up" just because of a few campy, corny ads. Noone's telling companies Mastercard or Progressive to grow up, yet they have some ridiculous spots on the telly. Just my two cents.
  • The best game advertising I can think of was for the GBA:sp, where they actually had very stylish ads pushing the gba as something other than a kiddie toy. The classic one with the guy in bed playing a gba:sp while a babe lies next to him appeals to all ages however...
  • I think the most refreshing commercial for videogames in recent times was the Super Mario Advance (SMB2) commercial... picking up and throwing crap, it was great. nice throwback to SMB2
  • Let 'em be cheesy I say. Otherwise, you'll start getting things like this: Scene: A grey-bleached forest-type world. A non-descript yet handsome man runs desperately through the dirty albino trees, seemingly searching for something. The New Age wind-chime music begins a slow crescendo as the man arrives at a clearing, where a small piller becons. As the man slowly realizes the end of his quest, a whispering voice can barely be heard to say...

    "Conkers Bad Fur Day 2: Conker Get's Ripped...Only for the Nin
  • I felt the quality of the ads for MK2 were (and for the most part still are) the best for any video game commercial. The sets, music, and costumes for the actors all were portrayed in a 'realistic' fashion, instead of the cartoony or comic book prime colors. Heck, it even had a full size cardboard stand up like a movie promotion! Very few video game ads have risen to that level production.

  • Too many game commercials lack a concept. They just wrap fifteen seconds of nonsense around fifteen seconds of game footage. However one exception springs to mind.

    A couple of years ago, there was a spot for Syphon Filter 2 on the Playstation that featured what looked to be in-game footage of the main character approaching an enemy. Suddenly, the enemy ran out from behind a box, cowered nervously and screamed something like, "Please don't shoot me with that rifle!"

    The main character replied, scrolling th

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