Marketing Musings: An Offshoot End and A Cinema With a View

Okay, I’m going to try something a little different and this is going to be hella informal. Have you ever seen something that makes you question what the people in the marketing department are doing? I mean really question what they are doing. Not necessarily weird or disastrous (Dead Island Riptide collector’s edition I’m glaring right at you) but things that make you think that they just didn’t go far enough. Well, I’m going to share some thoughts on a few of these marketing ideas and what my take on them. You know, because this is the internet and we totally don’t have enough opinions on here.

Well, Yes and No

First a little background; I am interested in advertising, particularly the psychological side of it. You know how you’ve been informed that certain colors trigger parts of the brain to feel different things and that’s how it will drive you to want something. Kind of like how yellow and red are colors that often induces hunger or increases appetite, things like this. If I were to fully get into this field then I would be doing more of things like this and bringing my ideas to the table.  Though I would probably end up looking at a lot of statistics (goodie) and working with ways to improve the effectiveness of this technique. Sounds kinda boring but it is actually an interesting field. How does this tie in to my original subject? Well, marketing is a force that pushes places and people to purchase things and in gaming, that can make or break your franchise.

 

Case in Point

This in a sense is the story of Disney Infinity, the little toys that we thought could but eventually couldn’t. The news of Infinity being ended and Avalanche studios being closed came as a slight shock to many. Of course many of the dissenters took up issue with the interactive toy market as a whole but then again this is the internet, where there is an opinion to be had, someone is going to have it. But what was strange to me is that just last year even, market analysts were thinking that Disney Infinity had long, quite long, term plans for the franchise and the possibility of Infinity 4.0 was plausible. The interactive section of Disney seemed like it was a shoe-in to improve the entirety of the business and they saw a upward trend of 11% in 2015 (http://goo.gl/Wsb649). Now this sounds great but what prompted the closure of this division? I can only speculate Disney decided to pull the plug on the operation out of fear that the Toys to Life bubble was going to pop. It is a fair worry but strange considering how well they did last year (http://goo.gl/BDsD7M), we are in an ever changing market and the it was becoming somewhat crowded with Amiibos and Lego Dimensions.

Good Night Sweet Prince

 

A directional change with more of an emphasis on original Disney properties could have continued making this profitable. And making more of the other loved properties could have been a move in the right direction. We are in an era that nostalgia is big and the 90s refuse to go anywhere, so for the hypothetical 4.0, introduce characters from the cartoons of the 90s. Darkwing Duck, Ducktails, Gargoyles, Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers, the list goes on but this could have been massively popular and also using some of the other film properties they had not reached yet. Princess and the Frog, Treasure Island, and (personal favorite) Atlantis. Reintroducing these characters to an new generation and to groups that may have missed them the first time around. Do some mock ups and test to see how they were received. Not to mention that with this idea of 4.0 have the creators make hooks for adaptive DLC in the future so instead of having to buy a new set every year, expand it out to every two years. Allow the figures to sell themselves and people would buy but not only as playable items but as collectibles since the design really hit its stride in 3.0. Even if there were losses from this idea, they would be negated by running with some of the movie franchises that are slated to come out in that year. This would create brand synergy and lessen any blow from these lessor known franchises with stories and characters from those bigger titles.

 

The Horrible Things I Would Have Done For This To Have Happened…

Moving on from the recently deceased to the very much alive, Blizzard is doing something different with the marketing for Overwatch. This being that you can request for certain theaters in the US and EU to show the cinematic trailers from the game in a theater setting (https://goo.gl/Sv5lHi).  This is different but not a bad idea in itself. Blizzard fans are legion and the marketing group knows this. People would set up trips and make efforts to go to these theaters to see this 120 minute cinematic extravaganza (presented by Coca-Cola). This is an interesting move for a number of reasons. Besides drumming up a lot of support for the game and building hype levels more this is coming off of the heels of a rather successful open beta. I don’t know if any thought they would give this a shot but I have a feeling that it will pay off. The worry is that people only had two days to scramble and reserve tickets and there have to be at least 100 reserved tickets for the theaters to actually do the showing. I don’t have firm numbers but I feel like they probably reached this goal. In addition there are a few of the locations that are confirmed to do them anyway.

Do I Really Need to Say Anything Here?

Having options for both is smart and will pay off in more hype. Word of mouth is powerful and besides that there is a far bit of advertising that has gone on for this already. But here is what you get go see it: a collection of cinematics, trailers for the heroes, behind the scenes look at the story board process, and some animated shorts. They are also getting some free stuff. But something that would set this over the top? For attendees, in the free stuff would be a code for skins. Not just any skins but exclusive skins based off of classic film characters for each of the heroes. People love having rare things and for those that would be interested in taking the effort to go this would be a great way to reward them, push them more to get the game as if they weren’t already, and allow for Blizzard to look like an even better company that most people perceive them to be already. Hype for this is already insane especially considering the mass amount of players that participated in the beta, why not push the mark even further?

 

Had To.

These are just thoughts that I’ve had over the last few days looking at the trends in the gaming world. I am no professional and there are a lot of other things that go into this field but the concepts remain current. Capitalizing on the strengths of these franchises is easy as they have left a fair amount of good will with the people who have interacted with them. It is sad that we won’t see any more Disney infinity figures even if many did not seem to them to exist in the first place. Only if amiibos could get the printing techniques of the figure developers… I digress, a look into the marketing world can leave a person jaded and can leave people on the other end (those of you reading) with possible feelings of contempt. That being the soulless marketing executives that are out of touch with the consumer/fans. I would like to bridge that gap.

 

Picture sources: http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2013/01/deadisland-1358259013.jpg

 

Press Y to Revive: Dino Crisis

Hello and welcome to Press Y to Revive, a look back at older game franchises or one offs that I think should be brought back into the world of modern gaming.

So, disclaimer out of the way, I am a Resident Evil fan, I have for a long time but there were times where the enemies didn’t feel threatening enough. I mean yeah, you have your Lickers, and Tyrants, and Mr.X/Nemesis but sometimes it just felt as if the threat wasn’t there just due to how braindead (heh) zombies could be. Enter, Dino Crisis, the game that filled a need I didn’t know I had at the time. Dino Crisis, for those, who do not know, is a survival horror game much in the same vein as Resident Evil (for the sake of brevity, the terms DC [Dino Crisis] and RE [Resident Evil] will be used). The reason much of it feels the same is due to it being a creation by Shinji Mikami, the same director responsible for the RE games. I’m pretty sure when this was announced there were some skeptics thinking that this was just a re-skinned RE games that had different enemies. Thankfully that was not the case.

Of course the comparisons to Jurassic Park are there and why wouldn’t there be but the characters going in weren’t hapless or wonder struck civilians, they were soldiers. The player character being Regina, a red-haired weapons expert that could handle her own and had clothing that was suited for the mission she was on, just saying. With the rest of her unit made up of a wise cracking smart-ass and a hardened military type that could have a flashing sign over his head that says “I will die or turn evil” along with the goal of trying to find a doctor on an island. The real reason was for a source called “Third Energy” where in which the story promptly craps itself and starts heading into Sci-Fi territory. I’m not going to give the whole plot away here for the series but just know it gets a little (read: LOT) ridiculous and its one of the reasons why it is enjoyable. Much like RE, if you don’t think into it but so much its fine. If you do, then you will have a lot of questions but I feel as if they did a slightly better job of not having the plot crap itself. Except for DC3. More on that later.

From left to right: Rick, Gail, and Regina

Due to the nature of dinosaurs, outside environments were more so required to allow for them to move. This allowed for less of the brown/gray, dark environments of the RE games and more greenery and varity of the flora and fauna of what you would encounter. There were industrial complexes as well that had ample room for scares and for adventure. Even as we were dealing with PS1/Dreacast graphics, it had a more realistic feel and gave you much bigger arenas to fight off many of the enemies. Those enemies being varying types of dinosaurs which I kind of have to use the term “varying” loosely. There were really only six types of dinos you had to fight with different color schemes to dictate how much of a pain in the ass they were to kill. But they looked good and were actually rather smart with their attacks. I had a couple of instances where they ran off and I had to hunt them down. But I also had times where one repeatedly ran into a laser fence so AI could be a crapshoot at times.

Evil little grunt bastards…

As to gameplay mechanics, I enjoyed being able to use plugs to get into the item boxes. I promoted a risk/reward system to plotting out if you wanted to open a box with lifesaving items or things that you could use later on. The limited ammo brought more tension since you had to fear running out of it so often as dinosaurs are just a tad bit more difficult to kill than a shambling corpse and the game’s guns took that into account. Most of the time the pistol you started off with felt like it could snap a zombie’s spine in two while blasting off it’s head but against dinos, not so much. But each weapon felt like it had a level of heft about it and the power of the shotgun would not be denied. Moving while shooting in this franchise felt right as you really had to keep on the move to avoid being eaten or picked up and flown off to your death.

 

Oh… Hello…

Dino Crisis has had a few games in the series but the only ones fondly remembered where one and two. The spinoff, Dino Stalker was a serviceable light gun game that had a couple connections to the DC franchise due to the fighting dinosaurs and a couple of reoccurring characters from DC2 but not really a Dino Crisis game. And then there was three. Oof. DC3 was… I have a lot of profanity that I could use toward this title but I will be nice and say it was not very good. The ideas of dinosaurs… IN SPAAAAACEEEEE seem like it could be a cool idea (read: not really but roll with it) and fits in with the story at a certain part (time folds) but god was it bad. There is a difference between prefabricated camera angles to induce tension and really really bad camera angles where you get attacked off screen and have to rely on auto aim to try and get kills. The characters were not memorable at all, the space ship was pretty boring and, while looking good for the time, aged poorly due to jaggy and unattractive character designs, messy interior designs, and being released on only one system didn’t help either; aforementioned system being the original Xbox. Dino Crisis: Dungeon in Chaos (thank you for reminding me of this wikia) was a mobile attempt at making a first person shooter, much in the same vein as Dino Stalker, for mobile devices back in 2003. Needless to say, it didn’t go over well. Besides a couple of a appearances in other titles, most notable being a playable Regina in Namco X Capcom and a costume in RE:3, that was about it.

 

-Retches Violently- 

I say a modern day re-imagining of DC is well overdue. Give RE a break since the series needs some rest and some fresh blood to revive that franchise. A version of DC with either prefabbed camera angles or even a third person prospective could work wonders. The novelty of dinosaurs and being able to put more in would make the entirety of the game more interesting and keep the player on their toes. It is also a perfect excuse to have Uncharted levels of pretty outside environments that allow for invention and sneak attacks in the brush from enemies. Jurassic Park showed that people still like dinosaurs and even some of the elements of science fiction could be brought back into the fold with all of what happened in the other games. Regina is a protagonist that is both tough and self-aware and in addition to that, isn’t just shoehorned in for the sake of diversity either. A full badass in her own right and with the franchise coming up on its twentieth anniversary, she’s a legacy character. There is a lot that could be done with this series and I hope its premise is actually used rather than just having it never see another title. Not to mention that it probably could not be nearly as bad as DC3.

As a bonus, some art from the Chinese Dino Crisis comic. And that’s about where the similarities end. Plot is quite different. 

Thanks to Giant Bomb, Dino Crisis Wikia, and youtuber Cyberjavier for the pictures.