So wait, did BIA's ads have gameplay footage in them? I can't actually remember, I haven't seen any of the ads recently. If not, does any of this also apply to you guys (or Ubi, I guess), or is it all just focused on the COD franchise so far?
I know ATVI did something similar with the first X-Men Legends, hiring Blur to put those ads together. But then for XML2 the ads used actual footage from the cinematics and then finished with clips of gameplay. So that I'm ok with, at least.
BiA EiB did have a pre rendered commerical. Hill 30 was real footage.
That's actually not the issue that's being discussed here.
The problem is they used a pre-rendered commercial and purposely put a bunch of quotes that talked about how amazing their graphics were to confuse the customer into thinking it was the real game. This has nothing to do with any of us... we're the hardcore crowd and responsible for maybe 5% of sales. The other 95% are the ones they're trying to protect-- chances are they don't understand it anywhere near as well as we do.
I think the solution for Activision here is not to actually pull the commercial but restructure their quotes so it doesn't imply that the footage is real.
This isn't as big of a deal as people seem to be making it.
Yea the Killzone PS3 E3 2005 Trailer was total bullshit. I wish games looked like that but I suppose we'll have to wait another 5 years.
ah, okay, I was sort of skimming the articles and this thread and missed it was the quotes causing the issue. Fair enough. 
As Mike said, the easiest solution is to put a little "Not Actual Gameplay Footage" tag at the bottom, just like how car commercials put "Dramatization - Not Actually Possible" when they drive their cars underwater or off buildings.
sue "axe shower gell" if when you shower, girls dont jump your bones.
Quote from von*ferretsue "axe shower gell" if when you shower, girls dont jump your bones.
haha true
I think the difference between the Axe spot and the CoD spot, is the way the general public perceives it. I am sure there are more people thinking the CoD commercial shows actualy in game footage than people thinking they would shag girls left and right after purchasing Axe shower gel.
Wait, what am I supposed to do with all this Axe shower gel now?
Works for me, you guys must not be using it right :wink:
A lot of people wonder why the burgers at McDonals don't look the way they do in the ads and in pictures that McDonald's marketing releases.
In reality,...it is just how marketing works.
Quote from mikezillatruths:marketers will never stop lying to you. they dont care about the product at all, they care that you buy it.
consumers will never stop bitching. it's in their nature.
As a future marketer I can say that's not true. That might have been the general view a few decades ago.
Never underestimate the power of negative word-of-mouth.
The Axe commercial is exaggerated enough for consumers to perceive it as unrealistic just like Red Bull commercials. They use a comical approach, the strongest method for building brand awareness and brand recall if done right.
yeah okay.
my opinions are based on years and years of dealing with marketing people in the industry.
they don't care about the game or the quality and never will.
Id think it would depend on market to market. Maybe marketing people in game industry DONT care about the quality of the game and will do what is nesc. to sell the game, thus pre-rendered scenes. I think that this will become less and less of a problem as more games try to achieve almost cinematic CG quality and wont rely on other factors to help boost their image.
well...there are marketers who do care. but for a long time in the industry most marketers haven't cared and focus mostly on financial results over a time period. it's a tough, complex issue to tackle and i really don't want to spend the time on it now cause my brain hurts today.
anyway, marketing is full of questionable representations of products. the validity and acceptability of such marketing is really a function of the industry and precedent. Until their are laws (as related to what's going on in the UK) or established industry norms that prevent such ads, they won't go away.
I would like to say that some of the best video game ads i've seen don't feature rendered movies: GTA SA got me very excited about that game...maybe it was the GnR playing. I think Lusas Arts ads, though not always the most innovative in general, have been effective at selling under the radar games like Mercenaries which became a great success.
bah...marketing is second to product quality anyway. Is the game fun? Does it have a wide appeal? those are the most important questions to answer to determine game success. "is the marketing good" is only a valid question if you have a good enough game. History of game sales shows that.
As an advertising major I speak for myself when saying: I do not care about things.
In the end you can always ask yourself,
how much faith does a company has in their own product, if they believe they need flashy render movies to sell it.
I've noticed a few movies even doing this (not with renders) with scenes that are in the trailers but majically removed from the movie. That's also is false advertising if you ask me.
The gaming industry should really stop doing this. It's just not good business. especially durring a next gen system release. Im not sure I should generalize here but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that there's a large percentage of people that see these renders in commercials and actually believe that gameplay will really look like that.
I'd say 99.9% of us on Mapcore can tell when it's BS. But my bro who doesn't keep up with gaming and technology in general cannot distiguish the difference. So yes you're right we are the minority which is why I belive this is such a bad business practice.
EDIT: here's several comments of what some people on gametrailers.com thought of the Zillzone 2 trailer. So sad really.
Quote from Izunobah...marketing is second to product quality anyway. Is the game fun? Does it have a wide appeal? those are the most important questions to answer to determine game success. "is the marketing good" is only a valid question if you have a good enough game. History of game sales shows that.
Not necessarily true either. Games based on films tend to be shitty. Nevertheless, some of them have been fairly big hits.
About the fake in-game content, you wouldn't be discussing about it here unless it had an impact on you. Negative critical incidents tend to lead to stronger emotions, more mind processing, and are stored in your memory for a longer time period. People do not tend to give feedback when they are satisified with something, unless their perception of the quality significantly exceeds their expectations. Negative incidents still lead to stronger reactions like taking the initiative to complain here and creating negative word-of-mouth. Of course, all this depends on your previous exposures to the product/service/brand (positive/negative), number of exposures, relationship length with the brand, values, etc...
What if bigger information sources would spread this negative word-of-mouth. Could there be a snowball effect? Would that affect sales? Perhaps in some age groups or social groups. Perhaps not. It might if the people who first played it would have felt as if they had been betrayed, spreading the word to others. What if game reviewers would take this matter in their hands?
bleh... I'll shut up now.
Quote from -Stratesiz-Not necessarily true either. Games based on films tend to be shitty. Nevertheless, some of them have been fairly big hits.
About the fake in-game content, you wouldn't be discussing about it here unless it had an impact on you. Negative critical incidents tend to lead to stronger emotions, more mind processing, and are stored in your memory for a longer time period. People do not tend to give feedback when they are satisified with something, unless their perception of the quality significantly exceeds their expectations. Negative incidents still lead to stronger reactions like taking the initiative to complain here and creating negative word-of-mouth. Of course, all this depends on your previous exposures to the product/service/brand (positive/negative), number of exposures, relationship length with the brand, values, etc...
bleh... I'll shut up now.
yes I get your point. All I'm saying is think about flashy marketing on mediocre or crappy games, like Enter the Matrix. There is a property that is ripe for gamers, but in the end, the game quality actually hampered the sales of the product. Sure, they marketed the hell out of it (and no, I don't think they used flashy pre rendered footage but i can't recall) but it never lived up to expectations. It sold a lot of units, but before it was released many people were predicting GTA like numbers because the hype was so high. In the end, product quality limited the appeal.
Everything you say about branding makes sense...that's all marketing 101 so there is no disagreement. In fact, that argues the point that slick marketing is often very effective.
I think the issue here is, should marketers do that? In truth, most of those slick pre rendered things capture the "brand essense" which is important. They usually excite the mass market gamer. They are sometimes included somewhere within the game or on the disc somehow. Does that mean false advertising? No. Sure don't....until someone raises a lawsuit, it gets argued in court and some new ruling comes out if it.
I feel like we've been around the pole on this enough.
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