Posts by FrieChamp

  • Post bands you like but nobody else knows!

    Haha mino us two think alike ;D

    Quote from ReNo

    A couple of mates of mine are in a band called Taking Chase (...)http://www.myspace.com/takingchasemusic

    Sounds cool Reno, from the songs on their myspace still quite straight forward punk though A band I've seen live which mixes genres quite heavily is "State Radio". It's a mix of Reggae and Punk Rock, sounds weird but is pretty cool. Either way which of these two genres you like, you will find it in their songs. So here it goes:

    State Radio, Reggae/Punk, USA

    http://www.myspace.com/stateradio

    HP, seir: Please mention at least what music type!

  • Post bands you like but nobody else knows!

    New thread idea

    Post bands you like but nobody else here has (most likely) ever heard of!

    I share CDs and links with a buddy at uni and it's quite fun to listen to bands you haven't heard before, guess what the other might like and talk about it. I don't listen to a whole lot that's on MTV or radio anymore and with websites like myspace there is a vast range of bands to listen to (or even entire albums to stream for time periods).

    If you like we could also expand this to "DJs" or "artists" because I know we got a lot of electronical music lovers here.

    Why? Because this way all of us might discover music we like and that is not on last.fm or other popular music libraries. And while we do so we promote newcomer bands as well

    IMPORTANT: This is NOT another "post your favourite band/artist" thread! Think about how likely it is that others have heard of the bands before (if the band is signed at a major record label, are played on the radio and currently finish up their 3rd album, chances are we have heard about them before!)

    Guidelines: Post the band's name, origin, music type, music samples (only legal ones of course - myspace/youtube; try to narrow down the samples by mentioning your favourite ones), background information (in case you have any).

    I'll start, if this takes off, I'll have plenty more to share:

    Krusty Crew, Germany (Bielefeld ), Punk-Rock/Skatepunk: http://www.myspace.com/krustycrew

    Cool band from my hometown, they release their new EP this month and I've been listening to the songs on their myspace for the past days. It's just a few but they all rock imo. My favourite is "Tom". The songs are in English by the way, check it out if you like Millencollin, No Use For A Name, the old Blink 182 stuff,...

    Saw them live at a band contest a couple of months back, they are pretty good live (they enjoy drinking beer, party and certainly don't like the pope )

    Hope to hear some submissions from you guys!

  • Batman the dark knight trailer

    Quote from Thrik

    wtf @ a statement like that without watching it

    You should know better.

    Sindwiller writes the movie review section of the New York Times, he gets to see every movie before everyone else does DUH!

    Curman - it's pretty obvious that "The Dark Knight" is a remake of the original Batman movie from 1989 isn't it?

  • Mirror's Edge

    Looks beautiful, well made teaser. One of the few games where I'm more interested in how "it feels" rather than how it looks (and I'm not even speaking of complex gameplay, but just the controls...I hope things like keeping balance come across via controls just as well as they are presented visually).

  • Grand Theft Auto IV

    Quote

    I still keep getting more and more amazed by this game, it is hard to believe that human beings put this thing together, it is as far as I'm concerned in the same league of awe as huge engineering constructions, things that are so impressive that it feels absurd that humans put it together. It is one of those games that has been transported to the present from the future.

    This could have come straight from a map video by RD

    It seems each game, not only GTA, my xbox confuses save files and loads an old one instead of the most recent one, so I often find myself loading it manually - anyone else having experienced/heard of such problems?

  • Pre-release marketing and media

    Quote from Taylor

    To be honest, that sounds like an almost suicidal strategy for most people. What GTA4 does is largely irrelevant to what other games have to do; it’s the largest gaming franchise on the planet and had lots of money to throw at those viral campaigns. And ultimately, they could’ve released a bunch of trailers that just said “Grand Theft Auto 4, Coming Soon” and still would’ve generated more than enough hype.

    Advertising is supposed to hammer an image into your head, or at least the subconcious, the GTA name does this by itself because it’s an extremely successful franchise several titles deep.

    Other games certainly do not have this luxury, and they need to hammer home exactly what the game is about, and what you will be doing, even to the extent where it’s spoiling parts of the game. Getting people to buy the game is more important than detracting from their experience once they have it, and a punter himself can choose not to look at the media released for a title once they're set on buying it.

    Marketing concepts usually consist of multiple strategies. Of course using just viral or guerilla marketing to promote your product makes little sense unless you are a poor start up company, which isn't the case with Rockstar.

    This so called "hammering down an image in your head" stands for the classic advertisement channels to reach your consumer, problem is that these are so flooded with competitor's messages, it's hard to gain consumer's attention. Unusual ways to surprise him or to make use of mouth-to-mouth propaganda (hello interweb!) simply has become an effective, cheap instrument to market your game (as long as you do it right - alliwantisapspforchristmas.com anyone? ). It's a good strategy for small companies with a small budget. Obviously you will still need to show media of what the game is about (preferably in a vey compact manner) but this is also about gaining attention.

    I didn't mean to talk only about GTA4, that's just the example from the article and for further discussion - a bad example I must admit. GTA's brand recognition is so big, it has reached pop culture status. I agree, they could put practically anything out there and people would buy it. Think about other games, ones that are not sequels to popular titles. Maybe games that are not unique/visually attractive enough to have a few screenshots speak for themselves. Why would would he choose to even look at the footage?

    As for everything that follows the purchase, why disappoint the consumer and make him regret his purchase/make him feel like he was tricked into buying the game? Why not exceed his expectations, so he buys the sequel?

  • Pre-release marketing and media

    Quote from Zacker

    Rockstar had a much better initial position to pull this off from. They could release very limited amount of information and yet have everyone hyped - which is what they did. I highly doubt that this would work for everyone though.

    So what's your suggestion for everyone else?

    Browsing the official GTA4 site they seem to have also added a lot of content for viral and guerilla marketing, like myspace templates, "wanted" posters with the game's characters to print out yourself, avatar images for forums/messengers..

    Makes sense to use these strategies instead of just flooding each site with screenshots (over years).

  • Pre-release marketing and media

    Just stumbled this really short read on shacknews about GTA 4 and the way Rockstar handled the marketing/media releases before the actual game release:

    Quote

    (...)But the amazing part is, despite all the media and the coverage, I had no idea how the game was going to start. I had no idea what my first few missions would be. I had no sense of the world of Liberty City. Sure, I might see a familiar storefront or two, but I'm free to explore, to discover it at my own pace.And the more I think about it, the more I find it a welcome change from the exploitive marketing efforts of most publishers. I believe that many companies are simply showing too much of their games, which ruins that sense of discovery and makes me feel like I've seen it all before.

    I think he touched on an interesting subject. Most publishers and developers seem to think - the more coverage, the better. They tend to forget that each magazine cover, feature and preview needs to be filled with content. If you take a 3 years+ dev cycle and shorter getting games in terms of gameplay time, you won't have a lot of new to offer to the anticipating customer once he/she picks up the game and puts the disc into the drive.

    On the other hand press coverage and exposure is undeniably a key piece to market and to ultimately "sell" your game. It's two worlds clashing against each other all over again. At least Rockstar seems to have found the right balance! Just wanted to hear your experiences and opinions about this