Deus Ex: Human Revolution - how to advertise a game in 2011

Back in the 90s games had very little publicity, A TV and magazine spot was typically all the major publishers did. Games sold on good reviews, franchise reputation and word of mouth. A publisher could expect a continuous return over a long period of time as their games slowly departed high-street shelves into the hands of gamers.

Now things are very different: the cost of making a game rises every year, and the profit margins decrease. The burgeoning second-hand market cripples the industry: Buy the latest Harry Potter title from GAME this week and trade it in next week for only £5 less, they then remarket it in a ‘like-new’ state for just under the RRP. You win, GAME wins – but the publisher loses out. It’s a difficult situation for us consumers as we all want a bargain and there is little a publisher can do. They need the stores to sell the game, they need us to buy it - they can't get away with anything much beyond restricting downloadable content to new purchasers only.

So the industry had to find a new way to react, this was to think bigger and bolder about how to maximise sales before the huge second-hand market gobbled up the profits. A while ago that just meant more publicity, capitalising on new media and the internet. But now game releases are on a par with film premieres. Midnight releases are now common affairs along with celebrity packed launch parties for Triple-A titles like Modern Warfare 2,  these maximise the’ day-one’ sales which are the most profitable for publishers.

 Halo Reach midnight launch in 2010 - a decade ago this simply didn’t happen.

This is all good in theory, it’s fun for the gamer and its good money for the publisher. But are we now hitting the point where midnight hype is no longer enough? I use as my case study here the upcoming Deus Ex: Human Revolution, a game that could be the biggest seller of this year. The marketing teams of Eidos and Square Enix have done a fantastic job of utilising all the modern methods available to attract attention to their title.

 Firstly the release of a tie-in novel which has become standard for big releases, the Assassins Creed series now has three. By publishing The Icarus Effect in February consumers who might not have heard of the Deus Ex game will become potential ‘day-one’ purchasers. It is also a chance to treat the fans to something they want and will buy.

The second and more imaginative modern approach is viral and live-action advertising. Just placing adverts for pre-ordering and trailers everywhere isn’t effective enough. Back in 2004 the website www.ilovebees.com was a huge hit among Halo fans, it was a real world viral marketing campaign where players rushed about answering payphones and emails, trying to solve the mystery of an AI that had crashed on earth. The most dedicated followers received a DVD and a chance to play Halo 2 before it came out. Deus Ex has gone a step further with a campaign that combines viral advertising games with the ethical debate on transhumanism. 

A few months back the trailer below was released, telling "real life stories" of men and women who have had the augmentations that will feature so prominently in the game. It was a fresh and amusingly cheesy approach that certainly brought attention to the upcoming game.

Following the link at the end revealed a website were you could find out more about this fictional corporation that would play a major role in the game. That was until yesterday when things took an interesting turn.

Now when you visit the Sarif Industries site ( www.sarifindustries.com ) it glitches up after having been hacked by the anti-augmentation group Purity First. This is playing into the recent media exposure of hackings and alongside the live-action trailers it builds up an alternate reality game much like ilovebees.com that has plenty of potential to expand in the month until the game's release on August 28^th.

So is this the new standard for games? Midnight launches and live-action trailers are certainly here to stay, although the quality does vary, (youtube Mass Effect 3 Live Action Trailer if you want to see poorly acted and hammy example). Novel tie-ins are only profitable with the biggest titles but the number released is slowly increasing each year. Viral marketing campaigns will however become more complex and intelligent as publishers take advantage of social networking and mobile devices to gather the interest of the crowd and survive an industry that, whilst thriving, doesn’t hesitate to kill off unprofitable ventures.