Advertising

We Ski! It’s the most X skiing game on the Wii.

I was just laughing to myself about this Balance-Board compatible skiiing game that Namco Bandai is bringing to Wii shortly. Well, not about the game exactly, but rather about the text on the official website. It seems that We Ski is not only “the most exciting skiing game to hit the Wii,” but it’s also “the most intuitive skiing game on the Wii.” Most entertaining of all is that they never mention it’s the only skiing game on the Wii. Snowboarding, as in SSX Blur, hardly counts.

This is advertising folks, and I understand that. That doesn’t make it any less entertaining. Read on for the press release, which is decidedly less comedic than the website.

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Guitar Hero Mobile gets weird product placement in Marvel comic.

In this month’s issue of “Fantastic Four,” readers are greeted by an amazingly bad example of product placement: a dude in a Guitar Hero III Mobile t-shirt.

This sort of thing isn’t entirely new in the world of funnybooks, but as a fan of both comics and gaming, I can tell you that this particular example is lousy. As a gamer, I’m pretty well convinced that Guitar Hero Mobile is a terrible idea. However, Guitar Hero itself is not (or at least, it wasn’t)… so seeing a specifically Mobile logo as opposed to a regular GH logo is off-putting and reeks of paid endorsement.

My speculation: It is probably entirely likely that the current Fantastic Four creative team wanted to include a Guitar Hero shout-out because they’re fans and the game is a hip property. But when they contacted Activision’s Marketing Brigade - licensors of such amazing high-quality products as the Guitar Hero Air Guitar Belt Buckle and Guitar Hero LCD edition - they were told they have to use the Mobile logo because that’s what the Brigade wants to push right now. And using the GH: Aerosmith logo would require some advanced copyright finagling with Steven Tyler’s signature on a hundred documents. But that’s just me making stuff up. Maybe Activision contacted Marvel Comics and this was what they came up with.

If only they didn’t use the Mobile logo. They could have saved their street cred.

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Read-a-long with GameStop Guide (April 2008)

You walk by it all the time, a catalog of current and upcoming releases available every month like clockwork. Perhaps it’s the most honest gaming magazine of all; because it just wants you to buy stuff. This is the GameStop Guide, and for some, it just might be their entry point into our beloved obsession.

Is there anything to be learned within its dog-eared pages? Probably not, so let’s just make fun of it…

I’m just assuming this is the April release since it spotlights a lot of “COMING SOON” releases in April and May, like cover game Grand Theft Auto IV. I love the little RP, like there’s any question what GTAIV will be rated. I’m sure the ESRB is dithering between a T and an M as we speak.

The Guide kicks off with eight pages of DS product, because it probably just makes a ton of money-sense to frontload the DS right now. Of course, I’m immediately irritated because of this:

Mario Party DS was released in November 2007. New Super Mario Bros, May 2006. Mario Kart DS was November 2005. All three are still retailing for $35. Nintendo is just so incredibly stingy about letting their games slip in price (unless they shift a console game into the Players’ Choice category, which has no analogue on the DS). Throw us a frickin’ bone here, Nintendo!

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Gears of Pepsi

If recent projections from Research and Markets are to be believed, in-game advertising spending will increase from $295 million in 2007 to $650 million by 2012. Does this mean we’ll soon be playing Gears of Pepsi and Halo 4: The Mountain Dew Chronicles? God I hope not. So far I can’t think of a game where the in-game ads really bugged me too badly. Sure, I hated whizzing past Comp USA signs on every street in Burnout Paradise, but after a while I stopped noticing them. The reality is, most of us live in a capitalist society (sorry China) and corporate dollars are going to be impossible to pass up. Let’s just hope game companies keep it tasteful!

Via Research And Markets

All Your Spokesman Are Belong To Us

How do you get even with your main competition when they re-up with the NFL to keep their exclusivity through 2013? You employ the comedian who was the voice of the commercials that EA used while ascending to the top of the sports gaming world.

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Preorder Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword, get a highly excellent sword stylus.

Preorder bonuses are pretty much the only way a publisher can get me to preorder a game. And hey, software manufacturing being what it is these days, there’s otherwise really no point. It’s not like you can’t find the game a week later if you want it.

One type of preorder we see from time to time is a custom stylus. There was one in the Portrait of Ruin preorder bundle (still the best preorder set I’ve seen, I love mine) and there was the one you could send away for that was associated with Phantom Hourglass. Then there was the pink one you could order for Kirby Canvas Curse, which was disappointing.

Tossing such dreck aside is this surprising sword with sheath stylus for Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword, the impossibly awesome-looking action game coming very soon for Nintendo’s abundantly-screened portable. Just look at this thing. Freaking sick.

The game hits mid-March. I need some scratch.

Source: Gamestop via GoNintendo via DSFanboy.

See also:

Second Spin: Kirby Canvas Curse

Castlevania Soundtrack CD Full of MIDIs.

Castlevania DS: Mega Pre-order Love

LED Pac-Man Christmas tree baffles, munches on Madrid.

I spent a certain amount of time setting up my artificial tree this year, and every second of it was completely wasted, it seems. I didn’t even know you could get a tree like this. The tree is fully animated, and made entirely of LEDs. An amazing homage, in the least. Anyone else impressed? Check out the links for some video of this thing in action. Then tear down all your ornaments, we’ve been shamed.

Source: ClipSet via Technabob.

GameStop advertising… in Redbook?

While flipping through the latest issue of the women’s magazine Redbook this evening, my wife (who is also a gamer, mind you) stumbled upon an amusing ad. There, tucked between the ads for Shedd’s Country Crock Deluxe Homestyle Stuffing and the article on page 99 called Your Love Life, is a full page ad showing a line art picture of a flamethrower with a green bow on it, and the words,

This Christmas melt his heart with a new flamethrower

By way of explanation at the bottom of the page, they insist,

Even if you don’t share his love of video games, giving him a new console, accessory, or game shows you really care

My wife, incidentally insists she only has the magazine because it was free. And it seems I only read it for the ads.

Is GameStop pushing it by walking the line of a stereotype here? I don’t think so. The wording feels very cautious. It’s not as though they said, “Even though you don’t share his love…” What do you think?

There’s also an ad for the Wii in the magazine, which is nowhere near as surprising considering its clear success in the expanded market it currently dominates.

Shatner and Mr. T Do WoW

So as we all know now, World of Warcraft is a cultural phenomenon. People young and old, computer savvy and neophites alike play the game. Eight million plus subscribers are WoW’ing right now. So what could make more people get into the game. Easy, Shatner and Mr. T. That’s right, Blizzard has two of he biggest cultural icons from my childhood to come out and advertise how great World of Warcraft can be for you. I am totally brainwashed now and must buy every World of Warcraft product there is because Shatner told me to do it.

Thanks to GameVideos for the links.

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Its a Blu-Ray-A-Palooza After Thanksgiving at Walmart

A forum poster at Blu-Ray.com posted about a sale that is suppose to happen at Walmart for the two days after Thanksgiving. He goes on to say that they will be selling the 40GB Playstation 3 with 10 free Blu-Ray movies. You buy the PS3 and then you can pick any 10 Blu-Ray movies that are valued under $30. On top of that, you still get the five free movies through the mail-in offer as well. I am always dubious of random forum posts, but even I had to say that it was worth throwing it out there for those that are looking to get a PS3 after Thanksgiving. You can’t throw 15 free movies out the window. That is a deal.