On the flipside there’s the annoying Bloodrayne 2 campaign. A flash ad ambushed me recently, sporting Rayne with her two 34D breasts and a slogan asking if I remember these. No, Rayne, actually I don’t. In fact, I can’t even really recall them from the E3 presentation (or that they stood out more than the rest of her physical features), but since Playboy opted to publish those nudie and suggestive pictures of gaming femme fatales, Rayne suddenly has a lot of eagerness to flash her cleavage around. The TV ad takes it even further as the announcer stutters at the sight of her appendages. Not that I’m complaining – more blatant use of breasts as marketing tools aren’t likely to make me buy something, but it sure does take the edge off the day a bit. It’s just funny how a few months ago Rayne’s physical dimensions had very little to do with the game itself. I suspect a marketing pow-wow went a very predictable course.
But ads are nothing – if you want to create hype for a title, the best way seems to be boasting numbers. Last year we sat through Wind Waker’s apparently record-breaking pre-orders in the US with 560,000, breaking Vice City’s. Recently Halo 2 arrived and crowned itself the new king with somewhere between just under a million and 1.5 million (the figure seemed disputed for a while) pre-orders in the US. In between all that The Sims 2 managed to wow everyone by racking up an impressive million copies moved in just over a week. Now, predictably, the golden child of gaming returns as GTA: San Andreas did an estimated, but still astounding, 3 million units in its first week (with a solid 700,000 in the UK alone in just a few days.
Why does this work, though? Are figures really an indication if a game’s any good? Let’s analyze this for a second. Wind Waker was in no doubt a great game, but I suspect the record-breaking anticipation had more to do with a Zelda sequel on the GameCube than a search for gaming quality. The same goes for Halo 2, a title that still remains pretty much unrivalled on the Xbox (but one I’d easily put up against a myriad of other shooters). The Sims 2 would have sold well even if EA slapped an AO rating on it and exploited the little people into doing constant S&M parties. It probably wouldn’t have kept the pace, but you can’t deny the brand power behind the series. And San Andreas is a no-brainer: when you’re the next sibling in the world’s biggest gaming franchise, it’s like being born to very rich parents: you don’t even entertain failure.
But those are all great games. What about Enter The Matrix? The multi-million seller made all its development money back (according to Atari’s CEO) within its first week. It was critically slaughtered and a lot of gamers still fume at the thought of buying it, but the almighty Matrix brand did well, even if it left Shiny’s reputation in tatters. And the lackluster and disappointing Fable blew away the charts initially, but maybe that’s because like the GameCube the Xbox could really use a regular injection of good games to keep owners happy.
Why do these figures matter? I can understand why the publishers would like to blow their horns about how well they are doing and what nice commission their sales folk could expect, but these things are used more as artillery to get extra press out and get more people to buy the game. After all, if you think a game that moves a lot of copy has to have something to it – try swinging that theory past the folk who own the Matrix game or a selective collection of Star Wars titles. I don’t mind companies flashing heroine breasts or telling that their game shifted more units than there are flies during a heat wave. I don’t even really care that the industry keeps muddling their comparisons with box office releases, quietly leaving out rental figures for DVDs or the fact that at five times the price, it makes sense that some games would make more money than some movies.
Whoever thought of comparing The Sims 2 sales results to the lackluster opening of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow as a point of triumph was a genius.
I’m just worried that one day marketing will become more important than the game. It doesn’t matter how happy Bruno Bonnell is with The Matrix’s performance, it was a shit game and should be treated as such. And while there are a few initiatives to counter this type of thing, like Jason Hall getting huffy about the quality of WB franchise titles, there’s too much emphasis on that a good game is a game that moves a lot of copy. Try swinging that past the many indie development teams that are making cracker games that sell in small quantities.
Who knows – maybe one day it will be like the movies, where mainstream games cater to the masses while small projects and underground hits keep alive the appetites of gaming aficionados. Spit, polish and something new to experience will still be apart of the gaming diet, but not for long. There’s too much money to be made.
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