Commercials...?

Murphy's been a bad boy ...

Moderator: Moderators

User avatar
Yuki
Historical Society Historian
Posts: 2545
Joined: 12 Oct 2009

Re: Commercials...?

Post by Yuki »

KiramidHead wrote:There was an ad for Downpour in the back of the Past Life trade. That was so long ago that Fall 2011 was the given release date.
I'm not sure I count that as strongly as I would a TV commercial or an advert in a gaming magazine/somewhere online, just because it was already advertised in a Silent Hill-related medium.
User avatar
Kenji
Historical Society Historian
Posts: 5077
Joined: 19 Jul 2007

Re: Commercials...?

Post by Kenji »

Even in Silent Hill's heyday, commercials had nothing to do with getting me or my friends into it. It was all word-of-mouth, on my end. I had heard a legend, if you will, of a horror game scarier than Resident Evil 2, and I wanted it. After playing it and being terrified and horrified, I then spread the damn thing to any friend of mine who'd listen. They're still fond of the games, to this day.

Come to think of it, there did seem to be one commercial that actually brought in an influx of new fans.

Y'know, the movie. :wink:
Image
User avatar
clips
Woodside Apartments Janitor
Posts: 1241
Joined: 21 May 2010

Re: Commercials...?

Post by clips »

Kenji wrote:Even in Silent Hill's heyday, commercials had nothing to do with getting me or my friends into it. It was all word-of-mouth, on my end. I had heard a legend, if you will, of a horror game scarier than Resident Evil 2, and I wanted it. After playing it and being terrified and horrified, I then spread the damn thing to any friend of mine who'd listen. They're still fond of the games, to this day.

Come to think of it, there did seem to be one commercial that actually brought in an influx of new fans.

Y'know, the movie. :wink:

Word of mouth is fine, but in this struggling economy and for a game like SH, the series needs all the exposure it can get. I'm not saying it needs a multi-million dollar campaign, but some tv spots on key channels like sc-fi or other main stream channels here and there could spark some interest.

I've been highly critical of the newer games and even tho i consider them to be watered down versions of the originals, i still respect what they brought to the table and the series itself is still holding on to it's horror roots and hasn't turned into RE5 yet.

I'm looking forward to Downpour and while i don't think it'll be as good as the older titles, i have a feeling it's already going to better than homecoming...i want the series to live on, because the way it's set up, it can actually go on for a long time...
User avatar
Kenji
Historical Society Historian
Posts: 5077
Joined: 19 Jul 2007

Re: Commercials...?

Post by Kenji »

Dude, word-of-mouth is the single best ad campaign ever. Where do you think the concept of viral marketing comes from? For better or worse, people just don't trust an advertisement on television like they do the opinion of Average Schmo on a message board. Word-of-mouth is powerful in ways that tv spots just aren't.

Especially in "this struggling economy." Word-of-mouth is powerful and cheap. Of course, it requires a product that can produce that level of excitement. Think the Wii. Sure, it had its ad campaign, but the ads amounted to little more than showing people having fun together in a brightly-lit environment (the antithesis to the average image of the gamer) and the message, "Try it and decide for yourself."
Image
The Chauffeur
Rosewater Park Attendant
Posts: 1380
Joined: 06 May 2006
Location: luteum flore lotus ..yeah, England

Re: Commercials...?

Post by The Chauffeur »

I can't recall seeing any commercials for Silent Hill games (Badass says he thinks he saw one for SH2) but then I'm never swayed by commercials for games, to be honest. Reviews are always sought first and this always comes via talk - not advertisements. Nine times out of ten it's always "have you heard about *blah* [that's coming - or someone has heard of]..." -and we investigate from there.

I think gamers are very on the ball via word of mouth as to what's on the horizon and what's good or not without the use of commercial advertising. Personally, we are always on the lookout for what's coming and I can guarantee that it's never because of any sophisticated marketing campaign -- regardless of how much has been spent on it. If someone we trust the opinion of says "it's shit" - we usually don't bother. Of course there are times when you want to find out for yourself, despite opinion. But usually, word of mouth works pretty well for us.
formerly Caroline452 / Tears of Alessa
User avatar
Yuki
Historical Society Historian
Posts: 2545
Joined: 12 Oct 2009

Re: Commercials...?

Post by Yuki »

Kenji wrote:Dude, word-of-mouth is the single best ad campaign ever. Where do you think the concept of viral marketing comes from? For better or worse, people just don't trust an advertisement on television like they do the opinion of Average Schmo on a message board. Word-of-mouth is powerful in ways that tv spots just aren't.

Especially in "this struggling economy." Word-of-mouth is powerful and cheap. Of course, it requires a product that can produce that level of excitement. Think the Wii. Sure, it had its ad campaign, but the ads amounted to little more than showing people having fun together in a brightly-lit environment (the antithesis to the average image of the gamer) and the message, "Try it and decide for yourself."
Word-of-mouth IS a great way to drum up interest, but it doesn't always work properly. For instance, the Tales series seems to operate mainly on word-of-mouth, but then Bandai Namco complains that it doesn't see enough sales for the games... yet they don't actually advertise.

You need to put in some effort to get your game out there and gain attention. You can't rely solely on viral marketing or word-of-mouth, and actually trying to advertise will yield some form of results. Hell, I know the only reason I became interested in Kingdom Hearts was because of a television commercial.

Plus, Konami contracted a rather well-known band to do a song for the game; why on earth did they bother spending that money if they're not going to actually advertise?

EDIT:
I think gamers are very on the ball via word of mouth as to what's on the horizon and what's good or not without the use of commercial advertising. Personally, we are always on the lookout for what's coming and I can guarantee that it's never because of any sophisticated marketing campaign -- regardless of how much has been spent on it. If someone we trust the opinion of says "it's shit" - we usually don't bother. Of course there are times when you want to find out for yourself, despite opinion. But usually, word of mouth works pretty well for us.
My point is that advertisement can drum up interest in something; that's the entire point of the concept! It's why we have movie trailers, for instance, or music videos. Actually advertising Silent Hill can get people who may not know the name but be open to the kind of game it is into it, it can bring in people who wouldn't normally play this kind of title in (and who knows; maybe they'll like it!), and at the very least, it'll get people interested, hopefully enough to at least check out reviews and previews.
User avatar
Kenji
Historical Society Historian
Posts: 5077
Joined: 19 Jul 2007

Re: Commercials...?

Post by Kenji »

Your Tales series example assumes that the game actually has a chance of becoming more popular than it already is. I, for one, have known about the Tales series for years... but I'm not interested. I've even played bits of Tales of Symphonia and, aside from a few injokes that were produced, I'm still not interested.

Current business thought is dominated by marketing. Any victory is claimed by marketing and any defeat is blamed on insufficient marketing. At some point, though, the question of the product's viability must be brought up. Does the product serve a purpose? Is the purpose it serves compelling? Did it create a need in the market that didn't exist before?

My experience with Tales of Symphonia was a big, bland "meh." I can count any number of RPGs, Japanese and Western, that I find more compelling than a Tales game. I imagine that RPG players throughout North America make the same calculation. Sticking commercials on television would rope a few in, yeah, but probably not enough to justify the cost.

Silent Hill has a similar problem. I think the appeal of horror media to the mass market is... er... indirect. People generally don't like actually being scared, but instead want a thrill with their friends. The most popular horror movies have always had that appeal. Silent Hill, for better or worse, has tried to be actually scary instead of "scary" (like Resident Evil games and all the horror movies that matter). That has a limited amount of appeal, even in the cinema landscape.

On one hand, Silent Hill has probably reached its apex, already. If anyone cares about horror games, they've already heard of Silent Hill.

On the other, you brought up the Korn song, and you're probably right that someone in Konami envisioned running some TV ads with the Korn song. However, 1) Did you buy FFXIII because Leona Lewis sang the theme? Did anyone? and 2) The Korn song was pissing off established fans.

Somebody probably decided that Korn-themed ads wouldn't yield any positive result. The best they could hope for would be a non-negative result. Best to just swallow the loss of commissioning the song and not take what seems an all around stupid risk.
Image
The Chauffeur
Rosewater Park Attendant
Posts: 1380
Joined: 06 May 2006
Location: luteum flore lotus ..yeah, England

Re: Commercials...?

Post by The Chauffeur »

I think Silent Hill is notorious enough already without advertising. Anyone who needs tempting into the series now has a lot of catching up to do, quite frankly. :P
formerly Caroline452 / Tears of Alessa
User avatar
Yuki
Historical Society Historian
Posts: 2545
Joined: 12 Oct 2009

Re: Commercials...?

Post by Yuki »

Kenji wrote:Your Tales series example assumes that the game actually has a chance of becoming more popular than it already is. I, for one, have known about the Tales series for years... but I'm not interested. I've even played bits of Tales of Symphonia and, aside from a few injokes that were produced, I'm still not interested.
Cool. That doesn't mean that someone ELSE could see a potential Symphonia commercial and become interested.
Current business thought is dominated by marketing. Any victory is claimed by marketing and any defeat is blamed on insufficient marketing. At some point, though, the question of the product's viability must be brought up. Does the product serve a purpose? Is the purpose it serves compelling? Did it create a need in the market that didn't exist before?
My point is that Konami's done nothing to advertise it besides have a booth at gaming conventions. They even went so far as to hire KoRn... and then just let that fizzle out. I've not even heard of a print ad, much less anything else.
My experience with Tales of Symphonia was a big, bland "meh." I can count any number of RPGs, Japanese and Western, that I find more compelling than a Tales game. I imagine that RPG players throughout North America make the same calculation. Sticking commercials on television would rope a few in, yeah, but probably not enough to justify the cost.
I imagine that RPG players that may not even know about the series would appreciate trying it. Again, just because you didn't get drawn into them doesn't mean others won't.
Silent Hill has a similar problem. I think the appeal of horror media to the mass market is... er... indirect. People generally don't like actually being scared, but instead want a thrill with their friends. The most popular horror movies have always had that appeal. Silent Hill, for better or worse, has tried to be actually scary instead of "scary" (like Resident Evil games and all the horror movies that matter). That has a limited amount of appeal, even in the cinema landscape.
Simple, then: focus on the story. Market it like a thriller. Put the intriguing plot at the forefront of advertisements and drum up some interest.
On one hand, Silent Hill has probably reached its apex, already. If anyone cares about horror games, they've already heard of Silent Hill.
I've gotten people who have no interest in horror games interested in Silent Hill. Word of mouth? Yes. But that at the very least shows that people can become interested through other means.
On the other, you brought up the Korn song, and you're probably right that someone in Konami envisioned running some TV ads with the Korn song. However, 1) Did you buy FFXIII because Leona Lewis sang the theme? Did anyone? and 2) The Korn song was pissing off established fans.

Somebody probably decided that Korn-themed ads wouldn't yield any positive result. The best they could hope for would be a non-negative result. Best to just swallow the loss of commissioning the song and not take what seems an all around stupid risk.
The KoRn song was pissing off established fans, but anything they do pisses off established fans. I'd wager that some people found out about FFXIII due to Leona Lewis. Hell, I'll even use a personal example: there's a Japanese film based on an anime series, titled Cutie Honey. I enjoy the singer Koda Kumi, who sang the theme for the movie. Had I not been interested in Koda Kumi, I likely would never have been interested in the film and would have ignored it; because they had her do the theme, I found out about it and wound up enjoying it.

The same principle can easily apply to Silent Hill.
User avatar
clips
Woodside Apartments Janitor
Posts: 1241
Joined: 21 May 2010

Re: Commercials...?

Post by clips »

I completely agree with Yuki...any type of advertisement for the game is better than nothing for reasons already mentioned. As popular as FF7 was back in the day, the only reason i purchased that game was because of a commercial spot that displayed that incredible CG spot showcasing the city i believe.

The only other RPG i played before that was some game on my turbo-graphx 16 called cosmic fantasy2. I wasn't even a fan of turn-based rpg's like that, but because of that tv commercial, i ended up buying it, and like Yuki stated you can market this game for it's story and show quick snippets of the action or the creatures in commercial spots to make people wonder what the heck is this game about.

With the current rage about zombies being cannon fodder in just about every type of shooter and even tho SH isn't really about that, there's a possibility that even those folks who are just interested in blowing zombies away might take a look at this, but even outside of that a commercial spot here or there couldn't hurt to gain interest from folks that would have never looked twice at this game at all...
User avatar
KiramidHead
Historical Society Historian
Posts: 2980
Joined: 01 Jun 2009
Gender: Male

Re: Commercials...?

Post by KiramidHead »

I doubt if I would ever see TV spots if they existed, since I only watch The Walking Dead and they're currently sucking off Mass Effect 3 at the moment.
User avatar
angelofROOM302
Historical Society Historian
Posts: 3073
Joined: 08 Apr 2008
Gender: Female
Location: Wisconsin
Contact:

Re: Commercials...?

Post by angelofROOM302 »

I believe that I have seen a trailer for Downpour on TV months ago around October. Then I started freaking out because it was on TV! :mrgreen: Nobody else has seen this?
Also I've seen ones for Homecoming and Shattered Memories.

Anywho, Konami sucks with advertising. I'm not surprised that they aren't even mentioning a peep about the game and it's release day now. Not to mention, they just now added Homecoming as a game to the XBL marketplace.. *sigh*
User avatar
Augophthalmoses
My Bestsellers Clerk
Posts: 398
Joined: 24 Nov 2011
Gender: Trans male

Re: Commercials...?

Post by Augophthalmoses »

I've seen commercials for SH2 that were pretty prevalent on TV for a little while. SH3 had a commercial but it was rather short and I only saw it maybe 1-2 times. Then there was the Homecoming commercial I saw a couple of times and that was it.

IIRC I think SH4 had a commercial, but I never saw one on TV. Could of sworn I saw it browsing youtube looking at the commercials a long time ago.
Calamity
Historical Society Historian
Posts: 1752
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
Gender: Female

Re: Commercials...?

Post by Calamity »

I'm fairly sure a while back I did see at least one commercial for Downpour to be honest. As far as the rest of the series goes I don't think I've ever seen TV spots for them personally. Konami really hasn't been very good at getting their TV spots out though, certainly nowhere near as much as other companies\series (the Call of Duty franchise seem to get their tv spots plastered around every five minutes it feels like with every new release, haha).
The SH Champion
Cafe5to2 Waitress
Posts: 161
Joined: 23 Jun 2011
Gender: Male
Location: Silent Hill

Re: Commercials...?

Post by The SH Champion »

Actually, i was on gamestop.com and there was an ad for Silent Hill.
The Good: Konami finally advertised the greatest series for people to see.
The Bad: The dates for the HD collection and Book of Memories were wrong. If your are going to advertize something, get the dates right!!
I got some mixed feelings from it.
"The Fear of Blood tends to create fear for the flesh."
-Silent Hill
User avatar
Yuki
Historical Society Historian
Posts: 2545
Joined: 12 Oct 2009

Re: Commercials...?

Post by Yuki »

Well, at least they've upped it a little and shown a commercial or two. Does anyone possibly have any links to them?
The SH Champion
Cafe5to2 Waitress
Posts: 161
Joined: 23 Jun 2011
Gender: Male
Location: Silent Hill

Re: Commercials...?

Post by The SH Champion »

I can't find a commercial yet.
"The Fear of Blood tends to create fear for the flesh."
-Silent Hill
User avatar
five5sixers
Cafe5to2 Waitress
Posts: 265
Joined: 29 Jan 2008

Re: Commercials...?

Post by five5sixers »

I haven't seen any commercials either. Maybe a magazine or online ad or two, sparsely, but nothing on TV.
Book of Memories ID: five5sixers
User avatar
Aerith Gainsborough
Historical Society Historian
Posts: 3341
Joined: 05 Jul 2010
Gender: Female
Location: Kentucky

Re: Commercials...?

Post by Aerith Gainsborough »

I've seen nothing on TV, either. Wow, Konami. :\
I'm rarely on the forums anymore. Click here for ways to reach me.
User avatar
Arachnid1
Just Passing Through
Posts: 59
Joined: 07 Aug 2009
Gender: Male
Location: Lakeview Hotel

Re: Commercials...?

Post by Arachnid1 »

Yeah, advertising on this game has been horrible. That's a damn shame too, because this game has been great. Even people looking forward to it didn't know it was coming out. I told a friend of mine that it was coming out tonight (a few days ago, of course), and he was baffled.
Post Reply