The Internet Is Serious Business
We’ve been running a couple of new ads. The first one was this:
We have a couple more running in a similar style. In fact, unless the peel ad on the blog is rotating you should find another similar one on this page.
Reaction to the ads have been extremely positive and this has been shown by a number of things. To begin, there’s a nice forum thread currently at five pages which started up with the first ad. I can’t think of a single other ad in the nine years Shrapnel has been around that has spawned such a discussion. You even have one community member who changed his avatar to the ad for a while and is now using it as his sig, currently slightly modified. In fact, there’s a number of folks who are toying around with the ads. Again, in nine years no one has ever felt the desire to “play around” with one of our ads.
Forums are of course not always the best barometer though of how something is perceived. After all, as we all know, all it takes is a couple of umm, say we say “verbally enthusiastic” members to make you think the entire world either loves or hates something particular about a game. With advertising though we have access to real world data to see how it’s performing, not just sifting through the signal to noise ratio found on the Internet. And how well are these ads doing?
The first ad which was launched on March 31st (and so at the time of this writing has been active for less than a week) has a clickthrough percentage of ten times the rate of one of our traditional ads for a SIX MONTH PERIOD. Six days.
So yeah, it’s spreading the word.
Now, you can’t please everyone and there has been a couple of folks who found it shocking that we were now doing some sort of cheesecake campaign. Sexist, juvenile, so forth. Since these kind of debates crop up all the time in our world I’m sure it’s not hard to imagine constructing an argument against the ad campaign even if you don’t have a problem with it. Think about it for a sec. Done? Good, what you just thought up has probably been said by those that disagree with the direction we took.
Personally I don’t have a problem with the ads. I find them amusing not strictly because they feature women with come hither looks on their faces, but because of the juxtaposition. If we had an ad with a snow tire and it was selling winSPMBT I’d find it equally amusing. They’re different. And most importantly, really not that offensive.
Look, the women are clothed. There’s no sexual innuendo. I see worst photos on the covers of all those women magazines when I’m standing in line at the grocery store. The ads could be for a line of perfume, or shoes. Which is again what makes them amusing. It should be a perfume ad, not an ad for a hardcore niche strategy fantasy game or a military simulation (we have one for Air Assault Task Force).
I also find myself a tad shocked that the ads are considered sexist and immature when you consider the industry we’re in. Just off the top of my head let me a list a few things that qualify for far more scorn than a chick laying on a couch..
- E3 at its pinnacle.
- Launch parties featuring half-naked women and decapitated goats.
- The Postal series.
- Any of Acclaim’s marketing campaigns. Anyone remember the gravestone idea?
- Uwe Boll.
- Mike Wilson’s Gamecock. I mean c’mon, the name of the company is GameCOCK. How would you like to have that on your resume? “So, Mr. Smith, I see your last job was at…umm…ah…Game…cock?”
- Actually, anything Mike Wilson has been involved in. The GOD E3 trailer. The recent flamefest with Romero.
- Japanese hentai games.
When it comes to the world of video and computer games it’s not very hard to come up with a laundry list of things that you wouldn’t want your wife/girlfriend/mother to witness. We don’t think this current ad campaign rises (or depending on how you look at it, lowers) to that level.
We’re here to sell games. We want people to be aware of our games, and I’m fairly certain our developers want the same thing. We’re always going to be looking for new ways to attract attention and get more eyes on the games. Whether it’s experimenting with social network sites, or running off beat ads, we’re going to try out new methods. See what works and what doesn’t. We’re an independent publisher. We’re not going to ever get the cover article, or be the exclusive story on some cable show. We have to approach things differently. What all this means is that the ads aren’t going anyplace. To those couple of folks who aren’t keen on them, sorry.
And I hope you know us well enough to know that we’re being sincere and it’s not just a brush-off. One thing I think we’ve always prided ourselves on is our accessibility. We’re not some faceless corporate gaming conglomerate, if you ever have a question, comment, or an issue we’re here to listen. The answer may not be what you want to hear (especially if you’re emailing me about release dates…heh), but at least you’ll get an answer.
Gaming should be about fun. Let’s have some fun and not get too serious. Sound good?
“Everybody else is doing it” is as juvenile a justification as the ad campaign. In an ideal world, “approach[ing] things differently” would include not lowering yourself to your industry’s inferior standards. I’m just disappointed because I expected better of Shrapnel.
Comment by David Cunnius — 4/7/2008 @ 9:08 am
Hi,
> we have one for Air Assault Task Force
Hold the phone. You have a similar ad for AATF ? Is it a babe in a camouflage swimsuit ?
> Launch parties featuring half-naked women and decapitated goats.
oh, it’s not fair - why don’t I ever get invited to one of those - no, instead I’ll be in my car for 6 hours tomorrow driving to some stupid project launch meeting in Germany (really, I’m not making this up) and the best I can hope for is a decapitated sandwich served by fully-dressed women
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Comment by Eddy Sterckx — 4/7/2008 @ 9:43 am
David: But we’re not, and it’s not lowering ourselves to the industry’s standards. That was sort of the point of pointing out what are truly the awful practices within the industry. These ads are completely tame by comparison and are no where even in the same ballpark. We’re not going to cross that line.
Eddy: You can see the AATF ad on our Facebook page (it’s static), and I think it also rotates on our front page. No swimsuit, it actually looks more like a casino ad than anything else.
I think I’d rather have the decapitated sandwich than a decapitated goat.
Comment by Scott — 4/7/2008 @ 10:37 pm
So you’re not as bad as the worst of the industry. Yet. But you’ve started down the slippery slope. What happens when the clickthrough rates (which I doubt are going to translate into noticeably increased sales) start to drop? Will you say, “OK, we need to try a different campaign”, or, “OK, we need to make the current campaign more salacious”? Lowering your standards a little bit is still lowering your standards. What other common industry practices that Shrapnel has previously avoided become possibilities?
I admit, I’m probably overreacting; I tend to instinctively come up with a worst-case scenario. But these ads are the first thing Shrapnel has ever done that disappointed me.
Comment by David Cunnius — 4/8/2008 @ 5:28 am
Time will tell if the higher clickthroughs translate to higher sales, but by the same token it doesn’t have to be a direct connection. If the higher clickthroughs mean more people are then aware of Shrapnel, they may not be interested in anything at the moment but perhaps they will with a later release.
I doubt it will ever get more risque than its current incarnation. Keep in mind that the actual Shrap staff consists of five folks, two of which are female, and all of us over the age of 30. This isn’t a frathouse start up game company or Maxim.
Will a different campaign crop up in the future? Of course, but who knows what direction it will take. Again, the sole purpose of anything we end up doing is to build awareness. And hopefully we can achieve that without selling our souls in the process.
Comment by Scott — 4/8/2008 @ 7:57 pm
I think this ad would be sexist if Dominions 3 actually had over the top big chested blonde bimbos in which case the entire game would be exploitative and chauvinist as are many current games (The Witcher anyone?) Instead it comes off as being more of an absurd and funny ad (as if that model is really craving a game called “Dominions 3″) No offense of course
Comment by NO U — 4/10/2008 @ 6:13 pm
Hey, you never know. Surely there’s at least one model out there who’s a computer gamer. Anything is possible, right? Heh.
Yeah, Dom 3 is definitely not exploitative. Maybe Illwinter can add “conquest” cards for seduction in the next patch.
Comment by Scott — 4/11/2008 @ 6:03 pm
I’d like to see pictures of scantly clad men, pretty-boy underwear model types. Once you have naked boys, it won’t be sexist anymore.
Comment by DryaUnda — 4/21/2008 @ 8:20 pm
I posted on this on a couple of the other discussions and of course its not the worst thing ever. Anyone who is a gamer gets used to it. And anyone like myself who studies and enjoys Japan and Japanese culture know that they have a whole other level of sexuality that makes me shake in my Protestant Based Boots. haha.
So I mean! I am glad it works for Shrapnel in the end, and I respect what you guys do. And thanks for the well written response!
Comment by Cerlin — 4/21/2008 @ 10:45 pm
@DryaUnda: Hmm, maybe we should do that and start hitting up sites like ‘Sex in the City’ forums.
@Cerlin: Heh, see we’re at least not doing anything with schoolgirls and tentacles!
Comment by Scott — 4/22/2008 @ 8:25 pm
Now, I’m not one of your customers, so in that regard your campaign seems to be working in reaching new populations, even if we’re just coming here to ogle at the publicity wreck. On the other hand, I’m not exactly thrilled by your argument here, being that I’m a gamer and all. I doubt that I’m going to buy any of your games based on the image these advertisements leave of your social responsibilities; I struggle with gender issues enough every day in my gaming projects without wanting to support a chauvinistic company on my free time as well.
I just wanted to comment on one specific thing, which was that you don’t seem be understanding why that advertisement would be considered offensive by many people. Any conceived sexual innuendo or comparative games of who shows the most skin are completely irrelevant here - I know not of your prude American morals, but I am not the least offended by stockinged legs or bedroom eyes; no, the reason for why I find that advertisement offensive is that it objectifies the female models in a most blatant way in service of game sales. American game culture (which is the baseline for anybody wanting to have a gaming hobby) is appalling in its chauvinism even without this kind of opportunistic advertising. It does not speak well of you that you justify this campaign by marvelling at its success.
I should also say that I was quite certain that this was a joke when I saw the advertisement for the first time. I can appreciate a joke. It was your defending the campaign by comparing it to “worse” pornography (with a morally superior sneer, to boot), as if pornographic material were somehow inherently wrong, that annoyed me the most. Your chauvinism is not justified by how others act, and objectification of women is not a matter of how risqué you get.
Comment by Eero Tuovinen — 4/24/2008 @ 6:51 pm
“I should also say that I was quite certain that this was a joke when I saw the advertisement for the first time.”
And it is a joke. It’s a silly mash up.
Comment by Scott — 4/24/2008 @ 8:13 pm
- Uwe Boll
This one had me rolling on the floor. Personally I find the ads a nice change and if they generate better publicity, all the better.
Plus, you really see much more explicit material in primetime commercials.
Comment by pndrev — 4/25/2008 @ 10:10 am