I certainly give Dead Space a hard time for its over reliance on jump scares and repetitive gun-metal-grey hallways, but as much as it was basically a failure as a piece of survival horror, it was a really fun and competent shooter, the sequel of which I have been awaiting with great relish. This wait is, however, somewhat marred by the advertising campaign leading up to it. On January 15th, several viral videos were released of some nice looking motherly types watching footage of Dead Space 2 and reacting with the expected disgust (EA apparently has some fine tuning to perform on its "capture the middle-aged housewife demographic" strategy). Clips of these videos were then used for TV commercials, culminating in a url of www.yourmomhatesthis.com, which simply takes you to the game's site. Here is the commercial, for those of you who have functioning brain cells not lost to TV.
I often wonder if the people that design advertisements for videogames secretly hate gamers. The awful, AWFUL Christmas trailer for Dante's Inferno that came out in 2009, as well as that obnoxious harlequin Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood trailer from late last year are the two examples of this phenomenon that come readily to mind. This particular campaign is no exception to this theory? Why, you may ask? Because...
It portrays gaming as a juvenile hobby
Look, I'm not going to be so naive as to claim that simply because the rating of "Mature" indicates that a game should be played by gamers 17 and up that this will be the case. Hell, if I'm remembering right, I got my first "mature" rated title when I was 10 years old (RIP, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter). My point is that the theoretical target audience of this game has long since stopped giving a shit what their mom thinks of their hobbies, and indeed, the moms have probably stopped giving a shit what their teenager is playing. So this then conjures to mind the old stereotype of the poorly socially acclimated 30 year old sitting in their mom's basement playing World of Warcraft. And I'm going to go out on a limb and say that 95% of you get really tired of trying to combat the eye rolls you get from people assuming you fall in to that category when they find out you're in to games. Bringing "my mom" into the equation just puts your average gamer in a bad spot: either you are too immature to decide what games you play and leave this decision up to your matriarch, or you are carrying around a decades old umbilical cord. So, EA, you either think I'm a sheltered actual child, or a contrarian man-child who still lives with his parents.
And, as a contrarian man-child who lives in his own apartment,
I resent that. This picture of a sad dog symbolizes such.
Advertising based on shock value alone is sloppy at best, harmful at worst
One thing you may have noticed was conspicuously absent from this advertisement is anything about the gameplay. Nothing about the tweaks they made to the gravity mechanics to allow free floating as well as wall bouncing awesomeness, nothing about the shooting mechanics focusing on dismemberment rather than weak points, simply shots of moms saying non-sequitors about how the game is an abomination, and generic shots of Isaac doing "space marine shooty stuff". If I had never heard of the series, my reaction to this ad would be "well, they didn't show me any gameplay and are trying to sell this to me based on an intangible assumed disapproval of others... next." Maybe I'm giving consumers too much credit though, maybe saying "this game will be controversial" is more effective at turning heads than saying "this game will be good."
Because that worked SO WELL the last time EA and Visceral
tried that strategy.
The problem here is that now it looks like gamers make their purchasing decisions by being maladjusted controversy whores. And just as I know 95% of you are really sick of having to explain that you don't live in your mom's basement and do have a social life, I know that 99.99999% of you are really sick of having to explain that violent video games do not beget violent behavior every time some dipshit goes out and kills people because he is crazy. When more shit goes down, this type of portrayal of the gaming community longing for popular disapproval kicks one more leg out from under us when the time comes to defend ourselves against allegations that our harmless pasttime is driving people to bloodlust. One last point before I leave you all to your days...
The premise of the ads is poorly executed and ambiguous
I can't seem to find confirmation one way or the other as to whether or not these reaction videos were staged, but I can tell you that either way, it doesn't matter. Look at the old women in the advertisement: do you really think that their reaction would be any different if you showed them Alan Wake, Just Cause 2 or any other title where a)spooky shit happens or b)you shoot a lot of dudes? It's clear that they simply stacked the deck with the kinds of shut-ins who would give them the reactions they want. Or simply engineered the whole thing. And there is something about having to engineer your own controversy that is even sadder than trying to give yourself a nickname. It'll never take, and you look even dumber for having tried.
So tell me: what are your thoughts? How much of a disservice to us are sloppily done portrayals of what we as gamers want?
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7 comments:
I keep seeing this ads and never thought about your point here...but it's a very good one. I think the irritating thing about advertising is that a lot of times it feels like it has the need to almost "talk down" to viewers. This is one of the most used examples, but I look at chocolate commercials and the way they basically say to women "We know you need it because of your woman hormones or whatever. Don't deny it!"
January 19, 2011 at 11:06 AMLooking at it from another angle, I think the main purpose of this whole "mom" campaign is shock and awe. But you did point out that it's not always the best choice.
Great article!
Wow...dead space a failure at survival horror? M. Butler is obviously a resident evil fanboy. And you describe the first dead space with such stupidity...citing cheap scares and hallways as it's major flaws. As far as the horror goes it's a much more mature and developed form than I have seen in countless other attempts at survival horror. Must have played it on the easiest difficulties.
January 20, 2011 at 1:27 AMAnd you look into the dead space 2 ads a little too much. It's basically simple marketing...albeit effective marketing. 80% of people saw that and wondered what the hell it's all about. And as far as creating interest, I think it's done it's job. And it's not looking to stir up controversy as much as curiosity. Not a disservice to us gamers more like a joke. It really reminded me of the wopper virgins of Burgerking. Just marketing ploys; nothing special.
They certainly failed at the "Survival" aspect. Not once was I hurting for ammo or health kits in either of my playthroughs, and even on harder difficulties, items do not become less scarce, you simply have to be more precise. It's hard to feel frightened when I'm holding a small armory on my person.
January 20, 2011 at 12:57 PMWell If you played on impossible mode and never died on your playthrough then I guess you survived. I'm just curious what cuts it for survival horror games these days. And don't say resident evil or I'll kill myself after I've made potted plants into health packs.
January 20, 2011 at 4:32 PMTragically, I just played on Hard. I'm not quite man enough for impossible. But addressing your inquiry:
January 21, 2011 at 11:02 AMBasically for me, survival horror needs to leave me worried that I am going to die on a perpetual basis, not simply that something will jump out and startle me. You should never feel properly equipped to handle a situation you encounter. Survival should be a struggle, not a firefight. Amnesia: The Dark Descent is probably the best modern example, and the Penumbra series (same devs) also seems to understand this. And while current RE games are about as far removed from survival horror as Dead Space, I will argue that the first 2 were great survival horror titles, as were the first 2 silent hill games (herbs and esoteric puzzles aside).
I'll amend my judgment slightly though: the first 1-1.5 hours is TOTAL survival horror. You have one gun, very little ammo, and still don't quite know what's going on. It's just that once you start to get a healthy inventory, that uncertainty goes out the window, along with the fear it begot.
I can't help but feel that the anonymous postings above totally nailed it. Dead Space is one of the great games of the last decade and this article was deluded or at best, quite confused and in need of a nudge in the right direction. Or, 'You don't define survival horror, games like Dead Space do.'
January 24, 2011 at 6:43 AMAs much as I'm initially inclined to agree with you, Butler, the fellow with the Japanese name up there brings up an interesting point. Dead Space fails as a survival horror title when compared to the classics, but the genre has changed quite a bit since its inception. As you rightfully pointed out, Amnesia and Penumbra hew pretty closely to the original template, but are there really any other current titles that fit that bill? Fatal Frame, maybe? At this point, one can pretty reliably assume that a new "survival horror" title will center around big action set-pieces, rudimentary puzzle solving, jump scares, and horrific enemy designs. Genre definitions are continuously being refined and altered, and survival horror has become a catch-all for vaguely frightening action games. When judged by current standards, Dead Space is a pretty great "survival horror" game.
January 25, 2011 at 2:46 PMHowever, earlier posters seem to miss an important piece of the article: you EXPLICITLY did say that Dead Space was a "really fun and competent" game. The argument (at least the way I read it) is that describing Dead Space as survival horror (in the classic sense) is a misnomer. I'm not detecting a huge value judgement there, so I don't quite get all of the impassioned defenses of the merits of Dead Space.
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