It never ceases to amaze me to what lengths publishers will go to turn a mediocre and unimaginative title into a hit – bribing video game reviewers, hiring Hollywood stars of questionable acting talent as voice actors, including condoms into press packages... If half the money spent on advertising went into game development, the end result might be a half-decent game that doesn't need all that petty and exaggerated marketing bullshit.
The other day I read that the next month's issue of Playboy USA will feature nude pictures of the female vampire Rayne, the sexy main character of Majesco's Bloodrayne action game series. First thought that came to my mind was: «Whoa, cool!». Just as I was about to surf to the official site of the upcoming BloodRayne 2 game and «familiarize» myself with the heroine's more prominent attributes (namely, tits and ass), there came the second thought, in form of a question: «What the FUCK am I doing?!». And pretty soon an explosion of anger swept over me like a tidal wave, shattering all potential for a boner – yeah, I was that pissed!
I mean, what the fuck are they thinking? That their game will sell better because of this cheap marketing move? That people are gullible and horny enough to dish out $50 for a game that will most likely suck as much as its predecessor? That an average male gamer is so susceptible to lure of naked tits that he will drool over the game's cover and completely ignore the fact that BloodRayne 2 is utterly uninovative and crappy? No, don't answer those questions, god-dammit!
What's even more tragic in this story is that Majesco guys (and I have no doubt they're all guys, except maybe the receptionist and the cleaning lady) aren't even the ones who thought of this cheap advertising tactic first. Older gamers might remember Ion Storm's first game, John Romero's PC FPS called Daikatana, a below mediocre game known only for its spectacularly long development cycle and more delays than Fable, Half Life 2 and Doom 3 put together. What most people have forgotten by now is that only weeks prior to the game's release (which was good three years past the original schedule), nude photos of one of Ion Storm's developers (a hot blonde chick whose name I forgot) appeared in the US issue of – yep, you guessed – Playboy! Now, there wouldn't be anything controversial about a babe having her nude pictures printed in a men's magazine if it weren't for the following detail – the entire photo gallery with the accompanying text was saturated with one main theme (besides the chick's luscious body, of course) – Daikatana! A hot photo session and a free ad – Romero really couldn't have gotten a better deal!
There's no doubt that without this Playboy feature Daikatana wouldn't have sold more than a couple of hundred copies (since the game was utter crap and all), just as there's no doubt BloodRayne 2 (a multi-platform game with a hot main character) will sell at least three million copies upon release. Eidos Interactive better take the cue and devise a suitable marketing campaign for the next Tomb Raider game – after the next issue of Playboy, millions of horny gamers will be all over the BloodRayne game like flies on shit, in a desperate desire to see more pixelated nudity, and with prospects like that, who gives a rat's ass about trivial details like dull design and crappy game mechanics? It's therefore too bad that six orgasms later, when blood rushes from their dicks back into those ten defective neurons an average console gamer uses instead of brains, they'll realize that BloodRayne 2 is an unrewarding game with little content beside a chick with a nice ass and a pair polygonal boobs. Ultimately, there will only be two groups of people who will find it rewarding: 1) the game's developer and publisher, and 2) the tissue industry – you have to, you know, clean up after your sticky three-minute gaming session.
The other day I read that the next month's issue of Playboy USA will feature nude pictures of the female vampire Rayne, the sexy main character of Majesco's Bloodrayne action game series. First thought that came to my mind was: «Whoa, cool!». Just as I was about to surf to the official site of the upcoming BloodRayne 2 game and «familiarize» myself with the heroine's more prominent attributes (namely, tits and ass), there came the second thought, in form of a question: «What the FUCK am I doing?!». And pretty soon an explosion of anger swept over me like a tidal wave, shattering all potential for a boner – yeah, I was that pissed!
I mean, what the fuck are they thinking? That their game will sell better because of this cheap marketing move? That people are gullible and horny enough to dish out $50 for a game that will most likely suck as much as its predecessor? That an average male gamer is so susceptible to lure of naked tits that he will drool over the game's cover and completely ignore the fact that BloodRayne 2 is utterly uninovative and crappy? No, don't answer those questions, god-dammit!
What's even more tragic in this story is that Majesco guys (and I have no doubt they're all guys, except maybe the receptionist and the cleaning lady) aren't even the ones who thought of this cheap advertising tactic first. Older gamers might remember Ion Storm's first game, John Romero's PC FPS called Daikatana, a below mediocre game known only for its spectacularly long development cycle and more delays than Fable, Half Life 2 and Doom 3 put together. What most people have forgotten by now is that only weeks prior to the game's release (which was good three years past the original schedule), nude photos of one of Ion Storm's developers (a hot blonde chick whose name I forgot) appeared in the US issue of – yep, you guessed – Playboy! Now, there wouldn't be anything controversial about a babe having her nude pictures printed in a men's magazine if it weren't for the following detail – the entire photo gallery with the accompanying text was saturated with one main theme (besides the chick's luscious body, of course) – Daikatana! A hot photo session and a free ad – Romero really couldn't have gotten a better deal!
There's no doubt that without this Playboy feature Daikatana wouldn't have sold more than a couple of hundred copies (since the game was utter crap and all), just as there's no doubt BloodRayne 2 (a multi-platform game with a hot main character) will sell at least three million copies upon release. Eidos Interactive better take the cue and devise a suitable marketing campaign for the next Tomb Raider game – after the next issue of Playboy, millions of horny gamers will be all over the BloodRayne game like flies on shit, in a desperate desire to see more pixelated nudity, and with prospects like that, who gives a rat's ass about trivial details like dull design and crappy game mechanics? It's therefore too bad that six orgasms later, when blood rushes from their dicks back into those ten defective neurons an average console gamer uses instead of brains, they'll realize that BloodRayne 2 is an unrewarding game with little content beside a chick with a nice ass and a pair polygonal boobs. Ultimately, there will only be two groups of people who will find it rewarding: 1) the game's developer and publisher, and 2) the tissue industry – you have to, you know, clean up after your sticky three-minute gaming session.
