Half-Life2's promotion problem

[nutcrackr]

A few of the Halo 2 tv spots were very cool, PC games don't get much attention. In fact they last game that I remember getting proper TV attention was Quake 2 ( it was on the news ). I am not sure if it would increase sales enough as PC gamers know HL2. Maybe when it comes to Xbox they will advertise it.

 

[rrm]

Doug Lombardi

 

[silverstealth89]

true i agree but thing is that these trailers are ment for the gamre masses who already knew about HL1 and are just etting hyped up to HL2

 

[Slainchild]

Maybe when it comes to Xbox they will advertise it.

That is one thing that is certain, i can imagine it...:

"Now!.......The game that everyone has been playing for the last year...........Is on X-Box!!!"

/sales go up by 2%

 

[UKchaos2]

Advertising is very expensive though. You need a publisher like EA to get TV ads.

 

[PedroTheLion]

I saw the first part of the Halo 2 trailer, and it looked pretty good. Now, the Halo 2 trailer might not be guilty of this since I didn't see the whole thing, but my biggest complain with game commercials is that they hardly ever show any gameplay.

Theres some new X-Man game out who's trailer doesn't have one frame of gameplay. This is where a Half-Life 2 trailer would excel, since I suspect that all we would see would be gameplay. Who wouldn't be impressed by a short demonstration of Source?

They could also use the commercials to boost the retail sales, since the average person would probably rather deal with a hard copy rather than rely completely on Steam.

They're already 40+million dollars in the hole, how's the cost of a good commercial timeslot gonna kill them?

 

[SoSorry]

I dont think ive seen Halo2's trailer. I've seen some E3 thing of it (made the game look action packed), maybe that IS the trailer you're all talking about. But anyway..

I dont understand why you're so fussed about whether or not Hl2 gets a trailer, after all, you already know about it. Having other people know about it will only make it more difficult for you to get your hands on your copy of it (retail people). Also, i fail to see how Hl2 having a trailer will affect its gaming experience.

I'm getting the idea here that the only reason you want the game to have a trailer is for the game to become more popular. But why? You want it to be recognised as being great? If that is so, how does it benefit you? HL2 sells millions and gets voted greatest game of all time, and you get to say "i played the greatest game of all time"...

If it truly is the greatest game of all time for you, then you would be saying that anyway!!!

You don't seem to understand the importance of proper advertising. Half-Life2 is not as popular as some people think. Ordinary people like the parents who buy products for their kids at christmas are more likely to buy them a game that they see advertised. There are already magazines claiming there are better games than Half-Life2 (when compared directly) such as Halo2 and Grand Theft Auto San Andreas -- two games which are heavily advertised and if I were a parent who does not pay attention to internet chatter, I would buy those two games instead of Half-Life2 because their ads look cooler.

If you are a modder or an online player, then half-life2 popularity is of concern if you want the game to have long term appeal and if you want to see a sequel. There are also people who are fans of the game just like others are fans of sports games and want to see their team win

 

[Raz]

There are already magazines claiming there are better games than Half-Life2 (when compared directly) such as Halo2 and Grand Theft Auto San Andreas --

Its funny how you keep saying this, yet only one completely deranged magazine claimed this.

 

[SoSorry]

Its funny how you keep saying this, yet only one completely deranged magazine claimed this.

No there have been at least 2. Gamesmaster claims that as well. They said Half-Life2 is almost worth the wait......though I have yet to see an actual scan of the magazine, but there have been quotes from a few individuals who claim to have it. There will most probably be other magazines that will say the same.

It's just their opinion but it will influence readers of those particular magazine who can't buy tons of games and therefore must choose

 

[Asuka]

Half-Life2's promotion problem.

It's called improper advertising. Gameplay trailers are nice but they don't appeal to the mass audience. Half-Life2 needs a proper movie trailer like Halo2 or Doom3 or even a 15 sec tv commerial. The Half-Life2 trailer on the http://www.half-life2.com is pretty bland, and even an amateur could make a much better trailer than that. I've shown each of the trailers to people I know who only play games casually and they all were more excited about Halo2 and Doom3 simply because they had better movie trailers.

With only 2 weeks to go I'd have to say Vivendi is not doing such a good job promoting Half-Life2

I agree 100%.

 

[PuffAdder]

Half-Life2's promotion problem.

It's called improper advertising. Gameplay trailers are nice but they don't appeal to the mass audience. Half-Life2 needs a proper movie trailer like Halo2 or Doom3 or even a 15 sec tv commerial. The Half-Life2 trailer on the http://www.half-life2.com is pretty bland, and even an amateur could make a much better trailer than that. I've shown each of the trailers to people I know who only play games casually and they all were more excited about Halo2 and Doom3 simply because they had better movie trailers.

With only 2 weeks to go I'd have to say Vivendi is not doing such a good job promoting Half-Life2

Perhaps they could use Steam to promote it. :E

 

[ThrasherX9]

I don't think word of mouth is good enough. There are still plenty of people who say "Half-Life 2? They're making one?" All they need to do with HL2 is make a short snippet of a collage of various cool scenes, add some cool dialogue from the game and some cool music and you could easily excite tons more people that didn't know about the game or weren't sure about the game.

And yes, the Halo 2 commercial is pretty ****ing cool.

 

[Wraithen]

Maybe it's because of their multi-purpose nature, or the face that so many people see them as work machines, but PC's seem to don't get the recognition they deserve as gaming platforms. They're certainly not "mainstream" and I'm sure most PC fanboys are concerned, that's a good thing. But if it's going to continue as a valid (read profitable) gaming platform then two things are going to have to happen:

1) games makers will have to better use existing hardware instead of jumping on the next graphical bandwagon and leaving behind those who don't want to, (or can't afford to) upgrade every few months (thank God Valve seem to be getting this concept too) and,

B) games publishers will have to sell games to a wider audience. TV/cinema comercials would go a LONG way toward this. It wouldn't even cost a whole lot, gaming retailers and PC makers would love to get involved if it was pitched right. Play.com is doing it, and how many PC's do you think Dell would sell if their next advert had their latest system displaying Half Life 2 looking eye meltingly dreamy?

[edit] paragraphs are your friend.

 

[Sashswash]

we should have a community competition to put together the best Trailer!

That'd be easier to do if we all had the actual game

 

[SoSorry]

Maybe it's because of their multi-purpose nature, or the face that so many people see them as work machines, but PC's seem to don't get the recognition they deserve as gaming platforms. They're certainly not "mainstream" and I'm sure most PC fanboys are concerned, that's a good thing. But if it's going to continue as a valid (read profitable) gaming platform then two things are going to have to happen:

1) games makers will have to better use existing hardware instead of jumping on the next graphical bandwagon and leaving behind those who don't want to, (or can't afford to) upgrade every few months (thank God Valve seem to be getting this concept too) and,

B) games publishers will have to sell games to a wider audience. TV/cinema comercials would go a LONG way toward this. It wouldn't even cost a whole lot, gaming retailers and PC makers would love to get involved if it was pitched right. Play.com is doing it, and how many PC's do you think Dell would sell if their next advert had their latest system displaying Half Life 2 looking eye meltingly dreamy?

[edit] paragraphs are your friend.

They should make an XBOX that can play pc games .

Over the weekend I've seen Halo2 advertised on TV seven times, and I'm still trying to figure out why Valve or Vivendi have trouble making a half decent trailer for Half-Life 2.

 

[Eon Blue]

Yes, because we all know HL2 will need to spend millions on marketing because Half Life was never successful and nobody knows what HL2 is anyway.


:|

 

[AIEGET]

Wow, I just downloaded the HL2 trailer and whoever made it deserves to be shot for gross cinematic incompetence. Apart from the scene with the strider walking past briefly that trailer is more likely to put people off than to make them want to buy HL2.

I'm sure HL2 could easily be just as popular as Halo2 if they just had some sort of marketing. If HL2 had H2's marketing timetable we would have been seeing tv commercials by now. It's not as if people don't have the computers to play HL2, any Dell sold these days should be able to play it.

 

[SoSorry]

Yeah the Half-Life2 trailer sucks, and while Half-Life2 may be a great game, its thunder has completely been stolen by games which had a far smarter advertising campaign, such as Grand Theft Auto San Andreas and Halo2. Valve and Vivendi need to get smarter when it comes to promoting Half-Life2 because they have been completely outclassed by the competition

 

[Hectic Glenn]

Why did you restart this old bean, when theres a similar thread going talking about this now :imu:

 

[DEATH eVADER]

Half-Life2's promotion problem.

It's called improper advertising. Gameplay trailers are nice but they don't appeal to the mass audience. Half-Life2 needs a proper movie trailer like Halo2 or Doom3 or even a 15 sec tv commerial. The Half-Life2 trailer on the http://www.half-life2.com is pretty bland, and even an amateur could make a much better trailer than that. I've shown each of the trailers to people I know who only play games casually and they all were more excited about Halo2 and Doom3 simply because they had better movie trailers.

With only 2 weeks to go I'd have to say Vivendi is not doing such a good job promoting Half-Life2

Why don't they use the same people who did the promotion for the original Half-Life . Actually that was kind of crap from what I have heard.

Heres what I have in mind

FIRST SHOT=
(E=mc^2 pops up) "Can you solve this equation? No? What if we put it into perspective."

SECOND SHOT=
(Cut down version of the "strider wars" vid followed by cut-down "coast" vid. Then the Gman saying, "You time has come again.") "Did this help? No?"

THIRD SHOT=
(Scenes of the manipulator in action)
Possibly using the actor who plays Gman, "I hope this lesson has been somewhat...Educational."

 

[guise]

is it vivendis job to deal with all the advertising/promotion? or is it valves?

halo 2 has been marketed to death, which gives me no surprise when i see the sales, i mean theyve made cinema trailers, tv spots, billboards, master chief is splashed all over the internet... i even saw an ad on the side of a london bus.

microsoft has got bundles of money they can pump into advertising... hence all the promotion, and it DOES make a big difference.

i know pc games rarely have adverts, but they dont do damage, internet adverts on game sites only target general pc gamers

you guys that are saying hl2 does not need promotion are wrong because theres plenty of people who dont even know about the game, let alone the 1st one. just because you're a member of hl2.net doesnt mean the whole of the internet is.

bottom line: a little bit of commercial advertising (tv/cinema/billboards) wouldnt hurt

 

[ascii]

I think Valvue/VU are intentionally lagging promotion to see how well Steam hold up. They know that there's already a HUUUUGE community that's going to buy HL2 in retail or through Steam. They've made the preloads available to reduce the amount of bandwidth consumed when everything goes live, but there will undoubtedly be issues. With all of the clients needing to authenticate to Steam, there's going to be a huge load on the servers.

By delaying the massive marketing campaign (which i'm sure is in the wings) they can get the hardcore fans that will be a little more forgiving out of the way, and then make any adjustments to the Steam network before the ad campaign hits.

This isn't a sleeper title by any means. My guess is they're just playing things safe for the first week or so...let the community play and be their biggest spokesperson, then kick off the ad campaign.