Dead Island’s Continuity Problem [Marketing Stories]

Alan sent me a trailer for Dead Island, a game which I had not heard of. The trailer (which is here) is an engaging short film that uses a clever juxtaposition of forward and backward sequences to tell a story, creating the impression of a game with thaumatic depth.

But then I went to the Facebook page, and saw this:

- first-person melee combat
- 4-player coop
- weapon customization
- set on an open world tropical island
- RPG elements for character development
- hordes of gruesome zombies

Sounds like a different game, doesn’t it? I think the Dead Island marketing has a continuity problem.

 

Which Game Am I Engaging With?

It’s unclear which marketing story the developers are trying to tell. The trailer attempts to convey over-delivery: ‘Look’, it says, ‘this game is about more than just action. It’s about something.’ The Facebook page, on the other hand, says ‘It’s ok gamers. Look at our features. You get to hit and shoot stuff, with levels.’

While the trailer is certainly attention-grabbing, the features message is arguably more powerful in the long term because it admits to players that Dead Island is actually a normal zombie-bashing game in the vein of Dead Rising or Left 4 Dead. It invites the player to regard the game as just another me-too invisible game. Left 4 Dead but with first person melee combat (when has first person combat ever actually worked?) is the content.

So despite being a great trailer, the message is that all that trailer stuff you just saw only bears a passing resemblance to an actual game. This is a shame, because the positive commenters on YouTube clearly buy into the idea conveyed by the trailer. They want to connect with it and to be immersed in that world. So if the game turns out to not actually do that, or to seem like a typical zombie basher, the only possible result is disappointment.

Marketing stories only work when they have continuity. Continuity means that the trailer matches up to the game, that the game matches up to the publicity materials, that the interviews with the creators match up to what the trailer is trying to convey, and that the overall impression of the experience is authentic. Audiences respond to authenticity in a sustained fashion, becoming fans, but they respond negatively to smoke-and-mirrors because they hate being fooled.

 

Disappointment

Smoke-and-mirrors are what developers and publishers usually employ when they decide it’s time to start generating hype. The trailer is treated as an independent entity, the game is only marginally connected to it, and the audience is led by the nose with tantalising glimpses. It is just a tactic to attain visibility rather than a strategy to build an audience, and the hope is that the illusion of what the game is will pervade long enough to generate significant sales.

Big budget game marketing uses what is essentially an MTV model: Attract with video, generate hype, sell boxed product. It sometimes works really well, especially if the hype and the game match up. However, operating like that is risky. Word of mouth moves more quickly than ever before, and players rely more on social recommendation than broadcast sources.

In the old days the trailer might have played on TV or on the screens of retail stores. Magazine journalists might have enthused about it and it might have even been included on demo CDs. Now, a trailer hits YouTube and goes all around the world in a day. It is hailed as amazing, and the expectations for what the game will be are immediately lifted into the stratosphere by forum speculation and blog love letters.

Then a misstep happens. The game’s in-game footage shows something else. The early reviews from journalists say the game is only good, not fantastic, and so a gap between hope and reality emerges. The net effect can be light, moderate, or very serious depending on just how big that gap is. The market will forgive a game that doesn’t quite reach up to its expectations, but it will still be disappointed. However the market will savage a game that is really wide of the mark.

A great example of how trailers can work is the one for Halo 3. Simple, clear, and inspiring, it also was closely related to what the game is actually about. The audience knew this, and so there was continuity. Bungie (the developers) reinforced this through their community, sustaining the relationship, and this further created the impression of continuity.

A bad example, on the other hand, is the trailer for Killzone 2 that Sony used to build hype for the PlayStation 3. Showing unheard-of levels of sophistication, graphics and co-ordinated gameplay, it was the trailer that was too good to be real. Flame wars raged across the internet as to whether it was in fact fake, and when the machine and its games finally launched looking much the same as Xbox 360 games, Sony lost a lot of credibility among fans.

It didn’t matter that Killzone 2 was actually a good game. It just couldn’t live up to expectations.

 

Playing With Fire

The point is that relying on smoke-and-mirrors is actually playing with fire. Trailers are an excellent way to get a game noticed as a part of a campaign to achieve visibility, but the downside is that they often write cheques that the game can’t cash. Gamers are increasingly wary of what they see in trailers, (requiring publishers to display the embarrassing Actual Game Footage label) and likely to backlash if they sense discontinuity. 

It’s too early to pronounce on Dead Island, but my initial impression is that the developers have created a very impressive set of smoke-and-mirror expectations that they will find nearly impossible to satisfy. Their trailer is several steps above the norm, and viewed as a short film in and of itself it is really rather good.

But how exactly will it relate with a game that is apparently all about first person combat, weapon customisation and levels? Not a whole lot.

So disappointment beckons.

Comments

[Wolfkin]

thank you for being awesome. I sometimes worry I'm the only one who isn't overly drawn in by the trailer. I've tried to say the same thing*.

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't L4D2 have melee weapons? wasn't that the big innovation? Then again you did say 1st person melee /that worked/. So I can't comment on how well it works in L4D2

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Marketing stories only work when they have continuity. Continuity means that the trailer matches up to the game, that the game matches up to the publicity materials, that the interviews with the creators match up to what the trailer is trying to convey, and that the overall impression of the experience is authentic. Audiences respond to authenticity in a sustained fashion, becoming fans, but they respond negatively to smoke-and-mirrors because they hate being fooled.
===

I'm not so sure I agree. First off I think the marketing team had a job to do. They had to get people talking about a brand new IP noone had ever heard of from a developer without the breeding and pedigree of say Bungie, Square and Infinity Ward. In that respect alone I say they succeeded and succeeded marvelously. Maybe the best marketing stories work on 'continuity' as you define it in this paragraph but not all of them do. As a new IP they really don't have a lot to 'live up to' aside from their competitors. Most importantly gamers LOVE being fooled. I say that sarcastically, but my point is that developers and marketing teams constantly use misleading imagery to sell games and it works. Not every time but they've been doing it since Final Fantasy VIII and it hasn't slowed down a step.

==== urrm. scratch all that ====

as I read the rest of the article you've pretty much addressed most of this. I'm cynical as to whether backlash really is as big as you propose. That is to say I believe that DeadIsland for instance could ride this trailer's hype all the way to the release date for a very nice bump in sales, but the logic and thought is there so I can't really say anything against this. Just ... cheers and bravo good sir. Bravo.

* http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=18892

[Tadhg]

Hi Wolfkin,

Thanks for the comment.

What you're describing about marketing departments doing what they can to acquire attention for their IP is what I described as tactics.

I agree, tactics can work... if you've got the deep pockets to pay for them.

[wolfkin]

aye i noticed late that you did include that in your discussion. Dead Island will be a most interesting case study in marketing when all is said and done.