Marilyn Manson Sells Hardcore RPGs: When Marketing Jumps the Shark

For years gamers have been subjected to a deluge of God-awful pre-launch marketing campaigns. But, for every five Daikatana‘s there is a Halo 3 or Halo 3: ODST. Most major publishers are getting the message that their games need to be handled professionally and given a serious and intelligent marketing push. Not every game has or deserves the budget of an Uncharted or Gears of War, but the team responsible for handling the message of the game, prior to launch, has a very important task. All of this brings me to the topic at hand.

Who the hell is in charge of marketing Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2? This team needs to take a minute to pull their collective heads out of their collective asses and start doing their job. I am a pretty big fan of Mass Effect. I agree with every critic that it has major flaws in story, character, game mechanics and polish. That being said, I didn’t think there was anything that could hinder my unabashed enthusiasm for ME2…until I watched this:

Now, before you rail into me about being a sexist pig or a hypocrite for not despising a powerful female character who expresses herself sexually…that’s not it at all. She’s being portrayed here as nasty and excessively foul mouthed. At one point, it looks like she practically rapes Shepherd (not MY Shepherd, she’d kick Sub-Zero’s ass for trying anything like that on her).  This kind of character may have been a welcome surprise to find for yourself (HK47 anyone?), but the way this video is edited and the accompanying soundtrack turns me off in every conceivable way. I’ll still be buying ME2, but if I was on the fence for this game, this most certainly would put me over the side in the wrong direction.

Now, let’s do a quick visualization exercise, shall we? Close your eyes and think of Bioware. Think of Baldur’s Gate, Knights of the Old Republic and Neverwinter Nights. Keep those games in your mind; the characters, themes and feeling of living in those game worlds. Now try to imagine the perfect musical expression of your mind’s vision. Did you come up with “This is the new shit!” by Marilyn Manson? You didn’t? What’s wrong with you? Roll that clip!

I get that they want to sell Dragon Age to a new audience. Every publisher and most developers are all about mass-market appeal these days. Dragon Age promises to be a “dark fantasy“, one filled with blood, sex and murder..and elves. Still, watching the last half of this video didn’t get me pumped. It didn’t make me want to kickass and take names. It made me want to close my browser and never watch another video for Dragon Age ever again.

Since then, Bioware/EA have released several other videos for Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2, each one profiling a party character. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but isn’t one of the best parts about an RPG the discovery of meeting your party and going through the adventure “organically” as the story and characters develop? These character profile videos for both games have made me decide to stay away from any pre-launch media surrounding them. At least no one at Bioware is claiming they’ll be making me their bitch, then I’d really be worried.