Dantes Touchdown

Posted by Kevin in Microsoft, News, Sony | 1 comment

An inferno of Dante's

In a day when news has been so slow it’s like Dublin rush-hour traffic, I can only find one piece of information worthy of posting. And it has nothing to do with us European dirtbag sex addict junkies.

In Americaw, they have this huge game once a year called the “Superbowl”, which allegedly is the most watched sporting event in the country. Making it even bigger then Wrestlemania. Well, one thing we Europeans do enjoy are the insanely expensive ad spots that go on during the Superbowl, and often become more famous then the winners of the game itself.

Never before has an ad spot in this segment of television been taken by a gaming company, despite rumours last year that Sony would use a spot to advertise Killzone 2. This year, though, EA have decided to splash out $3 million in their budget to promo a 30 second clip of Dante’s Inferno, with the aim of garnishing interest from people far and wide that will recognise the games name, but may otherwise not bother to go out and buy the title.

EA president Frank Gibeau said; “Even within the spectrum of live sports events, the Super Bowl stands apart, almost as a national holiday. The Super Bowl is a bull’s-eye in terms of cross-over to our core demographic and the reach is outstanding. Not only does it draw 100 million viewers, but most people watch the Super Bowl live, a rarity in the world of DVRs. While digital outreach to Facebook, Twitter, and online bloggers is a core part of our marketing strategy, we felt that advertising during the Super Bowl is an excellent way to introduce this new IP to a massive cross-section of people who are likely already familiar with the dark and twisted ‘Divine Comedy.’”

It will certainly be interesting to see if this heralds a new era where big game adverts and campaigns become as widely known and populous as cinema release campaigns. It does feel like a little step towards game publishers “growing up” and stepping into the big leagues, if you will pardon the pun.