The Month in Review

“Make Love Not WarCraft” & Celebrity Marketing

• In 2006, Blizzard Entertainment gave the green light to South Park to create an episode using Blizzard’s “Warcraft” as the major plot driving aspect of the episode.
• The episode “Make Love Not WarCraft” won an Emmy for South Park, and when South Park released its season 10 on DVD it had a free pass to play World of WarCraft, which was a great marketing strategy.
• With a wide range of players in the World of WarCraft, Blizzard used celebrities that consumers from multiple generations could relate to.

Conclusions:

• It was a major risk for Blizzard to co-brand Warcraft with South Park, but there was a history of success for others that did the same. Just one year earlier Sony allowed South Park to use its PSP hand held console in the 4^th episode of its 9^th season. The episode was the first to ever win an Emmy for South Park. It might have been a gamble, but Blizzard used this past example to promote its brand and boost its sales.
• By using a diverse group of celebrities for its advertising campaign Blizzard has efficiently delivered it marketing message to it’s wide ranged demographic.

 

2K Sports: Sole Control of the Virtual Basketball Market

• 2K sports made its mark in the video game industry with quality designs and solid business practices. The quality of product for it’s NBA 2K franchise has pushed other competitors completely out of the market place in the last year.
• The recent title “NBA 2K13” also signed on Jay-Z, as the games producer, who set out to branch out from the genres usual Hip-Hop soundtracks.
• Jay-Z’s star power also helped convince past NBA legends like Charles Barkley to license their own likenesses for less money so 2K sports could afford to pay each member of 92’ Dream Team & even more NBA legends.

Conclusions:

• With quality designs and a spare no expense physics engine 2K sports is now experiencing the profits that come with sole control of the virtual basketball marketplace.
• With record profits this year and the #6 top spot for sales in 2012, it seems like 2K sports has the perfect recipe for success. It will be interesting to see what the future holds for this rising industry leader.

Video Games: Cultural Impact that Surpasses the Movies

• The popular and successful video games that have been made over the years are based on the classic hero story arc from our movies and literature.
• Opening weekend sales of big game titles tower over sales of even the biggest box office movies.
• Movies are not interactive like games are because of this games have a broader spectrum of experience that the end consumer is able to enjoy.
• Giving users all these choices satisfies a number of needs in Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs.”

Conclusions:

• With profits that can’t be ignored, big game titles have dwarfed the revenue stream of big box office movies in recent years.
• Also with story arcs in games giving users a wide range decision-making process based on our own “Hierarchy of Needs”, games have increased the experiences that the users are immerged in creating cultural impact that movies can’t compete with. It will be interesting to see if this shift in cultural impact remains in future years.

Feminism & The Video Game Industry:

• Doritos recent survey shows that women play video games just as much as men do. With the wide range of platforms that games are being played on these days the percent of women playing video games has grown to 49%.
• The past story arcs from popular game titles usually place women in a helpless position i.e. the damsel in distress. With most of the strong character traits given to the male characters. It is only recently that the industry is starting to see the error in its ways.
• Over sexualized female characters are not only threats to women, but also to younger males who are being exposed to them.

Conclusions:

• Companies like Crystal Dynamics have addressed the past errors of the Tomb Raider franchise and rebuild the Lara Croft character turning her into a role model rather than a sex symbol marketed to young men. With character like the new Lara Croft female gamers now have a building block to the start of more positive female heroes in game title.
• More positive female character could also lead to growth for certain companies that could begin marketing games more towards women. Positive female characters could also lead mothers, the gatekeepers of the household, to be more willing to buy certain titles because of the positive messages their children would receive from them.

LEGO: Success Made Simple

• LEGO was in major financial trouble in the early 2000s, despite being a top-10 toy producer in the world.
• Some thought it was the diversified business practices and side businesses that LEGO had, but in fact it was a near ancient supply chain system where LEGO was losing its money.
• LEGO has since recovered with a revamp supply chain and positive co-branded products, like their LEGO Batman and LEGO Star wars licensed products. 

Conclusions:

• With solid product release tactics LEGO has benefited from its co-branded products like it’s LEGO Batman, which released right after box office giant “The Dark Knight Rises”.
• By aligning themselves with classic brands like Marvel comics, I predict LEGO will continue a successful summer financial run with LEGO Marvel Super Heroes being released right in the middle of multiple Marvel Studios movie titles being released at the box office.

Feminism & The Video Game Industry

No longer can we ignore the fact that women play just as many video games as their male counter parts. Whether they are playing bejeweled, words with friends, or draw something, these are all considered video games and when they play with their friends or anonymous gamers on their phones they are technically playing online. A recent survey completed by Doritos found that 49% of women play video games compared to 50% of men and they even found that women tend to play online games more than men. Some women even enjoy playing their online games more than having sex!!

With recent research like this taking place and disproving the fact that boys are the only one that play video games, what does this mean for the industry as a whole? Well its hard to deny that the industry has been a very sexist since its inception, and with an abundance of macho male lead characters and helpless damsels needing rescue, we might start to see a change in the way characters are portrayed especially women.

Characters like Lara Croft from the Eidos series “Tomb Raider” might just be the best example of how women are poorly portrayed. With her high kaki shorts, tight t-shirt and extremely large breast Lara is a mix between a Barbie Doll and a gun toting badass. But is this really the best way to empower a woman in video games. Even though I’ve played all of the early Tomb Raider titles I do believe that the way the industry is heading and the negative messages that overly sexualized characters like Lara Croft tend to portray need to be toned down and developers need to focus on more on creating positive role models that will empower the women that play the game rather than strictly focusing on double D’s and duel desert eagles.

With that being said that is exactly what Crystal Dynamics has done with their recent reboot release of the Tomb Raider franchise. Rather than creating a sex symbol version of Indiana Jones, Crystal Dynamics decided to create a “realistic and relatable person”. While some sexism still exist in the title, with bandits stranded on an island being overly suggestive in the beginning of the game, this all soon fades away once the bad guys realize what a threat Lara has become.

Now in the grand scheme of things this is just one tiny step, but for Lara Croft this is a giant leap. By this change in character portrayal Lara has become not only a lead hero in a title once again, but also a positive role model that any woman could enjoy playing as. But Tomb Raider is just one game, what about the industry as a whole? Is there anything women who enjoy video games can do to change the way how the industry works?

Well in a recent Forbes article written by Gabrielle Toledano, executive vice president and chief talent officer of Electronic Arts, explains how women can get involved in the industry that is in desperate need for their talents. To explain how to get involved Gabrielle first describes the three dirty little secrets of the video game industry:

• Women play games – a lot of them
• The video game industry wants to hire more women
• There aren’t enough to hire… yet

First women need to admit that they are in fact gamers, whether its games on Facebook or simply Rock Band on their home consoles. Second the success of a video game titles depends on diversity, since all titles are built and developed by teams, diversity fuels greater teamwork experiences and more diverse characterizations. Third more women in the engineering and technological fields must think of the game developing jobs out there as more satisfying and rewarding f options, and need to think of these industry jobs as a more viable career opportunity. With these three secrets now revealed it is now up to women to cease the opportunity for a rewarding and impacting career.

I leave you now with a video by Anita Sarkeesian, an author whom has focused much of her professional career on feminism and the much-needed change in the video game industry. With the video’s focus mostly on the history of the damsel in distress and the lack of female hero characters within video game titles, Anita takes us on a very informative ride through the history of feminism and industry practices. Enjoy!!!