It must be marketing week around here. Only a few hours after I hit “publish” on my developers-are-the-best-marketers post, Sony announced a completely on-target concept: including the God of War III demo on the District 9 Blu-Ray movie disc.
I’ve seen a few fairly lame attempts to market games via home video, and vice versa. Usually, it’s just a trailer for a licensed game in front of the exact DVD movie upon which the game is based, e.g., a non-interactive trailer for the Kung Fu Panda video game on the DVD movie release of Kung Fu Panda. Isn’t that a wasted effort? Are there really that many Kung Fu Panda fans out there that have no idea a video game exists?
What I like about Sony’s bundling is it demonstrates an understanding of the audience for both properties, and simply makes the introduction. I didn’t see D9 in theaters, but some pretty smart cats I know thought it was a good, cerebral sci-fi movie. Similarly, the God of War series has always appealed to a more sophisticated audience than your average brawler, with its operatic story of betrayal and redemption set against a faithfully presented backdrop of Greek myth. It stands to reason that some D9 fans love Kratos’ exploits, whether they know it or not.
On the flip side, GoW is an established series with legions of fans, and their desire to play a level or two from the long awaited series finale (before it’s available for download) might just lead them to a purchase of the District 9 Blu-Ray, even if they missed it in theaters. So, win-win for Sony, as D9 is a product of their Pictures division and GoW is an exclusive franchise that moved plenty of hardware last generation.
I’d really like to see this type of partnership explored further, especially with some less obvious (but perhaps more effective) pairings among multiple companies. How about a demo disc for Batman: Arkham Asylum with every adult size superhero costume sold at Halloween USA stores this time of year? Of course, physical media should be a non-issue here. I’m willing to bet EA Sports and Stubhub would probably hit it off, so that way everyone that prints out their ticket to an NHL game could also get a download code for the NHL 10 demo on their system of choice. The possibilities are pretty much endless here.