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Denver, 8:28 PM
Mon Nov 30
53 posts in the last 24 hours

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    Prepare For A Left 4 Dead 2 Advertising Onslaught

    World of Warcraft: The Magazine

    The Death Of Print: January 2009 Edition

    UK Mag Shuttered Due To Nintendo's Increasing Non-Hardcore Focus

    Can Print Gaming Media Survive? Maybe.

    Sony's Advertising PS3 Campaign For India

    UK Paper Sensationalizes "Killer Games"

    Ziff Davis Undervalued, Unwanted

    The Very Worst Video Game Print Ads

    The Irrelevancy of Game Mags Continues
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    Dsmvwl  Admin  Promote to frontpage Approve user Ban user ×
    Image of kearneybobs kearneybobs
    10/05/09

    In reply to Prepare For A Left 4 Dead 2 Advertising Onslaught
    Oh, so the expense of the advertising campaign is the reason they are asking me to pay €49.99 (€44.99 with pre-order discount) for this game.

    oh, and yes, that is a Euro sign and not a dollar sign. As much as i wanna pre-order it, i WONT pay that much for a digital copy of a PC game. no matter how good it is/will be. And i do like what i'm seeing with L4D2. Such a shame.
     Reply
    kearneybobs was starred kearneybobs was unstarred
    Image of El-Suave El-Suave
    10/05/09

    In reply to Prepare For A Left 4 Dead 2 Advertising Onslaught
    $ 25 million? That's a lot of flights to and from Seattle!
     Reply
    El-Suave was starred El-Suave was unstarred
    Image of Frazzlet Frazzlet
    10/05/09

    In reply to Prepare For A Left 4 Dead 2 Advertising Onslaught
    I really don't see how some billboards and TV ads will even get their $25 million back and certainly I don't see how overall this will help them make more money.
     Reply
    Frazzlet was starred Frazzlet was unstarred
    Image of derFeef derFeef
    10/05/09

    @Frazzlet: Glad you are not working as a marketing man in the industry then :)
     Reply
    Sir-Lucius has no pictchar! promoted this comment derFeef was starred derFeef was unstarred
    Image of jetRink jetRink
    10/05/09

    @Frazzlet: Not that I have any evidence for this, but I would guess that owning a Steam game on the PC leads to buying more PC games from Steam. If that's true, then even if they can't get the money back through L4D2, they will from future purchases on their network.
     Reply
    Sir-Lucius has no pictchar! promoted this comment jetRink was starred jetRink was unstarred
    Image of Sir-Lucius does anything for Dethklok Sir-Lucius does anything for Dethklok
    10/05/09

    @jetRink: I'd guess that's a big part of it. Most people I know with Steam accounts have purchased at least 1 game off the service, even if it was only during the 50% off type sales they have. And most PC gamers I know like and make use of Steam, at least now that it's a steady service. Early on it was a little more rough.
     Reply
    Sir-Lucius does anything for Dethklok was starred Sir-Lucius does anything for Dethklok was unstarred
    Image of Sl0th Sl0th
    10/05/09

    @Frazzlet: It's pretty straight forward, if they sell only about 420,000 copies (at day 1 prices) as a result of this campaign, they've made their money back.

    Considering the current iteration of L4D has sold 2.5 million copies (PC and XBox combined), Valve is setting themselves up for a huge return on investment.

    Then of course, there's merchandise and DLC, plus special bundles.

    Yah, 25 mil is a pretty good number.
     Reply
    Sl0th was starred Sl0th was unstarred
    Image of 3faced 3faced
    10/05/09

    @Sir-Lucius has no pictchar!: ugh! i remember the early days of Steam too... "a little more rough" is far too kind!
    the platform works now though and i happily support it with both word-of-mouth praise and currency.
     Reply
    Sir-Lucius has no pictchar! promoted this comment 3faced was starred 3faced was unstarred
    Image of Sir-Lucius does anything for Dethklok Sir-Lucius does anything for Dethklok
    10/05/09

    @3faced: Haha, Steam definitely had a rocky stat, but it has steadily worked it's way up to my favorite service across all platforms. Valve really did an excellent job of turning it into the premier PC gaming service.
     Reply
    Sir-Lucius does anything for Dethklok was starred Sir-Lucius does anything for Dethklok was unstarred
    Image of sunpop sunpop
    10/05/09

    In reply to Prepare For A Left 4 Dead 2 Advertising Onslaught
    What would also help it sell is put a more reasonable price tag on a game that's not very long. Fun as left 4 dead is 50$ is a bit steep for such a short game. That being said once they do there big l4d2 sale then I will get it.
     Reply
    sunpop was starred sunpop was unstarred
    Image of yargh yargh
    10/05/09

    @sunpop: The $50.00 price tag isn't based on the single-player campaign length FYI. You know there's other stuff to do right?
     Reply
    omgwtflolbbqbye promoted this comment yargh was starred yargh was unstarred
    Image of xybur xybur
    10/05/09

    @sunpop: The game isn't meant to be played once and done with. I have to have put close to 300 hours or more in the original L4D. 50 bucks is a pittance for that much replayability.
     Reply
    omgwtflolbbqbye promoted this comment xybur was starred xybur was unstarred
    Image of maschinerie maschinerie
    10/05/09

    In reply to Prepare For A Left 4 Dead 2 Advertising Onslaught
    I remember driving into NYC and seeing the L4D Billboard and pointing out to a friend that I happily wasted over 500 hours playing that game. But I really doubt any of those corporate junkies that drove through there everyday looked to the
    zombified hand and then went and purchased the game. Unless they are doing something sweet like Bioschock 2' viral marketing I think busting out 25 mil on adverts is lame.
     Reply
    Rompehamster promoted this comment maschinerie was starred maschinerie was unstarred
    Image of Rompehamster Rompehamster
    10/05/09

    @maschinerie: The L4D billboard i saw by the mexican supermarket in the not-so-safe neighborhood was laughable. Since a HUGE majority of the people who shop there don't speak english or don't give a rat's ass about gaming.

    hell, under the billboard there were some shady folks selling pirated movies in spanish.
     Reply
    Edited by Rompehamster at 10/05/09 2:08 PM Rompehamster was starred Rompehamster was unstarred
    Image of Sl0th Sl0th
    10/05/09

    @Rompehamster: Dang, I wish I still had my chart that explained just how many latino gamers there are.

    They're a huge, loyal, and highly sought after market.
     Reply
    Sl0th was starred Sl0th was unstarred
    Image of Rampage Rampage
    10/05/09

    In reply to Prepare For A Left 4 Dead 2 Advertising Onslaught
    "televised advertisements to run during UFC events and Monday Night Football"

    That's where a good chunk of the money is going.
     Reply
    excel_excel promoted this comment Rampage was starred Rampage was unstarred
    Image of excel_excel excel_excel
    10/05/09

    @Rampage: Yep. UFC is at its highest popularity well ever, and I'm well aware of how popular that staple of American Football is on mondays
     Reply
    excel_excel was starred excel_excel was unstarred
    Image of yargh yargh
    10/05/09

    @excel_excel: At the last UFC event Assassins Creed 2 was advertised heavily, some fighters even had it on their trunks. Video games are always some of the biggest sponsors.
     Reply
    excel_excel promoted this comment yargh was starred yargh was unstarred
    Image of Man in the mirror Man in the mirror
    10/05/09

    In reply to Prepare For A Left 4 Dead 2 Advertising Onslaught
    If people weren't mindless morons, marketing wouldn't be as important.

    So I don't blame Valve at all, I blame the consumers who don't buy if the newspaper or AD or journalist don't tell em to buy. Why spent all their money into development costs, so the final product is something perfect that wouldn't sell well and put the company to bankruptcy? We have seen many cases of good games with bad advertising closing the doors of many companies. (Clover? I'm looking at you.)
     Reply
    Man in the mirror was starred Man in the mirror was unstarred
    Image of yargh yargh
    10/05/09

    @Man in the mirror: Most people don't troll video-game blogs in their free time. Remember, hardcore = huge minority.
     Reply
    excel_excel promoted this comment yargh was starred yargh was unstarred
    Image of stupid_mcgee: 1000 angels could save your soul ([k]) stupid_mcgee: 1000 angels could save your soul ([k])
    10/05/09

    In reply to Prepare For A Left 4 Dead 2 Advertising Onslaught
    I hope some of that advertising and hype building includes talking about interoperability between L4D and L4D2 on the PC.

    After mentioning that they are looking into it and considering it, the entire topic seems to have completely fallen by the wayside.

    I would love if it Kotaku could try and get a comment from Valve regarding potential interoperability.
     Reply
    excel_excel promoted this comment stupid_mcgee: 1000 angels could save your soul ([k]) was starred stupid_mcgee: 1000 angels could save your soul ([k]) was unstarred
    Image of Athest Athest
    10/05/09

    In reply to Prepare For A Left 4 Dead 2 Advertising Onslaught
    I hope it works out for Valve. I love supporting them. Though it does worry me. It's hard enough to find a game in Left 4 Dead that isn't comprised of complete morons. Now they're aiming for the UFC and football fans... it seems that it'll be getting even harder.
     Reply
    excel_excel promoted this comment Athest was starred Athest was unstarred
    Image of excel_excel excel_excel
    10/05/09

    @Athest: A bit of a stereotype but ok. I presume you mean on 360?
     Reply
    excel_excel was starred excel_excel was unstarred
    Image of BubbleF**kingBuddy BubbleF**kingBuddy
    10/05/09

    In reply to Prepare For A Left 4 Dead 2 Advertising Onslaught
    By comparison, Killzone 2's ad campaign was $4mil, and that silly commercial was all over TV.
     Reply
    BubbleF**kingBuddy was starred BubbleF**kingBuddy was unstarred
    Image of Piata Piata
    10/05/09

    In reply to Prepare For A Left 4 Dead 2 Advertising Onslaught
    If only they invested $25 million into the support of L4D1 I would be buying L4D2.
     Reply
    BubbleF**kingBuddy promoted this comment Piata was starred Piata was unstarred
    Image of Daniel @ playreadwrite.blogspot.com Daniel @ playreadwrite.blogspot.com
    10/05/09

    In reply to Prepare For A Left 4 Dead 2 Advertising Onslaught
    Game advertising is always fun... $25 million worth of fun? Maybe not, but I hope that Valve can reach to the gamers just outside of the hardcore, the ones that buy Madden every year.
     Reply
    Daniel @ playreadwrite.blogspot.com was starred Daniel @ playreadwrite.blogspot.com was unstarred
    Image of Archaotic Archaotic
    10/05/09

    In reply to Prepare For A Left 4 Dead 2 Advertising Onslaught
    Don't you just love when a game's marketing budget is almost as big as the development budget, or bigger in some cases?

    This is why developers are having trouble recouping costs. Sigh.
     Reply
    Archaotic was starred Archaotic was unstarred
    Image of YamiNoSenshi YamiNoSenshi
    10/05/09

    In reply to Prepare For A Left 4 Dead 2 Advertising Onslaught
    "I pre-ordered" is the new "I already donated".
     Reply
    YamiNoSenshi was starred YamiNoSenshi was unstarred
    Image of Mox FcCloud Mox FcCloud
    10/05/09

    @YamiNoSenshi: So a blood drive is basically people pre-ordering sugar cookies?
     Reply
    Mox FcCloud was starred Mox FcCloud was unstarred
    Image of Hey_Blinkon Hey_Blinkon
    10/05/09

    @Blackdevil3005: Yeah. With exclusive apple juice.
     Reply
    excel_excel promoted this comment Hey_Blinkon was starred Hey_Blinkon was unstarred
    Image of StarCommentator StarCommentator
    10/05/09

    In reply to Prepare For A Left 4 Dead 2 Advertising Onslaught
    Well I suppose they have to fight very hard against the whole fact that it is going to be so closely released with the first game!
     Reply
    StarCommentator was starred StarCommentator was unstarred
    Image of ghost4 ghost4
    10/05/09

    @StarCommentator: few people actually care that the sequel is coming out so soon.
     Reply
    ghost4 was starred ghost4 was unstarred
    Image of stupid_mcgee: 1000 angels could save your soul ([k]) stupid_mcgee: 1000 angels could save your soul ([k])
    10/05/09

    @ghost4: Yeah, very few. Like, only maybe 80% of the people I play PUGs with on L4D feel that way. And, in case you're wondering; no, the vast majority of them are not members of the boycott group.
     Reply
    excel_excel promoted this comment stupid_mcgee: 1000 angels could save your soul ([k]) was starred stupid_mcgee: 1000 angels could save your soul ([k]) was unstarred
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