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We chat with Konami about marketing Metal Gear Solid 4 as a true blockbuster. Epic trailers, promotional bundles and limited editions, collaboration with Sony, and in-game ads all played their part.
by David Radd on Monday, June 23, 2008
It's an often cited statistic in the gaming industry that video game sales are equal to movie box office returns. Despite these impressive and ever increasing returns, very few games are "blockbusters" or true media events in the way that certain movies are. Iron Man, Speed Racer and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull all received their fair share of hype, not to mention cross-promotional events and extensive merchandising, and all of those movies released in May!
Game marketers, however, are getting wise to this art of marketing games in a way that makes them seem larger than life. Halo 3's campaign went beyond marketing it to gamers, seeking instead mass visibility. Grand Theft Auto IV has proved out to be the biggest media release of all time. Now, it's Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots' time to shine. It's perhaps appropriate that its release be compared to that of Hollywood blockbusters, since the structure and story of the game resembles a movie epic far closer than most games ever achieve [Much to the dismay of some hardcore gamers, given the title's long cutscenes - Ed].
We caught up with Anthony Crouts, VP of Marketing for Konami, and rapped on promoting the final mission of Solid Snake.
In a world where PMCs rule, a man must rise...
With any blockbuster movie you need a blockbuster movie trailer, something to grab people's attention and hype them up. Thanks to Hideo Kojima and his team at Kojima Productions, Metal Gear Solid 4 has had not one such trailer but several. Beginning with the epic 15-minute trailer from E3 2006 and running up until the "TV" segments that aired before the game's launch, the trailers for Metal Gear Solid 4 really kept the anticipation high for the game's release.
"Trailers are certainly important," agreed Crouts. "If you look at the movie industry, [trailers] highlight all the biggest movies. We feel Metal Gear Solid deserves attention like this too since it is a blockbuster video game, with just as much focus on the story and character development as on gameplay. It's exciting for the fans because they want to get hints as to what the main story will be like. [The Metal Gear Solid series] has always had innovative gameplay, but also an incredibly in-depth story. Now with the next-gen consoles, you have the processor power that you go in and out, from story sequences to gameplay, seamlessly."
"So yes, trailers let [consumers] know it's more than just a game; it's an epic story as well," he continued. "The first thing you see and appreciate is the high production values, but then you also notice the snippets of the story and the characters. At the same time, you don't see how things work together [in the final story]. You have some of the pieces, but you don't see how they all fit."
Metal Gear Solid 4 Screens
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is the final chapter in the saga of Solid Snake which sends him around the world in pursuit of his arch nemesis, Liquid Ocelot. Armed with new gadgets and abilities, Solid Snake must shift the tides of war into his favor, using the chaos of the battlefield to infiltrate deep into enemy territory. In his globetrotting final mission, Snake must sneak deep into enemy locations in the Middle East, South America, and other corners of the Earth to foil Liquid Ocelot's plans for total world domination.
Konami
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is the final chapter in the saga of Solid Snake which sends him around the world in pursuit of his arch nemesis, Liquid Ocelot. Armed with new gadgets and abilities, Solid Snake must shift the tides of war into his favor, using the chaos of the battlefield to infiltrate deep into enemy territory. In his globetrotting final mission, Snake must sneak deep into enemy locations in the Middle East, South America, and other corners of the Earth to foil Liquid Ocelot's plans for total world domination.
Konami
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is the final chapter in the saga of Solid Snake which sends him around the world in pursuit of his arch nemesis, Liquid Ocelot. Armed with new gadgets and abilities, Solid Snake must shift the tides of war into his favor, using the chaos of the battlefield to infiltrate deep into enemy territory. In his globetrotting final mission, Snake must sneak deep into enemy locations in the Middle East, South America, and other corners of the Earth to foil Liquid Ocelot's plans for total world domination.
Konami
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is the final chapter in the saga of Solid Snake which sends him around the world in pursuit of his arch nemesis, Liquid Ocelot. Armed with new gadgets and abilities, Solid Snake must shift the tides of war into his favor, using the chaos of the battlefield to infiltrate deep into enemy territory. In his globetrotting final mission, Snake must sneak deep into enemy locations in the Middle East, South America, and other corners of the Earth to foil Liquid Ocelot's plans for total world domination.
Konami
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is the final chapter in the saga of Solid Snake which sends him around the world in pursuit of his arch nemesis, Liquid Ocelot. Armed with new gadgets and abilities, Solid Snake must shift the tides of war into his favor, using the chaos of the battlefield to infiltrate deep into enemy territory. In his globetrotting final mission, Snake must sneak deep into enemy locations in the Middle East, South America, and other corners of the Earth to foil Liquid Ocelot's plans for total world domination.
Konami
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is the final chapter in the saga of Solid Snake which sends him around the world in pursuit of his arch nemesis, Liquid Ocelot. Armed with new gadgets and abilities, Solid Snake must shift the tides of war into his favor, using the chaos of the battlefield to infiltrate deep into enemy territory. In his globetrotting final mission, Snake must sneak deep into enemy locations in the Middle East, South America, and other corners of the Earth to foil Liquid Ocelot's plans for total world domination.
Konami
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is the final chapter in the saga of Solid Snake which sends him around the world in pursuit of his arch nemesis, Liquid Ocelot. Armed with new gadgets and abilities, Solid Snake must shift the tides of war into his favor, using the chaos of the battlefield to infiltrate deep into enemy territory. In his globetrotting final mission, Snake must sneak deep into enemy locations in the Middle East, South America, and other corners of the Earth to foil Liquid Ocelot's plans for total world domination.
Konami
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is the final chapter in the saga of Solid Snake which sends him around the world in pursuit of his arch nemesis, Liquid Ocelot. Armed with new gadgets and abilities, Solid Snake must shift the tides of war into his favor, using the chaos of the battlefield to infiltrate deep into enemy territory. In his globetrotting final mission, Snake must sneak deep into enemy locations in the Middle East, South America, and other corners of the Earth to foil Liquid Ocelot's plans for total world domination.
Konami
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is the final chapter in the saga of Solid Snake which sends him around the world in pursuit of his arch nemesis, Liquid Ocelot. Armed with new gadgets and abilities, Solid Snake must shift the tides of war into his favor, using the chaos of the battlefield to infiltrate deep into enemy territory. In his globetrotting final mission, Snake must sneak deep into enemy locations in the Middle East, South America, and other corners of the Earth to foil Liquid Ocelot's plans for total world domination.
Konami
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is the final chapter in the saga of Solid Snake which sends him around the world in pursuit of his arch nemesis, Liquid Ocelot. Armed with new gadgets and abilities, Solid Snake must shift the tides of war into his favor, using the chaos of the battlefield to infiltrate deep into enemy territory. In his globetrotting final mission, Snake must sneak deep into enemy locations in the Middle East, South America, and other corners of the Earth to foil Liquid Ocelot's plans for total world domination.
Konami
One recent set of trailers for Metal Gear Solid 4 were essentially promotions for some of the in-game PMCs. When asked about them, Crouts responded, "The commercials play into the sense of the game of how the war has changed; these are PMC groups, but they also have advertisements on television! [Kojima]'s setting the stage, he's drawing you more into the [continuum of Metal Gear Solid], showing the significance that the PMCs have on this world. They're so mainstream and ubiquitous that they have ads."
Tying into the whole theme of Metal Gear Solid 4 as a blockbuster hit, the game had a pre-launch trailer "Courage is Solid," playing up the action movie elements and appropriately featuring a voice over by an Ashton Smith sound-alike, giving an appropriate voice over to the piece. "'Courage is Solid' sets [Metal Gear Solid 4] up to be not just a game, but an experience," boasted Crouts. "It sets it up as something that maybe you think you'll play for 30 minutes, then it sucks you in, and all of a sudden you look up, and you've been playing for three hours."
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Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
- GenreAction
- Release Date06/12/2008
- PublisherKonami
- DeveloperKojima Productions
- ESRBM - Mature
