Marketing Mishaps

[hsimoorb]

So I just got back from skimming the .com boards, and as frustrating as that can be, it made me think for a minute. Particularly about how the game is portrayed in the preveiws and whatnot. Because a thread I was in was discussing artillery, and how it appeared to be ungodly powerful. The mods closed that topic(suprise, suprise) and said that it was unfair to base opinions on the in game footage.

Now back up, it's supposedly unfair to base our expectations on what we have seen of the game sofar? What? The only explanation for this is that the preveiw is sytematicaly tailored to make the video look different than the real game. I know I know, big suprise. All game manufacturers do that. Right? But is it ethical? Sure it's accepted...

[Spiff]

Hmm a lot of criticism was leveled at the game developer Lionhead for preview material that wasnt in the final game of Black and White 2 but ended up on box-art or whatever, at worst they were accused of 'flase advertising'..

All we have to accept is that the game is still under development. Anything we have seen so far is subject to change without warning before the game is released. As such i would not base any serious opinion on anything we have seen so far. For a serious decision such as whether to buy a game or not, people should always wait for unbiased reviews, or a demo.

Yes it is really a bit unethical to deliberetly misrepresent a game in preview material, but the average customer should be able to know that development preview does not by any means represent the final product. With regard to the closing of the thread at the .com, i would think that would only hurt their cause.. if theyre claiming it is liable to change they should be welcoming opinions

[Tritio]

Yes it is really a bit unethical to deliberetly misrepresent a game in preview material, but the average customer should be able to know that development preview does not by any means represent the final product.

No, it is absolutely unethical to deliberately misrepresent the game. While deliberately altering any preview materials to make the game look better may not be illegal with the insertion of a few clauses, doing so to mislead viewers is unethical. The difference is intention and degree.

Shifting the responsibility of knowing whether or not the material is accurate to the customer is also wrong. The materials should clearly inform the customer of the status of the video and it's implications.

[MadeManG74]

You brought up a really interesting point about the marketing issues of games here, and whether its ethical to present the game like that. :hmmm:

I think its not really too much of a problem as long as the presentations dont purposely try to make the game look like something that it is not. If i were to play Medieval 2 after seeing those trailers, and it played like the other Total War games, I dont think it would be a huge problem, as the trailers, although taking some liberties like the thermonuclear cannon, would still be very similar to the actual gameplay or commanding armies, simulating morale and tactics etc. The Graphics would not look as great, but I think that most people accept that all game previews are shown in the best case scenario with the best hardware and equipment.

The only time i would say that it becomes unethical is when a company explicitly tells customers that pre rendered footage is actual gameplay, or strongly suggests that the game is something different. If for example they told us that Medieval 2 was an "in depth RPG with customisable characters and Units of military" because of the vice/virtue system and tried to make this a main selling point, then it would again be a problem.

In the end, I think its like a move trailer, they will make the movie look as exciting as possible, but so long as they are actually made using movie footage then its fair play.

[God-Emperor of Mankind]

I say it is ethical as long as it is from the game.
Sure the trailers we have seen are heavily edited, they are still in-game.
It is pretty obvious especially the 7 minutes battle with Turks and English in the rainy weather.

The mods closed that topic(suprise, suprise)

What did you expect ??
You opened a thread that was about a topic that just got closed even tho a CA-member debunked it in the original topic. It was beating a dead horse.

[Chuffy]

I think its not really too much of a problem as long as the presentations dont purposely try to make the game look like something that it is not.

Why am I reminded of another game made by CA?

[Giurza]

beside it is most unethical to close a thread "because they were criticising game for features not yet confirmed" I mean what the heck do they have there in .com forums, it is pure dictatorship... and that explains a lot about them not coping with hardcore fans' whishes... if I would think of creating a game like MIITW this forum would be the first to look at if I want to produce a game which is even close to beeing good, well thought thru or something like that...
I mean geeeee... this sounds like third reich, soviet union and Pinocheto combined...

[God-Emperor of Mankind]

What are you on about Giurza ??
If anything the .com is the first place CA members go to look for ideas.
And criticising somethings that may not even be in isn't very clever and is pretty much a waste of time and space hence I can understand why they would close such a thread.
The .com is a good forum to discuss TW on even tho the mods have overreacted in the past but these days they are much calmer.

[Tritio]

Where is that thread? Linky please...

While closing a thread may or may not be ethical, you can hardly make a comparison between unreasonable moderating and the Third Reich. How about, oh, I don't know, mods not killing you perhaps?

Criticising what is shown to you as a preview of a game can hardly be unreasonable. And when were the official forums a good place to discuss TW? I see a big difference in the standards of the two forums.

[hsimoorb]

What did you expect ??
You opened a thread that was about a topic that just got closed even tho a CA-member debunked it in the original topic. It was beating a dead horse.

I was under the impression that the other thread was closed because people in the origonal were needlessly attacking CA in it. I am still under the impression my thread was closed because they didn't want people talking about artillery in M2TW. I got two separate PMs from the mods there saying "there's nothing more to be said", and both of them threatened to ban me...

Anyways. We all know that game manufacturers always always control the environments in which the screenshots and videos are taken. A common 'trick' is to put all the units that the game can handle in the same clip. Leading us to beleive that beyond the margins of a particular screen are similarly packed with guys. I remember RTW screenies with lines upon lins of hoplites, in realistic 16 deep rows. It looked like there were tens of thousands, along with a ton of urban cohorts charging into them. Also I saw a video of "in-game" Battlefront 2 in which about 16 or so wookies charged out of a trench. Of coarse, I didn't know that that was THE unit cap for the game, and there would never, in all my experience with the game would something like that happen. These are realy just polite lies. In RTW, sure it was possible to have some of the battles shown in the preveiws. Theoreticaly you could have a supercomputer to host a 4v4 game in a seige situation where there are 20 artillery peices on each side, with over ten thoughand infantry duking it out with hordes of roman cavalrymen. Maybe.

But of coarse, we all knew that the films were doctored. They were taken by computers that in all probability were actualy involved in creating the game itself. The computer was optimised by the company of origin, and probaly cost twice what ours do, and was specialized to handle high end graphical applications.

[God-Emperor of Mankind]

I was under the impression that the other thread was closed because people in the origonal were needlessly attacking CA in it. I am still under the impression my thread was closed because they didn't want people talking about artillery in M2TW. I got two separate PMs from the mods there saying "there's nothing more to be said", and both of them threatened to ban me...

Yes the original thread was because that Athenapa(or what ever) attacked a Pras after he had responded to him.
While your topic wasn't a CA-bash topic it was however about the same issue, a issue Pras has already responded too hence "there's nothing more to be said"

But the point is, if they showed a battle in RTW with 4-5,00 troops on mid-level graphical settings, it would be a much better representation of the game experienced by most RTW fans.

Yes but the trailers isn't really for us, they are made to sell the game.
The "veterans" already know what to expect even tho some of us still get a "wow" feeling ( :tooth: ) when seeing the latest trailer.
Still for a newbie when he plays a TW-game for the first time she/he will still be overwhelmed by it even tho it is nowhere near the huge battles that CA has sometimes.

[Stalins Ghost]

I tend to think that all the CA bashers here are just trying to find faults with CA for the sake of it. To be honest, of course they will test and show case the game on machines at the zenith of gaming technology. Of course they will stage massive battles, with the two sides being choreographed by developers, since they are required to show what the game is caperble of. Of course these videos will demonstrate the pinnicle of the games ability. If they showed you a tiny battle with 4-500 men, on low graphics and low resolution, you'd be banging on the gates complaining that its no more improved than Rome.

If you've seen screens by some members of the forum, with incredibly powerful machines, you'll see just what is possible with RTW. The fact is, if you've got a sub-par machine, you're not going to get retina shattering delight. It's the nature of PC gaming really. Do we really need smoking health warning esque "IF YOU HAVE GOT A SUB-PAR PC EXPECT A SUB-PAR GAMING EXPERIENCE" Banner stretched a regulation 1/3 of the front facing? No.

As for the .com, well what do you expect of their forums? The main people who frequent it will be devout players of vanilla RTW, who enjoy the game for what it is, not what we want it to be. I do see that they have a point though- how can we evaluate minute' based on the videos, which, after all are clip show's of the game in action, rather than a straight video of someone playing it, although perhaps simply locking it was a little harsh.

[hsimoorb]

I tend to think that all the CA bashers here are just trying to find faults with CA for the sake of it. To be honest, of course they will test and show case the game on machines at the zenith of gaming technology. Of course they will stage massive battles, with the two sides being choreographed by developers, since they are required to show what the game is caperble of. Of course these videos will demonstrate the pinnicle of the games ability. If they showed you a tiny battle with 4-500 men, on low graphics and low resolution, you'd be banging on the gates complaining that its no more improved than Rome.

But the point is, if they showed a battle in RTW with 4-5,00 troops on mid-level graphical settings, it would be a much better representation of the game experienced by most RTW fans.

[italiano]

it is nowhere near the huge battles that CA has sometimes.

Wouldn't it be nice if CA modded it so we could use 500 men, even 1000 men units.

[God-Emperor of Mankind]

Wouldn't it be nice if CA modded it so we could use 500 men, even 1000 men units.

They will get there one day I'm sure but not with this engine however.

[DougyM]

So I just got back from skimming the .com boards, and as frustrating as that can be, it made me think for a minute. Particularly about how the game is portrayed in the preveiws and whatnot. Because a thread I was in was discussing artillery, and how it appeared to be ungodly powerful. The mods closed that topic(suprise, suprise) and said that it was unfair to base opinions on the in game footage.

Now back up, it's supposedly unfair to base our expectations on what we have seen of the game sofar? What? The only explanation for this is that the preveiw is sytematicaly tailored to make the video look different than the real game. I know I know, big suprise. All game manufacturers do that. Right? But is it ethical? Sure it's accepted...

Your taking things a bit far.

your asking if a company promoting their games by making them look as cool as possible is ethical?

Take any advert for any product and its the exact same.

BF vietnams trailers showed boats etc.. making 3d waves and included touched up explosions.
Movie trailers almost always pack the 1 minute trailer with all the action they can to make the picture seem exciting (superman for example)
Books with quotes like "the most thrilling thing ive read in years"... by some guy at a hot dog stand.

Marketing is all lies, its the same for every single thing ever marketed.

And why dont CA show us the game on low settings with 500 men and barely audible sound?

Becuase they arent idiots.

"please buy our crappy looking game, we know it looks worse than the rest of the competitions videos and we know it contains less action than a documentary about cheese, but we are honest developers who believe that this will sell our games better than making the game look as cool as possible"

^^^not exactly going to make people who didnt know about TW before hand, want the game now is it?


CA haters need to realise that their opinions and fears do not represent the majority of peoples opinions.....

Just becuase you think realism to the point of battles taking 5 hours to complete or for soldiers to run at 12.1132 miles an hour is the best thing since sliced bread DOES NOT mean that most people want that.

Im sick and tired of seeing material that is intended to help bolster interest in the game being nit picked to death by the same people 24/7....

"OMG teh medievals have NOOClear Missliwesd!!! GHSAghasgkhosahgiosaghoihgoihsaog"

[smoke]

Good thing they closed the thread at the .com. The kid displayed strong signs of using too much drugs and rarely venturing into the outside world. How else would you be able draw conclusions from a T-R-A-I-L-E-R. What a far-from-intelligent-person.

The CA bloke should've been a bit harsher on the kid.

[Giurza]

Good thing they closed the thread at the .com. The kid displayed strong signs of using too much drugs and rarely venturing into the outside world. How else would you be able draw conclusions from a T-R-A-I-L-E-R. What an idiot.

The CA bloke should've been a bit harsher on that monkey.

oh please, if he didn't use offensive language, there is no excuse for closing a thread. it may sound like 60's slogan, but "where is speach freedom?"
to close a thread for speaking out his/hers mind, that DOES sound like Third reich to me. me beeing from a land where we had no freedom of opinion utterence, I feel it most unpleasant to have a place in a FREE world where you are banned for your OPINION.

[God-Emperor of Mankind]

oh please, if he didn't use offensive language, there is no excuse for closing a thread. it may sound like 60's slogan, but "where is speach freedom?"

Oh yes there is.
If a member completely ignores a point pointed out by a CA-member themself and proceeds to attack that CA-member then they have every right to close the thread and ban the member.
Of course that thread would have been open now if he had behaved in a nice manner which is expected at the .com.
Or maybe you think flaming and mindless CA-bashing should be allowed ??

[Giurza]

Oh yes there is.
If a member completely ignores a point pointed out by a CA-member themself and proceeds to attack that CA-member then they have every right to close the thread and ban the member.
Of course that thread would have been open now if he had behaved in a nice manner which is expected at the .com.
Or maybe you think flaming and mindless CA-bashing should be allowed ??

No... not really... well at least not mindless... flamin mayhapps, but not mindless... if there is ground for such things like preview, clip in game footage or screens then yes for flamming but not mindless