Comparing two cross media campaigns - M1.

M1

Products of choice: ‘God of War’ by SIE Santa Monica Studio and ‘Bloodborne’ by FromSoftware

Script:

First form of advertisement: Both games were both first presented and announced at the Sony E3 press conferences. For Bloodborne the president of Sony’s worldwide studios Shuhei Yoshida, who once rejected the Souls Series and said it will be a failure got to announce it, he said himself “Tonight, I get the honour of announcing an all new IP from one of the industries most respected directors. This is a project that is really dear to my heart if you know me and my hour history with the developer” This is essentially Shuhei Yoshida apologising for putting down the soul series that Bloodborne is a part of, and therefore pointed out that he disliked a game that turned out to be one of the best. This was followed by Yoshida showing the trailer. This was perfect because no one knew much about Bloodborne and it was taken right after Little Big Planet 3, probably one of the friendliest games, instantly switching to a much darker game in a Victorian style setting.

For God of War, at E3 they presented it starting with an orchestra to try and hype up the product first. Then the trailer and gameplay opened with Atreus playing with wooden toys, entering his house then slowly showing Kratos for a massive reaction as he is hidden in the shadows. This allowed Sony and SIE Santa Monica Studio to see the audience’s reaction when Kratos is finally revealed. This is soon followed by some gameplay footage that allowed the viewers to all see what the new game is like. As a result, this allowed SIE Santa Monica Studio to get good reactions and see what the audience likes.

Advertising following E3:

Comparing the games together, both of which are similar in their advertising methods, they were both big games already by the games that were created before them, God of War follows the previous God of War series and Bloodborne follows Souls series. This means that they were both able to keep audiences for their game but try and change the games to catch newer target audiences. Bloodborne was a more Victorian era version of Dark Souls and had a more gothic tone, this can catch the attention of the players who like gothic games more than games like Dark Souls where it was a mix between dark environments and light environments. Both games have the same mechanics which means loyal players to the franchise aren’t forced to change how they play too, and the game is created by Hidetaka Miyazaki who made the Souls series big and created a new tone to the game industry. The cases for the games are also similar to the point at which the game case for Dark souls 2 is almost the exact same as the Bloodborne case, this means that players that recognise the Dark Souls 2 case will see a Bloodborne case and notice its similarity and therefore, assume it’s similar too.

For God of War, the game is the same as the others, although this one takes place with the accommodation of the game going to take place with Norwegian gods instead of Greek gods. This therefore makes characters like Odin more apparent than the franchises previous gods like Zeus. This allows loyal players to once more continue playing the game and people who like the Norwegian gods and also the game teaches players about the mythology and therefore, allows them to learn about the mythology at the same time.

One way that Bloodborne was advertised was from IGN posting short creation videos and gameplay of the mechanics. This allows the users to see how the game was created and give a more in-depth look into the game and what went behind it. This is different to other games that have been advertised as I believe I have never heard of a game being advertised in similar ways. This essentially gave Bloodborne a Unique Selling Point as showing the mechanics, looks at objects, environments and character creation made them much different to their rivals. Also, the idea of character creation was a big Unique Selling Point that they advertised because the Souls series is iconic for their character creation. 

The above image is from an enemy that was in production for the Bloodborne game. Here they show the viewers how they were created, the 3D designs were a nice way to advertise because although it doesn’t catch the eyes of regular players, players that are more interested in what happens behind the scenes and are interested in game development may look at this and therefore want to play the game to compare the creation of the game to the actual game.

Finally, for Bloodborne, IGN created a post with the music that is used for Bloodborne, this allows people to pick out the song and adds intensity to both the game and the trailers that were produced. Such as for one song they had an entire orchestra and choir play the song to give the game a darker Victorian style to trailer by using Latin in the song consequently adding suspense at the same time. People who see this video and like the music will want to check of the game and trailer to see more. Also, this may increase sales for the songs which would be sold on iTunes to create a form of profit from a different target audience who like the music and not so much for the game itself, or they may be curious and as a result, give the game a try. 

Due to Bloodborne being apart of the blood-souls series, people generally expect it to be the same as the souls games. But Bandai Namco and From Software pushed the idea that it's different within their advertisements. This stems from concept design, choosing victorian fashion instead of medieval, soundtracks being more onto latin and choirs whereas the previous ones were only orchestras. Finally, that the game has new mechanics and features that separates itself from the games connected to the series. All parts of Bloodbornes advertising has a consistent style throughout, this is of the dark victorian theme that is portrayed heavily throughout the advertising methods. Even when Bandai Namco and From Software showed the creation of some characters, the creation videos still had the victorian elements. This consistent style allows the game to be presented to not only fans of the Souls franchise, but also fans of the victorian era and darker games. This is very effective because, Bloodborne actually did end up reaching a wider demographic when released and had a massive push in sales compared to the other Souls games on their releases, even managing to get playstation game of the year, similar to what God of War was able to get, although God of War II had already received that accolade, meaning the title wasn't as big as Bloodbornes accolade to the Blood-Souls franchise.

Another way that God of War was advertised was by more trailers, the full TV commercial advert for God of War contained no gameplay but actually followed more story onto the child character Atreus. It gave viewers a small portion of the plot if they were able to notice the small details in the trailer. This action-packed trailer was also able to reel in more viewers who watch TV more than YouTube as this is a TV advert and therefore, should appeal to them more.

Finally, the last way God of War was advertised was by adding a God of War website on the PlayStation store, this allowed users to see all kinds of information about the game, including: information, fan art, comic stories of Kratos, creations of the game and more. This allows users who aren’t too sure about whether or not they like the game, to go check out the website and see for themselves. It also gives them lore on the previous games meaning any new player is able to play this one without playing the prequels. This is a great way to bring in both new and old players and as a result, pushes for the consistent message that this is a new game with new features, stories and gameplay.

Comparison: In comparison, God of War and Bloodborne advertised rather differently considering the games are extremely similar. God of War featured orchestras for the E3 presentation, Bloodborne was a brief congratulations by the president of Sony’s worldwide studios. This shows how major both games are, one has an iconic face saying how good the game is, the other got an orchestra just for an E3 presentation. They then both took to places like IGN to show their games, the design of the games and further trailers. Bloodborne had more depth for this, yet God of War was heavily advertised on the PlayStation website with their one page there to show all the things with God of War, this immersion on God of Wars behalf allowed users to feel more connected to the characters. Whereas for Bloodborne they got to be more immersed in the style that was shown to the users.