324 réponses à ce sujet

[Shimmer_Gloom]

Instead of derailing an earlier thread, I thought I would make this one.  I think this is an issue that deserves its own thread, and that it talks about something a little more specific than the things adressed in the the 'Female Shepard thread.'  Namely, marketing and how Bioware/EA can bring in gamers that had already given the first two Mass Effect games a pass.

Highlight the custimizable nature of the protagonist.  And letting people know that the Mass Effect world offers something other than the generic space settings of other games.  The inclusion of the Female Shepard is a big part of this.  Other settings and other games do not treat female characters with the kind of respect the devs do in this game.  Not only is it refreshing, its really darn cool.  Plus Jennifer Hale's performance is constantly hailed as one of the best single performanes to come out in a game, well, ever.  Im not hating on Meer.  He's great.  Lets not get derailed.

I think that Fem!shep is something special and it would be a waste for marketing to not show this.  Fem!shep is a powerful asset.  Show her off.

I remember the ads in my comics for ME2 that had page, after page, of headshots of the alien characters (plus Miranda) that highlighted the team members.  There were also the videos.  Also, recently, there were the DA2 adds that highlighted the three different classes.  So I know that the Bioware/EA marketing guys are open to trying new and risky things to get new gamers in.  And that they realise that they need to show what makes Mass Effect unique.  Female Shepard (and Ashley and other characters) offer something most games do not have... interesting female characters.  There is no doubt that this is a draw for some gamers.  Why not highlight the most interesting female character in the game, namely Shepard herself?

I think letting new gamers know that there is a Fem!shep option, through a blurb on the back of the box or through marketing (like youtube videos and etc) can only help the franchise.  Mass Effect 3 is the last in the seriers.  Lets pull out all the stops to make it the most successful no?

So?  Your thoughts?

Modifié par Shimmer_Gloom, 27 avril 2011 - 05:41 .

[Centauri2002]

Absolutely. There's a lot about the game people just don't know. We're two games and several years down the line, and it's still not apparent that we can customise Shepard before we get into the game itself. There's hardly mention of it anywhere. That's something they should be pushing as a lot of people enjoy customisation.

[TomY90]

Hate to say but from a marketing point of view it is not the customisable characters and female shepherd as the most powerful asset it of mass effect it is actually the story and how every decision you make has consequences in the long run is mass effects unique selling point.

and the issue with showing a lot of customisable shepherds and different genders it will send a mixed message about the story and who you play, which will more likely put off people than attract players, because marketing has to be the following

Clear
Concise
Honest

which if you have multiple shepherds it will make it no longer clear or concise because your showing different primary characters which will confuse those who never played Mass Effect (because simply they do not know that) which would more likely cause less people to join the franchise at that point.

Bioware and EA games know what works for advertising and they know that keeping it simple by showing the gameplay, show what the story is and show the effects thats the recipe to a success game advert. (just look at the other games in similar style and you will see what i mean) and where ever possible show the games unique selling point which if you look at the trailers for ME2 they did that very well

And no offence but femshep is NOT a powerful asset because she is not a high quality default looking character like male shep making her not suitable for being in HD advertising (when its interviews and Dev videos are where at most she can appear)

no offence female shepherd fans

(sorry for going on for so long I do marketing at university so I do know quite abit about it, I even had to make a video showing the best of EA games)

Oh and I can imagine the marketing strategy will be primarly
Viral Advertising
Demo's
Cinematic Advertising
Television Advertising
Product Placement (e.g. trailers inside other games)
Billboards
Newspapers and Magazine advertising

Modifié par TomY90, 27 avril 2011 - 06:05 .

[Centauri2002]

The fact that she isn't a high quality default like Sheploo is a fault on BioWare's part though. There should have been an equivalent from the very beginning. But she was just tacked on to help draw in more players. A ploy that ultimately worked very well for them. But now they've made a rod for their own backs and have quite a number of loyal female Shepard fans.

Of course, FemShep isn't the only thing they could use to bring in more players. That was just an example. There are other things they could draw attention to that, perhaps, non-players aren't aware of. The choice system and its effects, for one, as well as the huge scope of the story. Quite a number of people think it's a basic shooter and have no idea of the RPG elements.

Modifié par centauri2002, 27 avril 2011 - 06:05 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

TomY90 wrote...

Hate to say but from a marketing point of view it is not the customisable characters and female shepherd as the most powerful asset it of mass effect it is actually the story and how every decision you make has consequences in the long run is mass effects unique selling point.

and the issue with showing a lot of customisable shepherds and different genders it will send a mixed message about the story and who you play, which will more likely put off people than attract players, because marketing has to be the following

Clear
Concise
Honest

And no offence but femshep is NOT a powerful asset because she is not a high quality default looking character like male shep making her not suitable for being in HD advertising (when its interviews and Dev videos are where at most she can appear)

You're missing a vital part of advertising, which is to clearly display the features of your product. Most customers are completely unaware of a very important feature that has had a lot of assets devoted to it - the ability ot play as female shepard.

The marketing could be changed minimally just to make it clear that this feature exists, without emphasizing it too much. Also, it has been posited before that female shepard could be shown wearing a helmet, which would solve the prolbem of high-rez textures and also invoke the powerful associations of Samus Aran, the most powerful female image in science fiction gaming, and a character most commonly shown wearing her helmet.

This valuable feature does not need to the central target of advertising, but a line in a gameplay trailer that says "Play as Commander John Shepard, or build your own character" then cuts to a five second shot of a female Shepard in a full helmet doing some badass, Samas-Aran style moves) would be sufficient.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 27 avril 2011 - 06:11 .

[TomY90]

DOUBLE POST

Modifié par TomY90, 27 avril 2011 - 06:14 .

[TomY90]

centauri2002 wrote...

The fact that she isn't a high quality default like Sheploo is a fault on BioWare's part though. There should have been an equivalent from the very beginning. But she was just tacked on to help draw in more players. A ploy that ultimately worked very well for them. But now they've made a rod for their own backs and have quite a number of loyal female Shepard fans.

Of course, FemShep isn't the only thing they could use to bring in more players. That was just an example. There are other things they could draw attention to that, perhaps, non-players aren't aware of. The choice system and its effects, for one, as well as the huge scope of the story. Quite a number of people think it's a basic shooter and have no idea of the RPG elements.

To be honest the biggest draw for people to a gain is the story, gameplay and what is unique about the product which if the advertising shows more of the RPG elements it will be better advertising but the female shepherd is no good for the advertising techniques they use all what they can do is make it obvious in game reviews that you can as both male or female which is more than enough.

And advertising is just to make people aware of the product and after that they will either research further into the product (and find out about fem shep) which is likely because games are luxury items so they are bought less often and more consideration is involved than other items

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

TomY90 wrote...

Hate to say but from a marketing point of view it is not the customisable characters and female shepherd as the most powerful asset it of mass effect it is actually the story and how every decision you make has consequences in the long run is mass effects unique selling point.

and the issue with showing a lot of customisable shepherds and different genders it will send a mixed message about the story and who you play, which will more likely put off people than attract players, because marketing has to be the following

Clear
Concise
Honest

And no offence but femshep is NOT a powerful asset because she is not a high quality default looking character like male shep making her not suitable for being in HD advertising (when its interviews and Dev videos are where at most she can appear)

You're missing a vital part of advertising, which is to clearly display the features of your product. Most women are completely unaware of a very important feature that has had a lot of assets devoted to it - the ability ot play as female shepard.

The marketing could be changed minimally just to make it clear that this feature exists, without emphasizing it too much. Also, it has been posited before that female shepard could be shown wearing a helmet, which would solve the prolbem of high-rez textures and also invoke the powerful associations of Samus Aran, most commonly shown wearing her helmet.

This valuable feature does not need to be featured prominently in advertising, but a line in a gameplay trailer that says "Play as Commander John Shepard, or build your own character" then cuts to a five second shot of a female Shepard in a full helmet doing some badass, Samas-Aran style moves) would be sufficient.

yeah but your forgetting the target audience for the product is mainly the male market ( I am not saying a large amount of women play Mass Effect) but research they conduct tends to find that RPG games are most popular with the male market and so is action shooters (and that is true I have looked at such data late 2010)

Modifié par TomY90, 27 avril 2011 - 06:15 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

TomY90 wrote...

centauri2002 wrote...

The fact that she isn't a high quality default like Sheploo is a fault on BioWare's part though. There should have been an equivalent from the very beginning. But she was just tacked on to help draw in more players. A ploy that ultimately worked very well for them. But now they've made a rod for their own backs and have quite a number of loyal female Shepard fans.

Of course, FemShep isn't the only thing they could use to bring in more players. That was just an example. There are other things they could draw attention to that, perhaps, non-players aren't aware of. The choice system and its effects, for one, as well as the huge scope of the story. Quite a number of people think it's a basic shooter and have no idea of the RPG elements.

To be honest the biggest draw for people to a gain is the story, gameplay and what is unique about the product which if the advertising shows more of the RPG elements it will be better advertising but the female shepherd is no good for the advertising techniques they use all what they can do is make it obvious in game reviews that you can as both male or female which is more than enough.

And advertising is just to make people aware of the product and after that they will either research further into the product (and find out about fem shep) which is likely because games are luxury items so they are bought less often and more consideration is involved than other items

Then how would you explain the fact that fewer women buy Mass Effect than buy games where female characters are featured prominently? I'm sure you're "aware" of the existence of Barbie Horse adventure, did you research it to see if it happened to be a deeply customizeable space shooter? I'm guessing you did not. You built your expectations of what the product was based on the marketing around it.

Mass Effect's broad marketing strategy fails to distinguish it from Halo or Crysis. I actually saw an ad for Crisis before loading a traile for Mass Effect once, and was confused... was this a new trailer for ME? I didn't realize it was a different game until the name came up on the screen.

I think that ME's marketing could do a better job in showing that it is a different game from Crysis or Gears of War or Halo, and that showing you can play as a female is an importnat first step.

[Centauri2002]

The fact of the matter is, BioWare are going to want to bring new players in along with their existing fanbase. Obviously, if people haven't bought the previous two games, the existing marketing strategy isn't working on its own. Something needs to be added to it. What that something is is open to debate but saying 'keep it as it is' isn't going to bring in the gamers who skipped this the past two times.

[Tarahiro]

When I bought Mass Effect 1 way back when, I remember a few of my friends asking why I was playing it. They know i'm not a big Sci-Fi fan and I have a strong aversion to skinhead males. No offence to any of you guys, they just creep me out a bit. I told them Shep was customizable and showed them my FemShep. They're now big Mass Effect fans.

I'm not saying 'drop the sheploo advertising' i'm saying 'add in some femshep'. That way they can cater to their target audience and bring in some new people. I mean, adding femshep in shouldnt scare anyone off. It's optional, after all. Just like I choose never to play Sheploo.

So yes I agree fully with the original post.

[TomY90]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

TomY90 wrote...

centauri2002 wrote...

The fact that she isn't a high quality default like Sheploo is a fault on BioWare's part though. There should have been an equivalent from the very beginning. But she was just tacked on to help draw in more players. A ploy that ultimately worked very well for them. But now they've made a rod for their own backs and have quite a number of loyal female Shepard fans.

Of course, FemShep isn't the only thing they could use to bring in more players. That was just an example. There are other things they could draw attention to that, perhaps, non-players aren't aware of. The choice system and its effects, for one, as well as the huge scope of the story. Quite a number of people think it's a basic shooter and have no idea of the RPG elements.

To be honest the biggest draw for people to a gain is the story, gameplay and what is unique about the product which if the advertising shows more of the RPG elements it will be better advertising but the female shepherd is no good for the advertising techniques they use all what they can do is make it obvious in game reviews that you can as both male or female which is more than enough.

And advertising is just to make people aware of the product and after that they will either research further into the product (and find out about fem shep) which is likely because games are luxury items so they are bought less often and more consideration is involved than other items

Then how would you explain the fact that fewer women buy Mass Effect than buy games where female characters are featured prominently? I'm sure you're "aware" of the existence of Barbie Horse adventure, did you research it to see if it happened to be a deeply customizeable space shooter? I'm guessing you did not. You built your expectations of what the product was based on the marketing around it.

Mass Effect's broad marketing strategy fails to distinguish it from Halo or Crysis. I actually saw an ad for Crisis before loading a traile for Mass Effect once, and was confused... was this a new trailer for ME? I didn't realize it was a different game until the name came up on the screen.

I think that ME's marketing could do a better job in showing that it is a different game from Crysis or Gears of War or Halo, and that showing you can play as a female is an importnat first step.

All i am saying is that the industry does tons of research into trends and they do acknowledge the growth of the female gamer market but the male gamer market is the more dominant demographic.

and I did not do the research due to being at university I get access to market research conducted by businesses who sells their findings to many companies including EA games and thats what they find.

and I know how the female shepherd should be shown more but it cant really because of the lack of high quality fem shep and would confuse the advertising having more than one shepherd in the adverts because of mass effect trailers being cinematic

Modifié par TomY90, 27 avril 2011 - 06:25 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

TomY90 wrote...

You're missing a vital part of advertising, which is to clearly display the features of your product. Most women are completely unaware of a very important feature that has had a lot of assets devoted to it - the ability ot play as female shepard.

The marketing could be changed minimally just to make it clear that this feature exists, without emphasizing it too much. Also, it has been posited before that female shepard could be shown wearing a helmet, which would solve the prolbem of high-rez textures and also invoke the powerful associations of Samus Aran, most commonly shown wearing her helmet.

This valuable feature does not need to be featured prominently in advertising, but a line in a gameplay trailer that says "Play as Commander John Shepard, or build your own character" then cuts to a five second shot of a female Shepard in a full helmet doing some badass, Samas-Aran style moves) would be sufficient.

yeah but your forgetting the target audience for the product is mainly the male market ( I am not saying a large amount of women play Mass Effect) but research they conduct tends to find that RPG games are most popular with the male market and so is action shooters (and that is true I have looked at such data late 2010)

Do you have citations for this? Even if the research is purchased from research companies, unless I know how its been conducted it may be terribly unscientific. Most girls I know who game play RPGs more than any other genre of game. The problem is that they play JRPGs and MMOrpgs, because they don't believe that conventional Western RPGs have much to offer them, because western RPGs aren't marketed toward them.

Go to any anime convention, and you will find hundreds of girls dressed as characters from JRPGs. The RPG genre is incredibly popular with women... it's just that that the female demographic is dominated by JRPGs, which are marketed toward both men and women. You'll be reading some girly manga, and see a JRPG advertised with beautiful character portraits, usually featuring a male and female character. You'll see another ad in a more gender-neutral publication that has dudes fighting exploding monsters with swords.

I also think you're displaying right here a fundamental flaw in modern marketing strategies. Marketers prefer not to try to capture new markets, rather they spend all of their money focusing entirely on the existing market, no matter what their product says. This is why most game companies are falling behind Nintendo in market share.

Nintendo had access to the same market research that EA did, research that said women don't buy sports games. So they made a bunch of sports games and marketed them to both men and women. Now they dominate the Sports game market, with their sports and activity titles taking the top slots for game sales over and over again.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 27 avril 2011 - 06:31 .

[Shimmer_Gloom]

I think TomY90 makes definite and well reasoned point that male gamers are the target audience and as such should be marketed above other markets... that being said that doesn't mean that the way Marketing has been doing things is 100% the best way to do things. Acknowledging Fem!shep in the advertising does not just hit the female demographic. You think Tomb Raider's demographic is made up of mostly women? Probably not. So, the existence of a female character in a marketing strategy does not mean you would only be hitting the female demographic.

My point is, acknowledging such a strong facet of the game (Fem!Shep) as long as it doesn't unnecessarily muddle the grander marketing in general is likely a good idea.

[Abramis brama]

Your post makes it seem that women only care about the dress-up part in games or how good looking the characters are and don't care about the gameplay at all.

[TomY90]

ok culturalgeekgirl I seriously would show you all the data and that but I seriously cannot send the data out because we all had to accept a condition that we can only use it for educational purposes and I cannot put the data and findings into the public.

But the research I can imagine was conducted by going threw different channels such as focus groups, viral questionnaire and cold calling.

and the I understand where you are coming from with the lack of risk marketing take but that is simply answered with big corporations tend to play it safe because they invest millions into the advertising and they want to guarantee it works if you experiment more with advertising the odds of the advertising to be successul diminishes and if a business finds they did not work they are much less likely to use that company again so they always play it safe.

But with the nintendo example you gave nintendo in general went down a different route to xbox and playstation which nintendo went down the route of a a young family console (which is why the motion controller was introduced) whereas xbox and playstation went down the hardcore gamer route which is why they mainly use just traditional controllers. Which the motion controllers naturally better suited sports games than a traditional control simply because you cannot do fitness whist sitting down with a old controller.

And shimmer Gloom thanks for agreeing with me and I do do agree with fem shepherd should be used but its just that it would be very hard to use the character due to the quality (i know you can cover it up with a helmet but that would defeat the objective of showing her) and showing her and male shepherd would go against the cinematic style they always go for.

they will likely do what they did with her in ME2 have her being shown in the dev videos and character videos when they show who does the voices of which characters

Modifié par TomY90, 27 avril 2011 - 06:44 .

[Rurik_Niall]

Frankly I think you're overestimating the importance of customisation in this franchise. The customisation system used is honestly pretty weak, especially for a male Shepard, it's nigh impossible to get a custom male face that doesn't seem completely mismatched with the voice. No the feature that Bioware should be pushing more than anything is the fact that it's a trilogy. Don't concern yourself with people who didn't play the first two games, it's the people who have played this trilogy from start to finish who will be receiving the full experience, and that's how it needs to be marketed. This also has the added benefit of advertising the first two games as well, a sale of Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3 plus the associated DLC is a lot more profitable than just the sale of Mass Effect 3.

[Shimmer_Gloom]

Nice addition to the topic CulturalGeekGirl.  You're assertions seem to be well reasoned and you are probably doing a better job of supporting my points than I am.

I'd like to go back to what TomY90 said about different marketing avenues though:

Television Advertising, Product Placement (e.g. trailers inside other games), and Billboards are not areas where it would pay to muddle the message much.  They are quick and 'blunt force' advertising avenues.  As such it would be hard to introduce Fem!shep without complicating things to much.

But you also mentioned viral marketing and magizine ads.  These have a better opertunity to convey a more complex message, like "there is more than one way to play Shepard."  Heck, it doesn't even say this on the back of the box.

I think the RPG elements are severly underrepresented and more on that can only help imo.

[Kusy]

Where's my sandwich?

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Let me give a better example here.

Ten years ago, maybe 20% of women I knew owned a Gameboy of some flavor.

Now, 80% of women I know under the age of 40 own a DS, and 40% of the women I know between the ages of 40 and 60 do. Yes, I know a lot of women who are nonstandard... intellectuals, fans, nerds. whatever. But I knew those same women ten years ago too. In the last ten years, there was a huge marketing campaign featuring women playing with the DS. I'm not saying that said marketing campaign was the primary reason that women play the DS, but it helps. Many female gamers I've spoken with have a similar feeling... that Nintendo and JRPG companies are the only ones who care about them and acknowledge their existence.

In the past ten years, Nintendo, Harmonix, Atlus, XSeed, and Square-Enix have all done a really good job telling female players "Hey, you are welcome here. Come play our games." I'd be interested to see what the demographics are there, but I don't know a single female "nerd" or "gamer" who hasn't played some Square Enix RPG in the past five years. Most of them have barely heard of Mass Effect.

I don't see a problem with spending 3% of your marketing budget letting women know they are welcome in your game and in your company. If you try it once and it doesn't increase sales at least 3%, then you can call it a loss and move on. But not even trying is just moronic, and is one of the reasons that certain companies are walking away with all the female dollars in gaming.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 27 avril 2011 - 06:51 .

[Shimmer_Gloom]

Abramis brama wrote...

Your post makes it seem that women only care about the dress-up part in games or how good looking the characters are and don't care about the gameplay at all.

Of COURSE this is not my point.  But women like games that treat them with respect.  They like comics that treat them with respect.  In general women tend to dig media that doesn't treat them like a peice of meat or like they are only interested in horses and ponies and rainbows.

The inclusion of a complex and interesting herione is obviously something that people (this includes the ladies obviously) find interesting.  And the marketing has not reflected the existence of such a character.  This is my point.

[Shimmer_Gloom]

Mr.Kusy wrote...

Where's my sandwich?

Right here.  *PUNCH!*

[Rurik_Niall]

Shimmer_Gloom wrote...
But you also mentioned viral marketing and magizine ads.  These have a better opertunity to convey a more complex message, like "there is more than one way to play Shepard."  Heck, it doesn't even say this on the back of the box.

I think the RPG elements are severly underrepresented and more on that can only help imo.

I circled the parts of the cover that tell you to expect plenty of role playing opportunities.

[Kusy]

I say that investing even a 100 bucks in something that might not give you any profit is a risk, and I wouldn't take such a risk if it was up to me. Investing 3% of marketing funds into something that MAY pay off is not a good idea when you know you can spend that 3% somewhere where you know or at least expect it will give profit.

[TomY90]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

Let me give a better example here.

Ten years ago, maybe 20% of women I knew owned a Gameboy of some flavor.

Now, 80% of women I know under the age of 40 own a DS, and 40% of the women I know between the ages of 40 and 60 do. Yes, I know a lot of women who are nonstandard... intellectuals, fans, nerds. whatever. But I knew those same women ten years ago too. In the last ten years, there was a huge marketing campaign featuring women playing with the DS. I'm not saying that said marketing campaign was the primary reason that women play the DS, but it helps. Many female gamers I've spoken with have a similar feeling... that Nintendo and JRPG companies are the only ones who care about them and acknowledge their existence.

In the past ten years, Nintendo, Harmonix, Atlus, XSeed, and Square-Enix have all done a really good job telling female players "Hey, you are welcome here. Come play our games." I'd be interested to see what the demographics are there, but I don't know a single female "nerd" or "gamer" who hasn't played some Square Enix RPG in the past five years. Most of them have barely heard of Mass Effect.

I don't see a problem with spending 3% of your marketing budget letting women know they are welcome in your game and in your company. If you try it once and it doesn't increase sales at least 3%, then you can call it a loss and move on. But not even trying is just moronic, and is one of the reasons that certain companies are walking away with all the female dollars in gaming.

I understand where you are coming from but you got to remember that Mass Effect hits 2 very much male orientated markets the 3rd person shooter and Western RPGs, which I know the FF series is very popular with the female market but from what I know I have never ever seen square enix target the female market they do the same techniques as EA games they make cinematic trailers show women characters (like mass effect does with miranda lawson and ashley williams) its simply that the japanese RPG is in general more popular with the female market for other reasons than advertising (and I am not going to start guessing why because I do not know Japanese RPGs that well) . And no offence to square enix but they are failing at holding that market I know loads of people who are leaving FF and moving to mass effect and other western RPGs because of how bad the recent FF's have been  

and mr.kushy i completely agree with you on that one I would invest it wisely in techniques and strategies i know that work

and Rurik Niall like your evidence of showing its an RPG nicely done

Modifié par TomY90, 27 avril 2011 - 07:10 .

[Shimmer_Gloom]

I don't think the "recent Final Fantasy" games have been bad. Its just that FF13 was, well, as experimental in many ways that DA2 was and the fanbase got a bit miffed. Plus any FF game that is also an MMO is gunna suck. This is just a fact of life.

I was a hardcore FF fan before playing the Bioware games. I'm still a FF fan (is a dude by the way).

I think JRPGs are great. And I think a big part of the reason girls are attracted to them (and Manga and other things from Japan) is because their treatment of female characters have a perception of being better than the Western Gaming Market right now. And the Western Comics market too.

Both comics and games have a stigma of being very unfriendly to females (whether this is deserved or not YMMV). I don't see how doing something subtle like highlighting the interesting qualities of the female characters (other than their cleavage) could hurt.