These modern video-gaming classics re-imagined in Atari 2600 packaging is a weird walk down a memory lane that wasn’t. Very clever.
Before the over the top, logo heavy madness of today’s next-gen masterpieces became the visual norm for video game cover art, there was the basic beauty of the Atari 2600’s approach to package design. Clean composition and vague descriptive text came together to create something that was just so…intangibly fresh and mesmerizing. But what if the biggest games of now fell into the hands of a 2600-era artist? We’d have Atari Modern Classics, a vintage look at our new favorites through the pixelated beer goggles of an era where simplicity was king.
In August last summer, a fan of Electronic Arts‘ Tiger Woods PGA Tour ’08 posted a video showing a glitch in the game that allows Tiger Woods to literally walk on water and perform a golf shot. He referred to it as the Jesus glitch.
Well, someone at EA saw it (after 100,000+ views) and responded with the following vid a few days ago:
These kinds of marketing opportunities wouldn’t exist without mainstream sites based on user generated content, like YouTube. It’s nice to see a company mastering the medium and using it to communicate directly with their fans on a level otherwise not possible. This is as opposed to, say, freaking out and unleashing the attack dog lawyers, because you don’t understand your product, your audience and their culture.
The Nintendo Wii is an extremely efficient gaming console. Check out this graph from an article over at Hardcoreware.net:
It’s Bruce Lee in a market full of Mike Tysons. Consumer green fever is off the charts. Companies are scrambling to position their products with Energy Star and USDA Organic labels. The US gov’t has a presidentially-appointed energy vampire slayer. (No I’m not kidding) So, why isn’t Nintendo shouting this from the hilltops?
Yesterday, a video was making the rounds called Why every guy should buy their girlfriend Wii Fit. It definitely struck a chord with me (A 27-year-old male, aka the intended audience) as it featured a girl gyrating around and bending over repeatedly in her underwear, courtesy of actually playing Nintendo’s Wii Fit. (Video is mildly NSFW.)
Why every guy should buy their girlfriend Wii Fit was originally submitted to YouTube by a user named tinsleyadvertising and the two people featured in the video appear to be Tinsley Full Service Advertising employees Giovanny Gutierrez, Director of Interactive Media, and Lauren Bernat, Account Executive. At least it sure looks like it, after doing a quick search for “Giovanny Guiterrez” at Flickr…
Now, one of two things is going on here:
Nintendo has paid Tinsley Full Service Advertising for a viral marketing campaign that was worth every penny.
They should have.
In 4 days this video has been viewed almost half-million times by people who use YouTube, Reddit, and/or Digg. Not necessarily all first-adopters at this point, but definitely a tech-savvy crowd. Most definitely made up of people that would buy or own a Nintendo Wii. This was a very nice piece of viral marketing.
Or so I thought until I read the YouTube comment that was submitted with the video: “This is why I love Wii Fit. ‘Nuff said. PS This is a personal video I made… I just work at Tinsley Advertising (not related to Nintendo whatsoever). However I’d love to do work for them :)” This led to an argument about Giovanny’s agenda with my co-worker, Geoff. Maybe, they weren’t paid by Nintendo, maybe they were, maybe they want to be.
Either way, they’ve surely got Nintendo’s attention now. Nice, er, move, Giovanny.
UPDATED 05/30/08: The L.A. Times picked up on the story yesterday afternoon. They contacted Giovanny, who said that it was not a paid viral and that his girlfriend…
“She was FURIOUS,” wrote Gutierrez, who said she “called me on the phone screaming her head off and then hung up on me.”
“But now [she] finds herself actually laughing about it and enjoying her 15 minutes of fame.
FlOw, published by That Game Company, is as pretty to look at as it is addicting to play. And I don’t mean button-mashing frenzy-type addiction. FlOw is a beautiful, relaxing, experience with eye-candy that’s deceptively simple and a has a soundtrack to match. And it’s hard to put down once you’re fully immersed in its serenely-styled world of dog-eat-dog survivalism.
This is a game that will reward a casual player with mild curiosity and 10 minutes to burn; as well the hardcore type who will play all the way through, time after time, and relish small details. This is exactly what all games should be, but so many aren’t. It’s no surprise flOw pulls it off: it was designed from the ground up to appeal, universally, to the human mind.
Flow theory from wikipedia:
With Flow the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi names the feeling of complete and energized focus in an activity, with a high level of enjoyment and fulfillment. As Csikszentmihalyi sees it, the components of a Flow producing activity are:
* We are up to the activity.
* We are able to concentrate on the activity.
* The activity has clear goals.
* The activity has direct feedback.
* We feel that we control the activity.
* Our worries and concerns disappear.
* Our subjective experience of time is altered.
Not all of these components need to be present together for Flow to be experienced.
The game’s creator, Jenova Chen, wrote his MFA thesis on flow and flOw. It came out in 2006 with little fanfare and has been slowly, but surely (4,000,000 downloads), gaining an audience. It was named one of the Best Indie Games 2007 by WIRED, was on PC World’s 101 Fantastic Freebies, and has been ported and made available for download on PSP via the Sony Playstation Store.
So, if you want a game that’s a little out of the ordinary with fantastic game play, and one that looks and sounds as good as it plays, go over and check out flOw. All you need is a mouse and hours/minutes of free time; you’re ready to flOw. (Warning: link may negatively affect productivity.)
