Capcom recently revealed that Dead Rising 2: Case Zero -- an intriguing new strategy of pre-DLC for a game yet to be released -- has sold over 500,000 copies since its release. Another way to look at that is over 500,000 people have paid Capcom money to engage in what is essentially a very elaborate advertisement for Dead Rising 2, and judging by how pleased Capcom is with these results, this is a tactic we're probably going to see a lot more of in the future.
"It's the most dynamic sales weapon we have ever had in our arsenal, giving us the equivalent exposure of a multi-million pound TV campaign," said Capcom UK product manager Karl Reader to MCV. "We foresee other publishers will follow suit."
Case Zero acts as a prologue to Dead Rising 2, with a second downloadable game -- Case West -- coming later to act as an epilogue. So on top of a new marketing strategy, Reader also says this could be the start of a new way of game development. "With increasing development budgets and increased risk, several smaller projects is only sensible," he said. "What we are seeing is a precursor to episodic gaming with Capcom at the helm."
And one more bonus that pre-DLC has over traditional advertising, according to Reader, is it gives the publisher concrete metrics to see how many people are actually being exposed. "It serves as a barometer for us as a publisher, allowing us to gauge demand for the title and adjust our marketing plans for Dead Rising 2 accordingly," Reader said.
Dead Rising 2 is set for release on Tuesday, so we'll soon find out just how well this marketing stragety actually worked.
No comments:
Post a Comment