Spore Viral ad campaign?

K

kelbear

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jun 22, 2005
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Am I the only one curious as to why Spore is getting so much buzz now?

Everybody's drooling and spooging their pants over that GDC video. I totally understand why, I had the exact same reaction.. but that was.months and months ago, I'm pretty sure there was even a thread about it on this forum too.

All of a sudden, so many of the sites I hit have "SWEET SPORE VIDEO" threads popping up everywhere. What accounts for this massive and sudden surge of interest in the same information material?

Did some new information come up that linked into this video? I still haven't seen any advertisements regarding this game on websites, but I have definitely seen a big jump in internet awareness of this game. I don't want to be grasping at shadows, but the talk about company plants going around and seeding hype on forums using forum screennames that have already been seeded for years makes me wonder if this is a similar campaign. Calm down, I'm not accusing anyone on this forum of working for a company, part of why this tactic is so successful is that the generated hype should be able to cause non-paid users to create buzz on other forums. (In fact, this very post is part of that ripple-effect since it too is generating talk about Spore)

I don't particularly mind. This is a very interesting game that people would want to hear to hear about. I'm interested in what was done to cause all the recent fervor.
 
you mean posts about Spore like yours :p ;)

I am excited about this game, however I am also very wary that it could be a big dissapointment.
 
I can't say much except there are on average HUNDREDS of viral marketing campaigns going on at any given time. I have seen around 6 posts on these very forums by viral marketers.
 
eh...it comes from that fact that for once, we have an origional game.
 
El Nacho said:
eh...it comes from that fact that for once, we have an origional game.
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I'm not disputing this at all. That's the reason why I myself am so interested in this game. What confuses me is that people are now going crazy over a video that was released so long ago. Why didn't this much buzz happen when the videos were freshly released?

Something else had to have happened to get the craze about these videos, because the videos were released without this catalyst and relatively little buzz was generated. Thus my suspicion that the catalyst is a viral ad campaign.
 
I've noticed the same thing, all the tech forums I usually visit all suddenly recently had spore threads created in their gaming sections.
Possibly coincidence, but oh well dont waste time bothering about it.
 
I say you are working for the company!!! Do you wanna know why?

You're name is far too similar to "CareBear", and we all know that was the best part of the video.

:p
 
kelbear said:
I'm not disputing this at all. That's the reason why I myself am so interested in this game. What confuses me is that people are now going crazy over a video that was released so long ago. Why didn't this much buzz happen when the videos were freshly released?

Something else had to have happened to get the craze about these videos, because the videos were released without this catalyst and relatively little buzz was generated. Thus my suspicion that the catalyst is a viral ad campaign.
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ok, I see what your saying. I know the buzz was pretty big when it was first talked about back in 2k4, but arent these video's from 2k5?
 
kelbear said:
Something else had to have happened to get the craze about these videos, because the videos were released without this catalyst and relatively little buzz was generated. Thus my suspicion that the catalyst is a viral ad campaign.
Click to expand...

Or it could be that many people view multiple tech forums, some different from others. All it would take is for one person to find the video who has never seen it, or possibly wonder why it's not as big as it should be, and post it on one forum (or multiple). After that, with such a refreshing game being released, I would imagine it would spread easily. I mean, yesterday was the first I'd heard about the game, so I'm kinda glad it was posted. I actually wondered why PoP3 didn't get too much forum love when it was released. I thought it was a great game and highly anticipated too...but not one post on release day or even a week later. Ok, enough of my tangent...

Either way, though, I'm not going to worry about it. I'm not going to go buy something some marketing jackass brings to my attention. The only way it'd bother me is if they kept doing it -- or they were pushing a cookie cutter fps.
 
Nuzzles said:
I say you are working for the company!!! Do you wanna know why?

You're name is far too similar to "CareBear", and we all know that was the best part of the video.

:p
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"Monkey's with guns." was the best line. ;)
 
jubei said:
I mean, yesterday was the first I'd heard about the game, so I'm kinda glad it was posted.
......
Either way, though, I'm not going to worry about it. I'm not going to go buy something some marketing jackass brings to my attention. The only way it'd bother me is if they kept doing it -- or they were pushing a cookie cutter fps.
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Ummm....if it *was* posted as a result of a 'viral campaign', then...uhhh....yes, you WOULD end up buying it because 'some marketing jackass [brought it to your] attention', wouldn't you?

I mean, if you'd never hear about the game before the (hypothetical) viral marketing campaign, hear about it because of that campaign, followed the link provided, and decided the game looked interesting enough to keep an eye on and possibly buy....

....well, the campaign WORKED then, didn't it? :p
 
dderidex said:
Ummm....if it *was* posted as a result of a 'viral campaign', then...uhhh....yes, you WOULD end up buying it because 'some marketing jackass [brought it to your] attention', wouldn't you?

I mean, if you'd never hear about the game before the (hypothetical) viral marketing campaign, hear about it because of that campaign, followed the link provided, and decided the game looked interesting enough to keep an eye on and possibly buy....

....well, the campaign WORKED then, didn't it? :p
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That's not what I was implying. If I had heard about it in any other format, be it TV, Radio, Etc.., the concept of the game is enough for me to take a look. If the game, however, didn't look like a game I'd play (cookie cutter fps, mmo, etc..) then I wouldn't buy it, regardless of the type of media used to call it to my attention.

I mean, how could I even know a game exists unless it's brought to my attention? I don't think it matters if it's because of a display in a store, an ad campaign on tv, or a forum post. Of course you could say it worked, but that doesn't necessarily mean the way in which the game was brought up was bad, annoying, or even carry any negative connotations. It just seems this "viral ad campaign" label is seen as a bad thing while in this case, if it were, is something I am thankful for at this moment (unless the game sucks). If some company wants to tell me about something they're making, cool. Unless they are calling attention to a game that is horrible knowing the game is horrible and are just trying to make those extra sales, then I don't see why everybody is making such a big deal about it. They found a way to advertise for free, good for them.
 
the question you should ask yourself is would it be better to be the recipient of subvertive advertising techniques which you could easily avoid or for a game that could potentially be great go unnoticed and simply die on the shelf.
 
Exact same thing here, of the three forums I visit related to games all three have recently had a Spore video posted. The only thing is on two of them one of the posters is a moderator and the other is on my Carball team so I know they're not "plants". It was weird though, all the Spore video posts happened on the same day.
 
The video might have been out for half a year, but it's a possiblity that it was just posted on Googles Video a couple hours or days before. Hence the sudden popularity.
 
Free advertisment!!!

Yer the video is old and I was extreamly interested in the game when I head abt the concept (hte vid just confirmed I would be buying it). SInce it is due out soonish (this year I think) start posting the same video to get ppl hyped abt it, then I guess in the next month or so release a newer video to show new stuff so ppl then go "woow look at the improvements" then a demo

sure fire win
 
The video was recently brought to attention because of it being posted on Digg.com a few days ago. A whole bunch of people saw it for the first time and started posting it everywhere.
 
Bunch of my friends only saw it this wave.

I only saw that video this wave, but I was semi aware of spore beforehand.
 
Zero82z said:
The video was recently brought to attention because of it being posted on Digg.com a few days ago. A whole bunch of people saw it for the first time and started posting it everywhere.
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^ hes got it.
 
First time I saw it was a long time ago, and also on Digg. This can't be the sole reason.
 
First time i saw it was on this forum, a few days ago. A lot of other forums i go to have people also subscribed here. After it got posted here, that's when it started appearing everywhere else.

What can i say? [H] is a trendsetter :p
 
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