LBP six figure advertising campaign to roll out in December
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There’s been a lot of hullabaloo in the gaming trades of late regarding LittleBigPlanet’s lacklustre performance from a sales perspective.
Sure, it might have a metacritic score of 95% and more 10s than a Miss World contest but when it comes to what publishers (secretly) really care about – how many units have flown off shelves – it’s been somewhat disappointing.
Entering the charts at number four, Sackboy has been continuously trounced by the likes of Gears of War 2 and Fable II since its release. Sure, you could argue these are sequels to immensely popular franchises but a lot of noise has been around Sony’s emblematic mascot-in-waiting and, if we’re being honest, we expected more from the little guy in terms of numbers coming straight out the gate.
That said, have Sony done enough to promote the game in general? If you’re reading this you’re one of a select few who read gaming sites for your PS3 news fix and you’re likely to think LittleBigPlanet has been advertised ad nauseam but, apart from some TV spots and the news furor surrounding Quran-gate, what have Sony really done to promote the game?
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, David Wilson, Sony’s head of U.K. PR, explains that Sony are extremely happy with both how LittleBigPlanet has been received critically and by the buying public.
“If you bought this game on day one, you’d play your 50 plus levels on the Blu-ray and dip into the 12,000 levels created by the beta testers. If you bought the game one week later you’ve got over 84,000 user created levels to play with. This game gets better and better as an experience and as a value proposition.”
What’s interesting from reading David’s later comments is that it would appear the LittleBigCampaign is about to ramp-up.
“The bulk of our marketing including our six figure TV advertising campaign doesn’t roll out until December,” he states, assuring those of us who believe the game has been a tad short-changed in terms of public exposure that “Sackboy hasn’t even hit his stride yet.”
Here’s hoping for a media blitz and we see LittleBigPlanet where it belongs – at the top of the charts this holiday period.
So far LBP has had mixed news surrounding it. We were promised an amazing game. Then it got delayed. Now there’s all this talk of user’s levels being deleted left right and centre with no explanation, it’s probably been affected by good ol’ word of mouth issues.
That said, Sony rarely advertise anything PS3. If Sackboy’s going to be their supposed mascot, why aren’t they yelling that from the rooftops? Although to be fair, that’s my biggest beef with Sony at the moment, they’ve got an amazing product but don’t seem to want to tell anyone about it. The news that they’re going to advertise can only be a good thing. Maybe Dave has been paying attention.
Good points Redlac but it should be noted that the gross deletion of content was addressed by Sony and we won’t be seeing mass secret removal of content in future.
Oddly enough, my biggest gripe with Sony is also about their marketing strategy – or lack of one.
In Europe the PS3 ads are atrocious. Here’s hoping they actually start promoting such a stellar product.
I do think there’s a sea change ahead however. We can only hope Sony have learned from their mistakes and really push the likes of LBP and Killzone 2 next year.
They’d better do! I mean the ONLY adverts for the PS3 I’d seen prior to seeing the ad for Resistance 2 at the cinema was the supposed ‘TV’ adverts on the Playstation Store. Which you’ll only see if you have a PS3. Kinda defeats the object of advertising…
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