8-Bit Thinking

For years the gaming industry has sat on a gold mine, with what appeared to be no idea who their audience was or is. They had fallen into the belief, one held by so many people, that video games are for children and teens. I don't know how this came to be, or how it even makes sense. More games are released with a rating of "mature", ages 17+, than ever before. These games are for adults and yet they have historically been marketed so poorly that you had to do research to know when a game was coming out and whether it would be worth the buy, having never seen a commercial for it. It's 8-bit thinking. When Nintendo and the Famicom were the pinnacle of gaming the games were, frankly, ugly. Don't get me wrong, the games were great and I still play them but how do you advertise Donkey Kong? Show a picture of the screen with our favorite plumber running back and forth? Not exactly great advertising material. By the time the consoles had become established, the gaming community had become so niche that advertising seemed to go the way of the dinosaur, except around Christmas. But it seems to be changing.

What does it take to see a change? Money. 8-bit thinking went away as soon as people who played those 4, 8, 16, 24, 64-bit games got a real job and started spending their hard earned cash on what they always loved, video games. Gaming is big buisness. Last year Vivendi and Ubisoft combined to become the second largest gaming behemoth behind Electronic Arts. Over 10 million people subscribe for $15 a month to Blizzard Entertainment's "World of Warcraft" (Blizzard by the way is owned by parent company Vivendi). Projections show the game industry soon beating out even the motion picture studios. And with all this capital comes better, sorry ACTUAL, advertising.

The change has been coming for a while but I realized how effective it could be when I first saw the trailer for Gear Of War using the Gary Jules' cover of Tears For Fears' "Mad World".


I read reviews from teens saying how terrible the commercial was... the fools. This commercial was not made for you. In order to get everything out of this advertisement you need to love the 80's new wave band Tears For Fears. But they use the Gary Jules version which is from what has become a cult classic "Donnie Darko". Not to mention that the cinematic is gorgeous. All these add up to ADULTS who want to buy this game. The first time I saw it on TV I was in awe.

And now that they understand, "Oh yea, let's combine these amazing games with frickin great music and sell them like the pieces of gold that they are!" it's a snow ball effect. I saw this yesterday.


I read on the forums, "I don't get this song for the trailer". Holy crap man they're playing "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane! They could be selling me cancer and I would buy it. I'd buy because it's amazing how far we've come. I would have never thought we'd see good advertising for good games using amazing rock music. I'm bemused by all it's glory. We will use all of this to solidify our numbers and then the nerds will overthrow their oppressors and the war will begin. Join us now or be assimilated later. Resistence is futile.