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Old 11-01-19, 16:41   #1
tlr online
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Question Your thoughts on the marketing behind Shadow of the Tomb Raider

I've been reading polarising opinions on the marketing behind Shadow of the Tomb Raider and I would like to collect your thoughts in one thread. Please give me you opinion and if/how you would do it differently.

As usual please post respectfully.
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Old 11-01-19, 16:44   #2
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Terrible
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Old 11-01-19, 16:44   #3
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The biggest mistake, IMO, was the e3 trailer. I think it was a poor choice of a trailer to the first presentation - because, even though I loved it, it didn't have best graphical detail
That, and the first gameplay being about combat.

Too many behind doors, and secrecy as well. They should be more open, and I don't see any reason why they won't update, and give teases when the game is in development - like, they could have announced shadow as the next TR game in E3 2017, and released a simple teaser, and go from there. Instead, they make this all as something top secret, and I honestly don't see why.

Is there anyone who can answer this? Why is always such a huge secrecy behind TR development? Why would it hurt them or the game, if they confirmed last year the name of the game, etc?

Last edited by Vaskito; 11-01-19 at 16:47.
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Old 11-01-19, 16:46   #4
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The marketing itself was fine. Lots of TV ads and I was a sucker for the Larazade bottles. The reason the game got swallowed up was that it was released a week after Spider-Man. I also don't think the reboot era ever really recovered from the timed exclusivity of Rise. It shattered a lot of the hype that had been built up from the success of the 2013 game.
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Old 11-01-19, 16:56   #5
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I know nothing about the marketing outside of the single trailer I've watched before the game's release. I completely forgot about what was in it, so when I didn't see Lara saving the boy/guy/whatever from being sacrificed I had nothing to feel about it.

Since then I've seen the trailers for The Forge and The Pillar, but I watched them after playing them. I found them to be more or less true to form with only a slight exaggeration to make them look a little better than they are.

If anything, I'd say the marketing is quite lack, as content is scattered all over the place and no one at Square Enix has yet to put out any information on where to find it all. Of course, content shouldn't be scattered in the first place, but it's the least they could do.
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Old 11-01-19, 17:03   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TombRaiderLover View Post
The marketing itself was fine. Lots of TV ads and I was a sucker for the Larazade bottles. The reason the game got swallowed up was that it was released a week after Spider-Man. I also don't think the reboot era ever really recovered from the timed exclusivity of Rise. It shattered a lot of the hype that had been built up from the success of the 2013 game.
I will say, it did pick up a lot more towards the end, but by then, all the hype was pretty much dead. Everyone was excited already for Spider-Man.

Oh man, don't even get me started on those exclusive events.
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Old 11-01-19, 17:03   #7
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Terrible and anyone that says otherwise is wrong, end of story


On a more serious note though, yeah it really was terrible. Unclear communication caused things like the April 24th "reveal", where the devs failed to mention that it was only getting revealed if you actually attended the events. Lots of frustration for a very weird and unpractical decision and the devs not being very clear about it.

Then showing complete lackluster and generally unimpressive footage at the actual reveal at E3. There were many great areas to show from the game, yet they went for something that looked pretty much like Rise's Advancing Storm E3 gameplay. A badly made trailer didn't help at all.

And then we have the exclusive events, the only place proper marketing in this game actually took place. I'm sure other will elaborate on this better, but unless you were attending these you pretty much had no idea how the game was.
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Old 11-01-19, 17:04   #8
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This sums it up perfectly.
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Old 11-01-19, 17:16   #9
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It seemed OK to me.

The huge FAQ they released prior to release was very helpful.

However....The official Tomb Raider forums are dire and had zero updates prior or after release. (except patch updates from Nixxes Software)

Compare that with the Assassin's Creed Odyssey Ubisoft forums and the difference is immediately noticeable.
Ubisoft and Support Staff and at times members of the development team regularly engage with the Community.

There was no engagement from anyone from Square-Enix, Eidos Montreal, Crystal Dynamics or any support staff on their forums.
Twitter responses from @TombRaider @SquareEnixEurope were non existent, but kudos to @EidosMontreal for being approachable.

It leaves a sour taste in my mouth when development teams don't communicate with their fans - the people who buy your games. It comes across as arrogance.

Why should the elite, the press, content creators etc. only get that privilege.
I think engagement with the fans and community is very important and it helps marketing in the long run.

That's my two cents
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Old 11-01-19, 17:18   #10
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Terrible.
They didn't build hype at all. All of a sudden they said a new game was coming out few months after the announcement. Only Rockstar can afford that and I think there's a reason why.

Microsoft having again marketing rights...

Exclusive events which is something that doesn't make sense IMHO.

Trailers. The E3 one was really bad. In comparison to other triple A games it was really underwhelming.
And also the way they released the videos of WmW. Sometimes they released two videos on the same day.

They got also very repetitive with what they said (almost annoying I would say), like the whole "become the Tomb Raider she's meant to be" thing. Still haunts me.

I also didn't like some of the things they said like Lara becoming morally grey and the emotional ending etc. Which aren't true IMHO.

And finally the demo released after the game came out. I think that's a pretty bad move.
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