Hype Machines = Effective !

We all know what hype is. It has been applied to everything. Video games, products, software, and heck, dare I say it, Presidents. Great hype confirms your product is going to sell well, but if your product have even a speck of ‘bad’ in it, it is going to crash. Hard.

Let’s look at our first case study, Halo 3.

Halo. The first console and first person shooter which worked (I know golden eye did it a few years before). The series which made the Xbox commercially viable. The series which brought online FPS to consoles. Halo 2 was the first game which has a cliffhanger as a ending, which pissed EVERYONE off.
The tagline “Finish the Fight” was coined from the final line of speech in the game (”Sir, finishing this fight”). Microsoft knew Halo 3 will be a cash cow from the start. It is estimated they spend around $40 million to market the game. Yes, forty million. Only Microsoft can spend money like that. We all seen the ads. On websites, the banners are field with halo. They indulged in making LIVE action teasers for a VIDEO game. Watch it here.
The game was excellent – most gamers can testify it to you. However, its did not cure cancer – like it did not stop global warming like it was hyped up to be. Microsoft had a excellent ad campaign. In fact, it was too affective. This game was the holy grail of gaming until Call of Duty 4 launched.



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