The Halo 2 Cinema Trailer / ilovebees.com

[Inertia_]

Hmm, things I've learned from the last hour of my life:

- the more interesting something seems, the less interesting it ultimately is

- don't spend an hour investigating a marketing gimmick, no matter how curious you become

- as previously suspected and despite the quality of Halo, bungie are hopelessly lost in the darkest regions of their own arse:

http://www.bungie.net/Inside/CustomPage.aspx?section=History&subsection=Main&page=6

... that and their 'Seventh Column' fan club were about as much as I could take.

[VoyagerFX]

Its interesting to read all this, there is alot of speculation on various forums about what it is all about (IGN's free Halo board has some excellent points)

Very clever and cryptic stuff by bungie, could be interesting if we could decipher some of it aswell.

Edit - Could it be storyline information? or about a playable demo?

[df0notfound]

Well it would be clever marketing if it wasn't ripped off the work Hi-ReS! did for the Requiem for a Dream website.

[Stuart Smith]

Hmm...intriguing. Anyone care to hazard a guess as to the significance of August 24 then? That date gets a lot of mention in the blog and that's what the countdown on the hacked message is heading towards, but unless something's changed suddenly, Halo 2 isn't out until November, right?

[Inertia_]

I really don't think there is anything to be read into the whole ilovebees thing. It's Bungie and Microsoft being avant garde and once again indulging this Alternate Reality Gaming nonsense that's somehow been embraced by the self-proclaimed intelligentsia of the internet.

The whole purpose of sites like ilovebees is to stimulate discussion around a product rather than of it, and apparently this has already been applied to the likes of the movies A.I. and Requiem For A Dream. Beyond the marketing, this 'movement' has become a particularly loathesome forum of community fiction writers and elitist mutual back-slappers, Bungie apparently included.

[VoyagerFX]

The thread over at IGN has gone insane with the amount of information people have found. Also worth checking out the thread on the offical bungie boards.

It seems to be linking to the history of the covenant along with some sort of AI construct being rebuilt.

[Concept]

I'm with Inertia. It all smacks of over self-indulgence more than anything, whose purpose is primarily to get conversation like this flowing and people talking around the game rather than about it. Essentially so there's a blank whole there that we're waiting to be filled by... You guessed it.

Halo 2.

Interesting? Yes. But you can just imagine the self-congratulatory mental masturbation going on with those peddling it, or actively getting involved.

[Magnakai]

That reminds me, last week Bungie posted a news update on the Penny Arcade boards, with not warning to the webmasters or anything. They then stuck a link on their front page, telling people to go to the Penny-Arcade forums. The PA people were understandably pissed that a bunch of people invaded their forums and hugely increased their webtraffic. I don't know why Bungie did it, except to stir things up. Kinda weird, if you ask me...

[Spatial]

Seems that Microsoft / Bungie are using `Viral` marketing.

For anyone who doesn't know :-

Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message's exposure and influence.

Seems to working too, so more credit to them.

[Ginza]

Well whatever they are doing its definitely working. Hats off to them. Thats what marketing is all about imho.

[Spatial]

I have to agree.

Most adverts are the same old same old to me these days.

Viral Marketing stuff like this and www.subserviantchicken.com are novel and different at the moment.

[Spatial]

@Inertia - shame on you, pimping NTSC-UK like this

Taken from the Ilovebees blog

Inertia said...

https://www.ntsc-uk.com

For intelligent discussion and import videogame reviews.


A lot of people are theorising the countdown is an early release ??!

The blog at Ilovebees.com hints at lots of events that happened on the 24th August - Windows 95 release, volcanic eruption etc

"In x days, network throttling will erode." They are currently beta testing. In x days, they will stop.

"In x days this medium will metastasize." (metastasis- to grow or replicate) Halo 2 goes gold ??

"COUNTDOWN TO WIDE AWAKE AND PHYSICAL:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx --Bungie, in accordance with the August 24th thing, releases it unexpectidly ???

[Crisp_Rapper]

i hardly care if anyone doesn't like the way it's being 'marketed'... i personally find it interesting, i enjoy little mental puzzles like this, gives me something to occupy myself with, i like backstory and stuff.

*goes off to read assorted halo/marathon history*

[Concept]

A lot of people are theorising the countdown is an early release ??!

The blog at Ilovebees.com hints at lots of events that happened on the 24th August - Windows 95 release, volcanic eruption etc

"In x days, network throttling will erode." They are currently beta testing. In x days, they will stop.

"In x days this medium will metastasize." (metastasis- to grow or replicate) Halo 2 goes gold ??

"COUNTDOWN TO WIDE AWAKE AND PHYSICAL:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx --Bungie, in accordance with the August 24th thing, releases it unexpectidly ???

I doubt it. Like Bungee said last time when people were hyping up Halo 2 being brought forward on the second anniversary of Halo's release, it wouldn't make any sense. What you have to remember though, is they only issued an official response way into when the hype of this so-called early release had been speculated to death. You're not going to bring out the highest profile Xbox game in development without making a big fuss over doing so and letting everyone know before the confirmed date. Not with everything already in place and a huge run-in campaign to get everyone aware - Not just for the over excitable dedicated fans who only make up a small portion of your overall potential audience.

You see this is exactly why I hate hype like this. Just like last time, when that US advert/trailer/whatever starring P Diddy had a date on with Master Chief in... The only reason that occurred was to primarily ignite talk on the possible early release of the game, and thus increase anticipation and speculation.

To essentially create the boy who cried wolf, albeit without assuming responsiblity via the allusion formed through subtle suggestion.

This is actually quite amusing when you think more about it.

It's happening again now of course. Misinformation and nuggests for possible conjecture just to get people's hopes up so they salivate all the more until the release in November. There's nothing wrong with that and I applaud the imagination which has probably been invested into such a scheme.

But once more, it does take focus away from what the actual product will offer in itself. Through marketing like this, we're essentially skirting around the outline and shadow of a product that's being transformed through expectations being used to plug in the gaps, and make connections from A to B. Whether they're actually there or not.

And that's what gets me... Through skewed-off detail and misinformation, or the representation of misinformation in a key (select) way, you can stir up people to desire a product they want to get their hands on, by seeing more than what's possibly there. Then when people find there probably isn't anything behind such speculation, you can then turn around and say you never explicitly stated anything in the first place. Removing yourself from responsibility while keeping the flame for all things relating to your product alive at the same time. It's clever alright, but I can't say it's something I'm wildly in love with.

On a personal level, it isn't a marketing tactic I'll easily buy into. That's all.

[Spatial]

I see what your saying Concept.

An early release would be amazing - but the logisitcs of it are pretty unlikely. Still, we can but dream

To be honest I'm not sure many people buy into the whole AI construct running loose on the internet thing ( well there is one or two but I think they're a bit loopy to begin with and get seriously pissed when someone mentions it actually related to a video game release )

But what I don't understand is why do it for Halo 2 ? There's a select few games which are still to be released which don't really need this type of marketing and would probably sell on their reputation alone.

Unsurprisingly they're all sequels - Doom 3, Half Life 2 and of course Halo 2, which all build on the fan base they've already got.

To me its novel and fun because it doesn't happen too often ( probably due to the ongoing time and effort involved to keep it going for a while ). I'm interested to see how it plays out.

Still , its fun to watch as people start trying to hack Hotmail accounts, answer phone mailboxes, and dissasemble sound files to reveal hidden messages. Keeps them busy and me entertained