RIFT and their advertising budget...

[ShadesOfKnight]

So I came out of lurking and viewing the site just so that I could review RIFT and it's advertising budget, which obviously must be the marketing equivalent of Ron Jeremy's **ck.

I can understand an ad video preceding an occasional content video on a site, especially a review site... after all, you want brand recognition and the content site likes having some ad revenue.

But when it goes from occasional ads, to hijacking the background of the pages of the site with a link, to opening in-window pop-ups with ad video preceding every single content video on the site, warning bells should be going off in everyone's head.

This is not a good sales tactic. This tactic has more or less convinced me NOT to buy RIFT (after all, if they're pushing it that hard...), and furthermore is rapidly pushing me to stop visiting the escapist at least until such time as this RIFT-storm settles down.

 

[HellspawnCandy]

Well, if you think about it these people are trying to compete with a company that has ads on every other page on the internet even though they may be less intrusive. But that this website could use some money, this website also has a large video game community the company making Rift needs money and subscribers to stay afloat. It's love at first sight baby. If you view it like that it may just become incredibly cute than incredibly annoying.

 

[manythings]

Don't not buy it because of the advertising, don't buy it because it is shit. It's WoW except, at any moment, a horde of enemies (as strong or stronger than you) can just drop on your head. This means anything you were doing is now being delayed because you have to retreat or you are just plain dead.

 

[ShadesOfKnight]

IMHO, any product that requires advertising this prevalent and sledgehammer-esque is to be avoided because even the producer knows there's something horribly wrong. Remember how stridently and pervasively Vioxx was pushed... up until it was obvious that it's side effects list should have included DEATH near the top?

 

[SnootyEnglishman]

This isn't the first time this has happened when a game gets advertised on the escapist.

 

[Zaik]

If they had taken half of their advertising budget and put it towards not making it feel like you're playing a certain popular MMORPG with different names and graphics attached to stuff, I might have actually bought it.

 

[Rivers Wells]

Marketing at its core all in the pursuit of brand recognition and brand equity. You know about it, you've posted about it, and encouraged knowledge of it. If the game becomes popular enough where you're tempted to at least take a look at it, then the marketing has you whether you feel the game was overexposed or not. It's basically EA's approach, though they mix their marketing with just enough slimy, attention grabbing stunts to make it seem kind of pathetic.

That being said, over saturating the market IS one of the faster ways to alienate your market but, in all honesty, look who they're up against. I find it hard to blame them for trying that hard to get noticed.