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Game On or Game Over: Celebrizzle Endorsizzles

Microsoft versus Sony, Battlefield versus Call of Duty and Forza versus Gran Turismo. These are some of the rivalries that can get people talking about console wars. “Game On or Game Over” is your place to get inside the minds of Nicholas and Andy as they seek to find the true meaning of gaming and tackle some of gaming’s most controversial subjects. Both are award winning authors – although the awards haven’t been mailed or created yet — but trust them. Would they lie to you?

Nicholas: What up Andizzle? While it mightn’t have been intentional, you’re question on what makes a ‘real gamer’ got me thinking about quite a few things after I had responded. Initially I figured it would make for a great article to focus on what we like to consider a ‘gamer’ to be, but this then got me thinking further about the current state of gaming. Specifically, it made me think about how mainstream gaming appears to be these days. What originally began as a pastime for geeks and nerds has well and truly turned into something a lot more ‘cooler’, and a lot more widespread, reserved not just for those basement dwellers with neck-beards, but everyday folk too.

Of course though, I didn’t just stop there. With all these thoughts about gaming becoming mainstream, it got me thinking about celebrity endorsements and how many we’ve seen in the gaming industry just over the last few years. This week though I wanted to start by taking a look at the recent additional content for Call of Duty Ghosts, where Snoop Dogg (or is it Snoop Lion?) has taken part in providing his voice for multiplayer matches.

As much as I love hip-hop, and as respected an artist as Snoop Dogg is in the rap genre, I couldn’t help but think of this as a complete joke, and little more than Snoop selling-out for some quick cash. To kick things off, what did you think of Snoop Dizzle’s decision to lend his voice-izzle for some multiplayer shootizzle for CoDizzle?

Andy: Well let’s call it what it really is, Snoop didn’t lend his voice to anything. The only reason he partnered with Activision for that voice pack was so he could make money. It’s probably some of the easiest money he’s ever made. From his standpoint it’s a no brainer – Call of Duty is a huge franchise and with the royalty deal I assume he signed he gets to sit back and cash a paycheck. Of course Snoop isn’t new to the video game market remember his award winning Way of the Dogg rhythm game… my mistake I don’t think that game won any awards, well at least the positive ones anyway. Snoop has always been willing to do almost anything for cash. That’s one of my problems with celebrities and endorsements, I’m not talking just video game endorsements either. It seems almost every product or service now has celebrities hawking its wares. To be honest most of the time I don’t even notice anymore. I was a Call of Duty fan but the past couple years I have moved farther and farther away from it because, for me, it hasn’t gotten better and the things I disliked about it they actually enhanced and made more prominent. I don’t enjoy the game anymore so I just don’t play it anymore.

It seems that celebrity endorsements are becoming more and more prominent in the video game industry as both sides try to piggyback off of each other. Here’s the thing though, a large segment of gamers dislike microtransactions on full priced retail games, yet they clamour for the next celebrity to endorse their favourite game. The thing is, the vast majority of those endorsements don’t come for free. The publisher/developer has to come up with the money to pay them somehow. If the price of the game isn’t going up that money has to come from somewhere. Activision, I believe, was one of the first to have a steady stream of DLC for games. Then they added in the season pass for map packs. Later they saw how well microtransactions were working for mobile developers and added those in as well. Just look at all the customization packs, weapon skins, character skins, etc. that are available for Call of Duty Ghosts and Black Ops 2 now. I still remember the uproar in the Call of Duty community when map packs went from $10USD to $15 a piece and how many people said they would never buy a map pack again. Yet, year after year, the lines are just as long for the next release and it consistently ranks high on the most time played list.

In regards to endorsements and whatnot, anytime a celebrity posts anything – even if it’s not an official endorsement – I don’t trust them for their word anymore. It’s just how the business has moved and it seems you can’t take anything for face value anymore. Gamers are a funny bunch though aren’t they? They will bitch and moan about DLC and microtransactions but somehow justify them as “OK” or “it’s different because…”as long as it’s for a game that they play. If gamers buy it and support it, publishers have no reason to stop or reign in the practice. Heck, I’m waiting for Activision to release a “start screen colour change” option for $1. Sadly, I think someone would buy it, maybe for $1.50 Snoop can say “Welcome back homie.” when you load up the game too. Here’s a question that I’m not sure we will be able to answer. What is it about gamers that makes them say one thing “I’m never buying another <insert series title here> game again because of <insert gamer related problem>.” Then turn around and buy the next in the series three months later?

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Nicholas: I’ve been thinking about this, and I believe it boils down to a few main points. The first is that gamers (or just people in general) become fans of certain franchises or products. For me, there’s no greater example than Need For Speed. Now I became a fan of this series approximately a decade ago, off the back of games like Need For Speed Underground, Underground 2 and Most Wanted. For their time each game was amazing, and I’d go even as far as to say that they’d be just as enjoyable to play today. Now despite being three amazing titles, the series of games which followed them, namely Carbon, ProStreet, Undercover and SHIFT were, to put them lightly, less than impressive. With each subsequent release I was slightly more disappointed, but because I was a fan of the franchise I continued to buy them and support it. This then leads on to my next point.

Another reason I believe why gamers continue to support something they swore they’d never purchase again, is because of a hope that the next time it’ll be different. Going back to my Need For Speed analogy, I could have never purchased a game after ProStreet, but combined with the fact that I loved the franchise, and in addition to this opinion that the next game would be different – a return to true form – I continued to buy them. This then explained why I purchased Undercover next and then SHIFT following that. Eventually SHIFT 2 was released and it was amazing (it’s also one of my favourite racing titles of the last generation), but the reason I never stopped buying games in the franchise was because I was waiting for that turning point.

The last reason for me, is simply due to the fact that gamers like to get angry in the heat of the moment and say things they don’t really mean. I remember a number of years ago I was publically angry at Electronics Boutique because I didn’t get both a price-match and the pre-order bonus on Test Drive Unlimited 2 (which I did pre-order in advance). At the time I vowed I wouldn’t purchase from the company again, yet low and behold, it’s now a few years later and I’ve been shopping there again for a while now. Gamers just like to get vocal about anything, and while I certainly can understand why people don’t like overpriced DLC or micro-transactions, the majority of the claims are just people jumping on a bandwagon, rather than being legitimately angry or outraged on a topic. We need to remind ourselves that this is the internet and people like to vent (hell, just read my Facebook or Twitter feeds for further proof of this).

I feel we digress a little though, and if I may, I’d like to go back to the topic of endorsements in the gaming industry. Like you’ve said, and like I agree, I’ve never been one to fall victim to buying a game due to a celebrities endorsement – the only exception to this is when I purchased UFC 3 because Joe Rogan was a commentator in the game, but I didn’t buy it because he said it was great, I just bought it because I’m a fan of his and I know he’d be in it. I remember last year Xbox (US) were letting various ‘celebrities’ take over their Twitter handle for promotional purposes. As an Australian, none of these ‘celebrities’ were familiar and seemed like bottom-of-the-barrel personalities . I mentioned gaming becoming more mainstream at the beginning, and I suspect getting these people was Microsoft’s attempt to get gaming out to more than just those who grew up with an Atari, a Nintendo, or a PlayStation. In your opinion, as an insider looking out, do you think these D-grade endorsements do anything to promote gaming, or does it just come across to you as a futile or lame marketing attempt?

Andy: Given the fact the celebrity endorsements have been around for a long time and not just for video games, I don’t think it’s a futile endeavour or else it would have been stopped long ago. You also have to look at who celebrity endorsements are mainly geared towards. I would argue that the majority of celebrity endorsements aren’t aimed at fans of a series or a game. They are geared towards those people who aren’t going to go out and purchase the game on day one, who don’t usually purchase DLC or those gamers who bought the game and for whatever reason haven’t played it as much lately. In looking at the Snoop Dogg voice pack, it’s aimed at the last two groups I mentioned. For the core gamer I don’t think endorsements really add anything. The question is though, does the amount of money a publisher spends getting that endorsement really benefit sales all that much? I of course have no way of knowing what the end numbers are, and how much is directly attributed to the endorsements,but I’d be hard pressed to think that they make a significant amount from them.

In the same vein as celebrity endorsements though, I thought I’d bring up a seemingly growing trend in gaming that I really can’t explain. That being the individuals that make the games or which work for a publisher/developer, who are treated like rock stars with fans fawning over their every move. On top of that, some of those developers seems to forget about the reason they are in the public eye and seek to make it more about themselves than the games that brought people together. To tie into last week’s article somewhat, when I was a kid the only thing I cared about in regards to gaming was – shockingly enough – the game. If I had fun, I liked it. If I didn’t then I probably didn’t play it again. I didn’t care who made it, who the voice actors were, or who designed it. Now-a-days, it seems the likes of Phil Fish, Cliff Bleszinski and Peter Molyneux have forgotten that it all comes back to the game. They are all about self-promotion and the “hey look at me!” mentality. I get that developers want to have a face of the studio out there to interact with gamers, but in my opinion there is a different between interacting with gamers and being a flat-out asshole.

You and I both love the Need for Speed franchise, but I can’t tell you a single name on the development team. You got me hooked onto the Mass Effect series and, again, I can’t tell you one name on that team either. Some people would say “If you don’t like them don’t buy their game”, but my response has been, if I like the game I’m not going to ignore it based on one person. What do you think about these developers who often seem to promote themselves above what the actual game? Do they have these over-the-top personalities because no publicity is bad publicity, or do you think some of it is an act to get people talking about them and thereby the game? Or, am I the only one that’s frustrated with things like that?

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Nicholas: Social media has brought along with it a whole lot of changes. The first is that it allows people to connect on levels never possible before. For example, if it wasn’t for Twitter and the platform that it allows for like-mined people to meet and talk, you and I would never have met, and we’d never would have started this series. Furthermore, it has also given each and every person a chance to project themselves to the world. Without social media, gamers would still want to connect and talk with developers like Bleszinski and Molyneux, but it would have been a thought and nothing further. Now though, you can follow both on Twitter or Facebook and message them to your heart’s content. At the same time, it also allows them to reach out to their fans too. I always think that these developers would have been held in this ‘celebrity’ status regardless, but a decade or so ago there just wouldn’t have been any way to connect with them.

For me personally, I’ve never been one to really ‘care’ about major figures in the gaming industry. I’ve been fortunate enough to interview some pretty awesome people over the past year or so, but I’ve never ‘fan girled’ over someone like you see a lot of people do today. As a result of this, I’ve never been bothered by the sometimes outlandish personalities of people like Cliff. There are certain times when I’ve read a tweet and considered it a little ridiculous, but that’s about it – it’s never really affected me that much. Like with a musician whose song becomes a number one hit or an actor whose film becomes a blockbuster, there are some developers who might develop (pun intended) a superiority complex if their game goes gangbusters. Of course, this doesn’t apply to all developers and publisher staff. For the greater part I don’t think it’s put on, I just think it’s who they are.

Speaking of developers/publishers becoming popular though, I wanted to take a look at another role in most (if not all) gaming companies these days – community managers. Now both you and I know some absolutely great CMs out there, and as a result of being the public face of large companies, they naturally develop a following over time. To tie in with what you’ve said about some developers and publishers becoming celebrities almost, what is your take on when the community makes individuals like community managers big personalities?

Andy: I think community managers are actually a great idea. They act as a liaison between developers and the consumer. Developers are often busy working on a patch, DLC, or even a new game and just don’t have time to field all the questions, comments, or concerns from gamers. A good CM isn’t just someone that says “thanks for letting us know, we’ll look into it” or “I’ll pass that on to the team.” To be honest, there aren’t many things more I appreciate in gaming than a good community manager. They do all that behind the scene stuff and help get relevant information to those who need it. I really do think they are an underappreciated link in the chain of making stuff go smoothly. They’re also the ones that take the brunt of gamer displeasure when something doesn’t go right.

Most of the CMs have their own social media accounts as well, and fans rightfully follow those accounts quite often. I will admit on Twitter I follow a couple community managers because I enjoy talking to them and they interact with everyone – I don’t usually follow someone if it’s an all “work” related account. Of course, all those personal accounts have some disclaimer along the lines of “All views are my own and do not represent my employer.” That little disclaimer is supposed to absolve everything and not tie back to the company they work for, but as idealistic as that is though, it’s simply not the case. Just last week Josh Olin, the CM for Turtle Rock Studios (developer behind the upcoming game Evolve), was fired after tweet he made. In the tweet he referred to Donald Sterling, owner of the NBA Clippers team, as a victim after racist comments he made we publicized and he was banned for life from the NBA. Turtle Rock saw the tweet and immediately let him go, and while Olin then tried to clear-up what he actually “meant”, the damage was done.

This all ties back into your initial question about advertising though. Developers and publishers want to create brands that people enjoy. You’re absolutely right, gaming is not like it was before and it’s moved past being ‘just a game’ – it’s much, much broader. So naturally developers/publishers want to protect that brand and continue to grow its popularity. When someone is associated with a game like Olin was with Evolve and Turtle Rock, it puts the developer in a unenviable position. If the brand can be harmed by the actions of someone, then it has to be acted on. That’s the catch-22 of a personal account that is used for work purposes. Even with that disclaimer, they are still representing the company. Predictably, there were people that said “I’m never buying their game after what they did to you!” For his part, Olin encouraged people to still buy it because it’s going to be a kickass game. I personally don’t think this will drastically affect the sales of Evolve because gamers tend to have a short attention span on what they are mad at and by the time it releases this will be old news.

What’s your take on community managers and social media? Specifically when they have a personal account but still answer community questions, contests, etc. from the personal account but for the game(s) they are working on. Is it fair for a developer to want to protect its brand so much that it monitors private accounts such as Olin’s, or should that be off limits and untouchable?

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Nicholas: You’re absolutely right, community managers play a vital role in the industry as being that liaison between a developer/publisher and the gamer. They are responsible for handling customer feedback and complains and ensuring that information is passed from the company to the consumer and visa-versa. Like I mentioned earlier with social media now allowing fans to get in contact with their favourite celebrities, social media has also allowed gamers to get in contact with their favourite gaming companies too.

The matter of personal vs. business accounts is an interesting one. On the one hand, you want to be able to have your own social media account so you can essentially be you online, but on the other, you need to realise certain roles and responsibilities that come with a job like a community manager. As you said, it would be nice if having the tagline “these views are mine and do not represent the company” would absolve you of any backlash should someone not agree with what you’ve said, but nice and reality don’t always go hand in hand. The fact of the matter is, when you move into a public position (where you are either the face of a company, or you’re identity becomes associated with a company), you need to make sure that nothing you say online can impact the reputation of said company. If you want to have a personal account then make sure you go buy a pseudonym that can’t be traced back to you or your employer, otherwise you need to constantly censor yourself to make sure what you project doesn’t cause controversy for you or the company.

As far as the Olin situation goes, while I personally wouldn’t have reacted the way Turtle Rock did, I can understand why that decision was made. Any issue on racism and discrimination is going to be a hot topic, and the one surrounding Donald Sterling was white hot. For Odin to suggest that Sterling was the victim after making such bigoted statements would, off face value, suggest that he’s somehow in the right, and that in-turn would almost seem like Turtle Rock condone racism. Of course, I’m sure that’s not what Odin meant and I think anyone with half a brain would know that no company would endorse such disgusting views, but Turtle Rock want to distance themselves from any negative publicity as quickly as possible. I agree with you though that I seriously doubt this would have impacted Evolve’s sales even in the slightest.

As we bring this week’s conversation to a close though I wanted to go back to the topic of celebrity endorsements in the gaming industry. I mentioned before that I purchased UFC 3 not because Joe Rogan endorsed the game, but because he himself was in it, and as a fan I wanted to purchase any content that would give me more of a Rogan fix. To end, is there ever a game you’ve purchased because someone you admire or follow has been involved either in the content itself, or its development/promotion? Is there any example where you would buy a game because a particular person was involved? If so, who?

Andy: I’ve been thinking about all the games I’ve purchased over the years and the reasons behind those purchases, and honestly I can’t think of a single game where I bought it due to someone endorsing it or being part of it. I’ve always got games due to the gameplay or what the game is about. Even when things change in a game like the voice actor or something similar. The same with most advertising and endorsements actually. I really don’t care all that much if <insert random celebrity> likes a game or product. If I like it, or want to try it, I’ll get it – if I don’t, I won’t.  Michael Jordan endorses Hanes underwear, but I don’t wear Hanes because Michael tells me to. I wear them because they’re comfortable. It’s the same with games; I don’t care that Ice-T was one of the voices in Gears of War I got it because I enjoy the games and the franchise. Liam Neeson was the voice of the father in Fallout 3 but I didn’t know that going into it and quite frankly I didn’t enjoy it more or less because of him being a part of it.

It may be pragmatic, but once all the endorsements and hype are over the product, no matter what it is, the game has to stand on its own. Sure Kevin Spacey is in the next Call of Duty game, but in reality you can substitute any voice and face for that character and the gameplay isn’t going to change. I am by no means a marketing major, or claim to know a lot about the inner workings of a successful marketing campaign. With that said the gamer in me wishes that some publishers would scale back their endorsement budgets and maybe cut the price of the game $5-$10. A great example of this is the upcoming Sniper Elite 3. I loved Sniper Elite V2 but there wasn’t a lot of publicity surrounding it and here in the US it released $10 cheaper than a normal retail game and that’s the same case with Sniper Elite 3 when it drops in June.

There are celebrities out there that will endorse anything and everything as long as people throw money at them, that’s part of the reason I don’t take celebrity endorsements seriously. Being a gamer though, there is one endorsement I pay attention to and actively look at. That being from other gamers, there’s no better judge of a games quality than other gamers. Some publishers seem to forget that word of mouth is the best form of advertising and endorsement out there, and it’s absolutely priceless. It’s very simple too, make a great game and I will tell everyone I know about it for free. No contract saying how many times I have to mention it, no specifications about what to say. It’s simple and to the point. At the end of the day that’s what it’s all about right. I don’t need an overpriced celebrity to tell me how awesome a game is, I’ll trust my own experiences and those of people I trust.

Tune in next time for the next instalment of Game On or Game Over. If you have any ideas for our next article, feel free to contact Andy or Nicholas on Twitter.

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About the author

Nicholas Simonovski

Events and Racing Editor at Stevivor.com. Proud RX8 owner, Strange Music fan and Joe Rogan follower. Living life one cheat meal at a time.