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O'Connor: Halo movie will happen 'when the time is right'
During last week's MI6 conference, Bungie alum (now 343 Industries head) Frank O'Connor spoke candidly about the possibility of a Halo movie now that relations between Peter Jackson / Neill Blomkamp and Microsoft have fallen apart (as reported by IGN). "We're going to make a movie when the time is right," O'Connor told attendees of a session he was part of, titled "Extending Your Game Beyond the Package." He continued, frankly stating "We own the IP." Being head of Microsoft's Halo product house (that includes everything from Master Chief plushies, to the development of games after Halo: Reach, to a possible film) though, O'Connor worries about the implications of a film on the franchise. "If we want to make a movie, the scale of all the other stuff that we do changes dramatically. We make tens of millions of dollars on ancillary stuff, toys, apparel, music and publishing. If we do a movie all of that will grow exponentially." So while that's not exactly confirmation of a movie adaptation for the Chief at some point in the future, the possibility of exponentially growing an already multi-million dollar business sounds like a pretty good excuse to us for doing one.
The Ant Farm talks successes of Modern Warfare 2 marketing
While we might argue that Infinity Ward's 2009 follow up to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Modern Warfare 2, likely earned the lion's share of its sales through Infinity Ward's history of making quality games, building a strong and loyal fanbase, and, well, the very fact that it was a sequel to an insanely high-selling game, the marketing team behind MW2 would likely disagree. Speaking at this week's MI6 Conference (and picked up by VentureBeat), contract marketing team The Ant Farm discussed some of the reasons that the sequel's advertising campaign worked so well -- and helped the title sell millions more copies than it would have without. "With us, it became a challenge of basically breaking it down to 'how do we engage the core first?'," explained Ant Farm executive creative director Rob Troy. "By the time you see the invasion on US soil, which was a secret for a long time, you definitely wanna go out there and kick some ass." For him, the marketing campaign was about slowly doling out aspects of the story while keeping fans in the dark about specifics, and resulted in a resounding success. We have to imagine landing commercial premieres during major sporting events likely helped out the sales as well, not to mention those MW2-branded energy drinks. Also, hey, blowing up castles is always a good way to advertise your product -- let's not kid ourselves, folks. We've embedded the whole conversation for your viewing pleasure after the break.
Dispelling myths to launch Free Realms
The MI6 conference is an annual gathering in San Francisco which focuses largely on marketing in the video game industry. One speaker at the April 8th conference was Laura Naviaux-Sturr from Sony Online Entertainment, who discussed the upcoming kid-friendly MMO Free Realms.She addressed the challenges in shifting focus away from hardcore fantasy enthusiasts (largely male) to a younger demographic that includes more female gamers. Naviaux said, "Turning to a youth and female audience was like turning a ship." It required SOE to re-evaluate some of the 'myths' the company held, which was the focus of Naviaux's talk. She brought up several key areas that the company needed to address if Free Realms is to succeed, ranging from putting the backstory and creativity in the hands of the gamers rather than spelling it out for them, to the music in Free Realms, which is a departure from what SOE has done in the past. If you're curious about how SOE is approaching this new title, you should have a look at Chris Remo's article at Gamasutra titled "MI6: SOE's Naviaux on Dispelling Myths to Launch FreeRealms."%Gallery-12980%
Blizzard nominated for 6 awards at MI6 Conference
Massively's sister site WoW Insider pointed out some news regarding Blizzard today. WoW Insider's Mike Schramm writes that Blizzard Entertainment seems to have made a big impact on the MI6 Conference, which is focused on the marketing and monetization of games. Blizzard is a nominee in six award categories for the 2009 MI6 Awards, most of them for World of Warcraft:OUTSTANDING TV OR THEATRICAL ADOzzy Osborne – "Prince of Darkness"OUTSTANDING TV OR THEATRICAL CAMPAIGNWorld of Warcraft 2008 "What's your Game?" TV CampaignBEST WRAPPING - PRODUCT PACKAGINGWrath of the Lich King Standard EditionOUTSTANDING OVERALL MARKETING CAMPAIGNWorld of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Launch CampaignSHARPEST PEN AWARD - BEST COPYWRITING/TV OR THEATRICALOzzy Osborne – "Prince of Darkness"BEST PRODUCT LOGO DESIGNDiablo 3 Animated LogoThe MI6 Conference will be held on April 8th in San Francisco. One of Azeroth's millions of citizens? Check out our ongoing coverage of the World of Warcraft, and be sure to touch base with our sister site WoW Insider for all your Lich King needs!
