I hope 343 puts forth a concerted effort to build the hype for Infinite not just among gamers but society as a whole.
I remember watching countless Halo 3 ads on TV along with enjoying the delicious orange-ish flavor of the Game Fuel. It was great how many media were tapped into to bring awareness to the game.
Especially with Infinite releasing on PC as well as Xbox, I think it would be wise to get Twitch streamers involved with the release. Apex Legends used a similar strategy and it worked wonders (even as a mediocre game, might I add).
Does anyone think Infinite will be able to revitalize the playerbase to a significant fraction of what it used to be in H3? Does advertising play less of a role in 2019-20 than in 2007?
I think the bigger issue is how good the game is. Look at fallout 76 which had a major ad campaign and launch with poor numbers. Whilst Apex Legends had nearly no ad campaign and it was good enough for people to tell other people that the game is good. Word of mouth can make or break a game. Halo infinite could be so amazing that it doesn’t need anymore advertisement by 343/Microsoft or it could be so awful that a marketing hype campaign would be the only reason people buy it. We don’t know yet and it’s hard to tell what halo infinite needs, but I still believe that if the game is good then it will sell.
Microsoft’s been advertising a lot over the past few years and even more so recently. You can expect to see a bunch for Infinite. Only thing is, it needs to be a good game like Nalla said. Halo Wars 2 had some of the funniest commercials (not suggesting the others were bad) in years for Halo. Yet, the game is still not polished and there were other major issues with it that continue to this day. Fallout 76 is a disgrace and I was seeing ads for it every day.
Just a couple examples, but the point is that advertising doesn’t really tell the full story. To really convince a large audience of old and new fans alike, 343i has to hype players by letting them know the game is going to be good and ready on day 1 unlike every other major release after Halo 4. With what we know about how 343i’s been handling things for Infinite though, I think they’ll do a good job with it.
Advertising is still extremely important, maybe even more so than in 2007 because there’s q lot more competition as well. As for revitalizing the fanbase it’s still way too early to tell. So far the fan reception has been good but we’ve only seen very little. They NEED to nail the PC port on top of the game itself being great. Twitch boosts player base like crazy, if the PC version sucks, it’s not gonna have a good twitch presence which will hurt the game.
Halo needs to build itself up from the bottom up again, and word of mouth is a great way to do that accompanied by a traditional ad campaign (meaning the best kind of advertising is making a good game). Keep in mind that Infinite is not nearly as anticipated as Halo 3, and also social media, the rise of YouTube, and the internet in general have opened up more efficient paths for advertisement than purchasing TV spots.