'Bioshock 2' marketing is dystopian's dream

Bioshock 2, the next chapter in 2k Games' first-person shooter/meditation on Ayn Rand, has been pushed back until February, but that hasn't stopped the marketing. They've extended the fiction of the game with creative personal touches that pay attention to all the details. In the sequel, you're returning to the undersea ruins of Rapture 10 years later. By now, the winery must have caved in, because hundreds of wine bottles, filled with promotional game posters, have been washing up on beaches around the world. The bottles soon turned up on eBay, prompting another round of blogger coverage. The marketing team also sent packages to bloggers with hand-singed crayon one-offs of the Big Sister, and bike telegrams by "Speedy Brothers Telegram" to a bunch of Bioshock 2 Web community members. Then, everyone who received a telegram got a package from the Speedy Brothers with his or her own splicer mask. (A splicer is basically a gene mutation junkie who spends the game trying to kill you.) Amazingly, the masks vary in design, showing just how much effort was put in. Of course, the usual fictional conspiracy site is up at SomethingInTheSea.com. But the excitement here is in the offline efforts. It wasn't enough to send a package; they thought of every detail, down to the delivery man's uniform. Now, if they push the release date back again, I'm going to cry.

—Posted by Rebecca Cullers

October 12, 2009 in Cullers, Video games | Permalink