EA gets a 12-year-old to write latest TV spot

EA Games has gotten a 12-year-old British boy to script its newest ad for the game Spore Hero. See the commercial here. I thought 6-year-olds made all video-game ads, but cheap shots are my thing, so I feel better after saying that. The lad (do they still call them that in England?) is named Blake Simons, and he tells Brand Republic: "It was great fun bringing the advert to life, and I'm really looking forward to seeing it on TV." Frankly, that's better than half the quotes I read from fully grown adults in ad-industry press releases. Simons continues: "I'd definitely like to do more directing." He's not old enough to drive, and he already wants to direct! That brat will go far in this business, for sure.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Published on October 9, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (6)
Filed under Electronic Arts, Europe, Gianatasio, Video games

EA takes booth babe lechery to a new level

Earlier this year, I suggested that banning booth babes at E3 hadn't done a thing to deter the sexism in the electronic entertainment industry, so what's the harm in having them around? Clearly, I’m not imaginative enough. At this year’s Comic-Con, Electronic Arts ramped up the raunchiness by putting a bounty on booth babes. EA is actually holding a contest where convention attendees can win prizes if they “commit an act of lust” with a booth babe and photograph it. What sort of prizes? One lucky winner gets dinner with TWO hot booth babes and, of course, a lot of “booty.” Supposedly, it’s all tangentially related to their upcoming game, Dante’s Inferno. But judging by the explosion of Twitter comments tagged “EAFail,” it’s going to be hard to call this one a PR coup for the game. I admit, it’s unlikely someone will go out and sexually assault a booth babe in the name of the contest (much less photograph it for posterity and potential prosecution). It’s more what the contest says about the EA’s respect for the 40% of us who game and are female. I want to assure EA that it is possible to market to men without alienating potential female gamers. Case in point, I’m playing Prototype right now and loving it. But there is one good thing that came out of this dark-morality approach to marketing Dante’s Inferno. Thanks to this contest, I got to experience my own deadly sin: Wrath. (Via Ars Technica.) UPDATE: EA has now half-assedly apologized for its objectification of the "costumed reps" at Comic-Con.

—Posted by Rebecca Cullers

Published on July 24, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (10)
Filed under Booth babes, Comic-Con, Cullers, Electronic Arts, Sexism

EA's Charm Girls Club isn't overly charming

Female gamers are an important segment for the game industry. According to the Entertainment Software Association, 40 percent of all gamers, like me, are women. So, understandably, Electronic Arts wants to tap that. However, their new attempt to woo female gamers features stereotypical, sparkle-blinged titles that harken back to the day when Nintendo failed miserably with Barbie, a game I wouldn't have been caught dead playing on my NES. Let me introduce you to the Charm Girls Club. EA will release four CGC titles this fall, including Charm Girls Club Pajama Party for the Wii and three titles for the Nintendo DS: My Perfect Prom, My Fashion Mall and My Fashion Show. Oooh! And guess what else? One of the Charm Girls is blonde, one's a brunette, one's a redhead, and one's a token black girl! According to Sarah Handley, senior director of marketing for EA Play Label, "Charm Girls Club celebrates everything that's fun about being a girl." Really? I mean, really? Fashion shows and slumber parties are everything that's fun about being a girl? Well, it's actually not everything. Girls can also compete to win shiny charms to put in their shiny charm boxes! Can somebody hand me a towel? I just puked in my mouth.

—Posted by Rebecca Cullers

Published on June 8, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (13)
Filed under Cullers, Electronic Arts, Video games

'Sims' become almost, but not quite, human

The Sims 3, which hit stores on Tuesday, allows players more control over the Sims characters and their environment than ever! No, you can't make them have graphic intercourse (at least, not without a hack). But as the ads make clear, you can play God in nearly every other conceivable way. "We really felt like the ability to create human beings, to give them a soul, if you will, was really exciting," says Electronic Arts executive producer Benjamin Bell, "so we wanted to come up with some ways that people could define the personalities of their character." The fully customizable characters now live in a town instead of a single household, and the game is attempting new methods of Web interactivity, including an option called SimFriend that connects you with Sim pen pals, and SimSidekick, in which a fan "chooses from six characters on the Web site, and an image of the character that is chosen floats on top of the browser as the fan moves around the Web." But again, no graphic intercourse. Stop trying.

—Posted by David Kiefaber

Published on June 4, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (1)
Filed under Electronic Arts, Kiefaber, Video games

EA caught using Xbox gameplay in Wii spot

An Electronic Arts commercial for Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 has been banned in the U.K. in its current form for using Xbox 360 footage to promote the Wii version of the game. In the ad, Tiger is seen swinging a Wiimote, and the whole ad is overset with the Wii logo, but the graphics are Xbox. In its defense, EA said the Wii footage was not "of broadcast quality." Aside from a few nice Xbox shadows, the difference isn't that dramatic in the comparison above (larger version of the image here); it's certainly not as drastic as this tongue-in-cheek depiction. Even if it were, EA's solution is baffling. C'mon guys, video-game ads have been getting around showing real gameplay through good old-fashioned creativity since the Atari. You intercut small amounts of game footage into bigger amounts of non-game footage to create an amusing movie, an elaborate musical theater production, or even a full-length trailer in beautiful HD animation. Stealing another man's graphics? That's like claiming Tiger Woods can walk on water or something. It's just plain sacrilegious. Via Offworld.

—Posted by Rebecca Cullers

Published on December 18, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (6)
Filed under Cullers, Electronic Arts, Golf, Tiger Woods, Video games, Wii, Xbox

It's not a glitch. Tiger does walk on water.

Electronic Arts doesn't make mistakes. That's clear from this nifty bit of customer outreach. What happened was: A player of EA's Tiger Woods PGA Tour '08 found a glitch in the game that allows Woods to walk on water. The player, Levinator25, filmed and posted a video of the glitch to YouTube. EA responded with its own YouTube video showing Woods on an actual golf course, strolling out into the middle of a lake for a shot—to show "that the 'glitch' Levinator25 thought he found in the game, is not a glitch at all." It seems possible, though maybe not likely, that whole thing—the glitch, the discovery of the glitch, the response to the discovery of the glitch—was orchestrated by EA. Either way, it's an inspired and engaging bit of marketing. Covered by Fark, Deadspin, The Social Path and others.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on August 21, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (7)
Filed under Celebrity endorsements, Electronic Arts, Golf, Nudd, Tiger Woods, TV, Web video, Wieden + Kennedy