Halo 3 marketing designed to not make Master Chief a 'reckless American cowboy'

by Alexander Sliwinski { Apr 11th 2008 at 2:00AM }

At the MI6 marketing conference in San Francisco, GameDaily reports on how Halo 3's marketing molded the image of Master Chief. Jerret West, global group product manager at Microsoft, explains they didn't want to portray Master Chief "as a reckless American cowboy." They needed him to be accepted as a savior of humanity and integrate Halo into pop culture. West notes the team had pop culture benchmarks like making the cover of Time or Wired, and worked with numerous other companies to push marketing ideas.

Chris Lee, a product manager from Microsoft, points out that Halo didn't have an awareness problem, it had a perception problem for being too hardcore. Looks like the team's efforts to make the Master Chief mainstream worked out. Halo 3 ended up becoming one of the best selling games last year.

Tags: bungie, halo, halo-3, halo3, master-chief, masterchief, mi6, microsoft

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

peacebyanymeans (AKA: Moorio) @ Apr 11th 2008 2:07AM

For some reason, this article caused this to pop back into my mind. (It has to do with Halo): http://download.gamevideos.com/Podcasts/CGW/GFWRadio_HeroesCollection/GFWRadio_HOTW_10-04.mp3

Vegeta (aka Ska Oreo) @ Apr 11th 2008 2:18AM

They needed him to be accepted as a savior of humanity

So they want people to accept MC as Jesus?

I'm down with that.

Master Chief is my lord and savior.

HOOORAH!!!

Laggy @ Apr 11th 2008 2:35AM

Amen to that

ThornedVenom (Harley Quinn Defense Force) @ Apr 11th 2008 3:57AM

Master Chief is our Keanu Reeves?

Hala Madrid!!! (You fail to impress me with your skillz) @ Apr 11th 2008 4:03AM

The church of Master Chief

With father Major Nelson spreading the word of our lord Master Chief to the world

Pajama_Man @ Apr 11th 2008 4:24AM

"Master Chief is our Keanu Reeves?"

...wait so he's Buddha?

^I don't think anyone is going to get that... :|

Mark @ Apr 11th 2008 8:27AM

Revelations 1:17 (written by the Apostle John):

"When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, "Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last"

Matt B @ Apr 11th 2008 9:02AM

What a load of shit!

Korova @ Apr 11th 2008 2:02PM

I got that Pajama.

I think I got it.

Wait

Probot @ Apr 11th 2008 2:24AM

Does it matter to the marketers that most non-gamers just refer to him as Halo?

ManicBomber @ Apr 11th 2008 3:39AM

Does it bother Nintendo that most nongamers refer to Link as Zelda?

Nerds With Attitude @ Apr 11th 2008 4:49AM

It don't matter, they still think he's a pretty cool guy. They admire him for his killing and not being afraid of anything.

samfish @ Apr 11th 2008 2:29AM

I get Time, but I don't remember any issue with Master Chief on the cover. Is my brain malfunctioning? When was this?

Anticrawl @ Apr 11th 2008 2:41AM

I remember it vaguely, was a pretty big deal. I remember heading over to our campus library to check out the issue.

Anticrawl @ Apr 11th 2008 2:42AM

By the way samfish, why the change from sexy Peach to Daisy (I assume that's who it is).

Mark @ Apr 11th 2008 8:29AM

There were spartans on the header above the cover story in Sept. 07 IIRC.

Rususeruru @ Apr 11th 2008 8:50AM

http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20070910,00.html

CORRECT! Spartan on the banner. Issue date Sept 10 2007.

Jerk Face v2.0 (MDF Edition) @ Apr 11th 2008 2:31AM

YeeeeHaaalo?

mundox @ Apr 11th 2008 2:36AM

"hey didn't want to portray Master Chief "as a reckless American cowboy."

Yeah jumping out of a spaceship into earth is not reckless...

Anticrawl @ Apr 11th 2008 2:43AM

Taht scene in Halo 2 where he said he was going to bring the bomb back made that game, it made it.

ComicShaman @ Apr 11th 2008 9:20AM

I guess he didn't have a ten-gallon hat on and say "Yeee-haa!" So at least he wasn't a cowboy.

Synner @ Apr 11th 2008 2:56AM

Because anything being portrayed as American is so horrible.

I'm really getting sick of the way hollywood and now apparently the gaming industry is so worried that they might lose money by identifying with the country that allows them to make the copious loads of money they do.

Superman returns pissed me off too with the line about truth justice and all that stuff.

Show some pride in your homeland and grow some balls, if America wasn't so great, millions wouldn't be trying to enter every year.

peacebyanymeans (AKA: Moorio) @ Apr 11th 2008 3:22AM

Calm the fuck down.

The story doesn't have anything to do with being American, asstard. It just meant they didn't want the public perception of Master Chief to be all gunho, Rambo-style emotionless soilder.

America doesn't even exist anymore in the time Halo takes place, for God's sake.

/rant from an American

---
Oh, and also, about that Superman line. T
he original phrase from the Max Fleischer Superman cartoons was "...a never-ending battle for truth and justice." (1941-1943)

And in the first live-action Superman serials in 1948 the line was "...in the interests of truth, tolerance and justice."

The line "a never-ending battle for truth, justice and the American way." wasn't added until the first TV series in 1952.

It was 14 years after the first Superman appearance for that, so shut up about how they changed the line when it wasn't the original in the first place.

/rant #2

Synner @ Apr 11th 2008 3:34AM

perhaps you are unaware of the stated intention of the media to tone down the indentification of their producct with american values in order to better sell overseas.

If not, fuck off anyway.

Eric @ Apr 11th 2008 3:42AM

Well, truth, justice and the American way did become the contemporary iconic tagline for Superman - I was a bit miffed at the omission in SR as well (huge Supes fan, by the way).

The truth, imho, is that the global perception of America is that of an imperialist nation that installs goverments by force to further their own oil interests, decries the development of nuclear weapons so that we can be the only ones to have them, and that we believe that every other country and culture should be just like ours - those poor dumb bastards would rather be alive than free.

Sadly, a character that represents 'Truth, Justice, and the American Way' would not be looked to kindly upon anywhere than here.

The Bush administration = an oil cartel. Good thing it only cost about 4000 or so lives of our soldiers to line their pockets.

ManicBomber @ Apr 11th 2008 3:45AM

Oh, only since 1952...

Wow, that some legitimate argument you got there. It's a tradition that only spans 50 years! Just disregard the fact that superman has been the embodiment of American values in comics/movies/US propaganda since his inception.

ThornedVenom (Harley Quinn Defense Force) @ Apr 11th 2008 4:00AM

Batman beats the crap out of Superman. :D

/gets shot and downvoted

peacebyanymeans (AKA: Moorio) @ Apr 11th 2008 4:10AM

@ManicBomber
"Just disregard the fact that superman has been the embodiment of American values in comics/movies/US propaganda since his inception."

Then why do you need four words to reinforce that. I'm not saying being proud of being American is bad or anything, but getting your panties in a twist over a line from a movie is pretty stupid.

Synner @ Apr 11th 2008 5:57AM

All I'm saying is maybe it's time we showed a little pride in being Americans again.

And really, if we're going to talk the totally unrelated to the topic 4000 deaths in Iraq, why don't you go look up the death tolls and military tactics regarding rules of engagement and acceptable losses for WW2, ie "the good war" We used to bomb the fuck out of towns in order to do the most civilian collateral damage, now we minimize it and are still assholes.

My opinion, if we are assholes anyway, let's at least fight to win.

Nigeria: Cody ChesnuTT Defense Force @ Apr 11th 2008 6:11AM

Synner's logic is logical.

LaughingTarget @ Apr 11th 2008 7:25AM

Thorned - Superman called Batman the most dangerous man on Earth in JLA #3 (I think it's the right issue), so the argument has been settled. Batman wins over Superman, both in style and the fact he carries Kryptonite everywherehe goes.

Plus, lately, Batman has been more American than Supes. Do it my way, screw everyone else.

Noshino @ Apr 11th 2008 8:12AM

Yay! American pride! I'm proud to be American too! me and all the people from South and Central America, we are all proud to call ourselves American too...

Synner, you are so full of it

"I'm really getting sick of the way hollywood and now apparently the gaming industry is so worried that they might lose money by identifying with the country that allows them to make the copious loads of money they do"

Just like how Hollywood portrays germans, chinese, vietnameses, canadians, etc....right?

"Show some pride in your homeland and grow some balls, if America wasn't so great, millions wouldn't be trying to enter every year."

huh? one thing is being a great country, and another is having more job possitions available, you really think the millions of people that come here do so for the lifestyle? if so, you are so freaking naive...

"Why don't you go look up the death tolls and military tactics regarding rules of engagement and acceptable losses for WW2, ie "the good war" We used to bomb the fuck out of towns in order to do the most civilian collateral damage, now we minimize it and are still assholes."

Acceptable? dude, NO WAR IS ACCEPTABLE, don't try to excuse one with another.

Hell, you want to be proud? why don't you show that pride to the countless of people that lost their family in Japan? what about the countless people that lost their fathers, brothers, sisters on the Iraq war? yah, go and show them your american pride, I'm sure they'll appreciate it and understand.

Do you really think that all the other countries dislike the US just because its cool to do so? haven't you thought that MAYBE, just MAYBE there is a logic reason?...

"Wow, that some legitimate argument you got there. It's a tradition that only spans 50 years! Just disregard the fact that superman has been the embodiment of American values in comics/movies/US propaganda since his inception."

uh...I don't know about that, I watched Superman movies and the series, yet I didn't know that he meant US nationalism...now, Captain American, you guys should put your bets on that guy.

Tim The Enchanter. (Formerly not-so-well-known as AcidMonkey) @ Apr 11th 2008 9:37AM

I'm not trying to upset anyone, but Superman was created by two people, one of which was Canadian. (Joe Shuster)

And "Supes" has changed a lot over the years, usually to update with the times. That's been good for him.

And yeah, Batman totally kicks his ass... If he remembers the kryptonite

Knight Marquise @ Apr 11th 2008 10:44AM

Right on Synner.

@ Noshino

"huh? one thing is being a great country, and another is having more job possitions available, you really think the millions of people that come here do so for the lifestyle? if so, you are so freaking naive..."

Your family must not have immigrated to America, and you must not know anyone who has. Half my family did immigrate (the German half. The other half was already here, Native American). If you think the only reason people immigrate here is for the work, you're the naive and ignorant fool.

Noshino @ Apr 11th 2008 12:51PM

Knight

I'm peruvian, my close family migrated here 6 years ago.

And yes, the most important factor is the job availability, the american lifestyle is dead last

Synner @ Apr 11th 2008 2:06PM

Although I've never been to Peru, I've been to 6 other South American countries, and pretty much all of the places I went were shitty.

And you can thank the American lifestyle for why there is job availability there and not in Peru.

If other countries were like America people wouldn't have to swarm our borders because they would have all the things we have.

But then, who would all you irrational pieces of shit around the world have to hate then?

It must suck knowing that your homeland sucks so much balls you have to go somewhere you hate (for no reason) to make a living.

I wonder why you didn't go to one of the other countries in the world that has a higher employment rate since America is so shitty, oh yeah, it's because nowhere else would have you.

Casey R Williams @ Apr 12th 2008 2:14PM

You'll really love what they're doing to GI Joe then...

why not the LS2LS7? @ Apr 11th 2008 3:53AM

I'm not sure I'd go to the Halo 3 marketing team for advice. Halo 3 doesn't seem like a runaway success. It had the largest first-day marketing campaign for a game ever, and MS spent lots of platform-marketing dollars to sell a it. And in the end it has been beat out pretty handily by a game (or several) that didn't have such advantages.

B Tizo @ Apr 11th 2008 4:23AM

Ummm.... no? If you click the link to see the 100 best selling games in the last 12 months, you'll see Halo 3 is second with 8 million copies sold... wait for it... on ONE console...

CoD4, the awesome game it is, is sitting at 8.3 million on FOUR consoles/systems (360, PS3, DS, and PC)...

Therefore, Halo 3 is the runaway success MS wanted it to be. Just think of how many copies it would have sold if released on the PC (gasp!) and PS3 (faint!)... easily over 10 or 12 million total, on the low side probably.

Knight Marquise @ Apr 11th 2008 10:45AM

Sure you wouldn't. Is it because Halo wasn't a success...no that couldn't be it, becuase it was...must be because you have a hard on against anything MS. We get it already, ok?

why not the LS2LS7? @ Apr 11th 2008 11:53AM

I'll think of you two next time I go to Fry's and see the cat helmet editions still sitting there a year later.

I didn't say Halo 3 was a success. I said it wasn't a runaway success. And you'll see this even more as Halo 3 fails to be a huge long-term seller (i.e. have legs) as much as the last two Halos did.

Halo's level of success was great, but not proportional to what MS spent on marketing it. And as to how much better it would have sold if it were cross-platform, that's an unfair comparison. You're talking about a game that got a marketing blitz paid for by single-platform money. There wouldn't have been the same level of investment in the game or the marketing if the game wasn't designed to sell a platform.

Ultimately, Halo 3 was created to sell a lot of 360s, and yet worldwide, the 360 was outsold by the PS3 in the last year. I can assure you this isn't what MS intended when making (and paying out the ass for) Halo 3.