Pre-order 'Mass: We Pray' for free Dante's Inferno trailer

by JC Fletcher on Nov 20th 2009 10:40AM

We had an icky feeling when we first watched the Mass: We Pray teaser. Not because of the toll excessive devotional gameplay might take on our souls, but because we were pretty sure we were being virally marketed to in some way or another. It turns out, our unease (also felt by a few others, including The Escapist) was spot on, as We Pray has been revealed as the latest move in the Dante's Inferno marketing campaign's fight against good taste.

Clicking to pre-order the game on the website or to get a better look at the controllers, now triggers a message about heresy, along with a trailer for Dante's Inferno and a link to the Facebook app, "Go to Hell." Sorry if you were looking forward to We Pray!

[Thanks, Thomas]

Source

Tags: dantes-inferno, ea, Electronic-Arts, mass-we-pray, Microsoft, pray-works-interactive, viral-marketing, visceral-games, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (62)

Oh, bummer. I was predicting record sales of the game.

Don't you mean MASSive sales?

drew...

...well done.

Why oh why is this game fake?! I was tempted to get a Wii just so I could use the Wii "Baby and Me" baby with "Mass We Pray" (in place of its peripherals). Now that we know it is for Dante's Inferno, the game developers are hereby required to create a sacrilegious combination of two Wii games so that we may partake in hilarious fun (e.g. waving the Wii baby around in a Catholic "water sprinkling" ceremony).

I don't really like this marketing team, first they had the staged
protests, then the thing where you had to be rude with a 'booth babe'
now they're making a fake game, seems kinda amateur-ish to me.

Unless one of the circles of hell if for doing a lame job and this whole marketing thing was a marketing ploy for the last circle, sneaky...

I don't see you creating video games and mass marketing campaigns for it. All I see is you complaining about other people's unique marketing ways. What because it isn't a Pepsi commercial that attempts to feed you nothing but positive thoughts about their product? Love this type of stuff. Let's see you do better buddy.

Totally agree. I mean I wouldn't mind the Mass: We Pray thing, if it weren't for the Catholic boycott the last time. They're seriously pushing it.

In what way does not being a marketer make it wrong to criticize various marketing strategies? In the same way, is it wrong to criticize somebody leading a military attack against civilians if you yourself are not a general? Or wrong to criticize a terrible doctor if you yourself do not have a medical degree?

@Samuel Vimes "unique" does not equate to "better," or even "sensible" in some of the past cases with this marketing team. they were trying to stir up interest in the game, and instead showed just how bad marketing can go, and gave games in general yet another black mark in the process.

I agree, you can complain about people having poor taste in marketing even if you are not a marketer yourself.

Kinda like the whole criticism of MW2 and the boycotts, then everyone and their mom buys it? Blowing steam to call a marketing campaign amateur when I would love to see him do better. Criticism comes with more than just saying "this sucks". I wouldn't have said anything had he been able to support his statement with how it could be better. Ignorance is bliss. I can say a majority of our presidents have sucked, but deep down I know I can't do better. It's simple semantics. Don't criticize if you aren't prepared for criticism of your own.

Well Samuel, I can complain because I am a consumer as I am a gamer, these people work to target their games to me and others, if their techniques aren't working of course I can talk about it, why couldn't I?

I don't make films but I criticize when one has gone wrong

So you simply purchase a game based off of marketing campaigns? Honestly this is what I gather from your statement. If so, that is a terrible way to make purchasing decisions.

No but they market their games to sway my decisions obviously, this is simple marketing.

Anyway I said it was amateur because 'lets cause controversy and that way we will get exposure' is.

Let complain about the complainer.

Let's follow this logic - person B criticizes person A's opinion. You in turn criticize person B's opinion which was criticizing person A's opinion. Is that about right?

Fucking idiots... you really have nothing better to say, do you? You've contributed ZERO to the discussion, THANKS.

For what it's worth, I don't agree with this type of marketing (being an advertiser myself... OH OH, credibility!!) BUT the world would be a boring place if it were the same thing, all the time. You want conformity people, move to CHINA... SEE YA!

Also, sometimes the best ideas are others with our own twists so it's nice to see new and different things tried.

@D dogg

Hey at least I wasn't insulting anyone calling them "Fucking idiots". At least I have the decency to put my opinion on the table in a manner that is NOT simply a direct insult on someone's intelligence. Have you heard of things called debates? Obviously not because apparently anytime there is one on the internet it's automatically an argument. Sure our opinions conflict but that doesn't mean I am going to go out of my way to insult the man's intelligence.

@ D Dogg

Sorry I might have misread your comment.

you seem to forget, they're selling an extremely violent video game about hell.

would you rather see a commercial with a black man, a white man, and an asian girl sitting in a nice sunny room, laughing together while they play this game?

I agree with white kid

the controversy road seems like a cop out when you have no truly innovative ideas that could push your game.

Rather than earning a spot on the front page due to the merit of your game, all you have to do is attack/anger a certain group and you're on the front page.

I love how people simply down vote simply as an attack on opinion. Simply because partly I am not wrong in what I am saying it goes to show that these are ridiculous methods. Is this simply an attack on EA because it's a "God of War clone"? So some of you think it's pathetic marketing to get themselves known because they can't sell a game because it's a "God of War clone"?

"[Marketing team] seems kinda amateur-ish to me"

- I think the marketing team is well aware of their target audience, who are most likely, immature and amateurish.

@Lario

And people who say things such as this are called douche bags.

I think Dante's Inferno has had a genius marketing campaign.
Look how many posts and comments it has got on Joystiq, far more then it ever would have had if they just did the standard thing of releasing trailers every now and then.

I gotta say, EA's not impressing me. Staging protests that mock Catholics, having a contest that looks like hiring a hooker, and then mocking Catholicism again has convinced me of the immaturity of the marketing team. Like White Kid and arrggh said, causing controversy when you don't have any original ideas is simply amateur.

Oh and Samuel Vines? Calling someone a douchebag for telling it like it is doesn't make you look cool.

@Trevor

And calling the consumer base for this game as being immature and amateur is? Right...

I'm going with D Dogg in that I like seeing new things tried. I'll admit to laughing at both the fake protest and the Mass game, and the check's were kind of clever too (to all those who thought people "fooled" the system by donating or whatnot, it was only ~$200, you think EA cared about the couple thousand they laid out for it). Yes, it's not the most clever thing ever, but at least they're trying.

And it's obviously working by getting you all in such a huff.

@Samuel Vines:
I never called the consumer base immature. Just the marketing team.

Imagine how someone really religious would feel after clicking that link and seeing that message 8 /

Probably the same way I feel:

"Wow, that studio is really, really desperate for attention, but that doesn't change the fact that this game look like it's going to be really shitty."

correct me if I'm wrong, but is this not the same studio that brought us dead space?

they killed it with that game. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on this one. I mean everything about that game was polished. that was the sleeper hit if this generation.

just because the guys in the marketing dept. are choosing a controversial method does not mean the game designers are doing a half-assed job.

another retarded viral promotion from EA for a game that doesn't need it.

Although this begs the question, how is a game about religious ceremonies heresy?

Did you actually read the popup? If not, check it.

Technically, this "raises" the question. "Begs the question" means something else entirely.

Blasphemy to promote a video game? I am liking Dante's inferno and its PR team more and more by the day.

Wow. Who is the target audience for Dante's Inferno? EA Execs who think an effective marketing plan is just being clever without purpose or substance? Are they really not self-aware? There isn't one guy saying "Hey guys, everyone is pooping on our game, maybe we should scale back the silliness a bit and focus our resources on adding a bit more polish to make sure we aren't just pegged with God of War clone right out of the gate."

Love these "God of Ware clone" statements. Ridiculous.

Because EA's marketing team could really contribute some useful code to the project?

They pay the marketers from the same coffers they pay their developers from. Less money spent on silly marketing means more funds that could be allocated to development.

Jesus fuck, why the hell is "viral marketing" still popular? One day there's a video of a drunken hobo, next day it turns out to be a viral. It's not like it's even working.

I don't get it, I thought the point of marketing was to get people to want to buy something....

@EA

You're trying too hard.

It's just that they don't have Jedi powers, this is all they've got :P

So basically...this is what EA canned Pandemic for?

And to think I was starting to have hopes for EA. So Activision may be the devil (ha!), but at least they aren't idiots.

I apologize, I don't like it when people say this is a clone of that because every game is inspired by or outright steals ideas from other games. But by focusing their marketing on the silly shock value stuff, and less on the "this is why our game is awesome" angle, they're just setting themselves up for the inevitable comparison considering almost every article on Dante's Inferno mentions the similarities.

I read similar things about X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but they didn't cheapen that game with lame stunt marketing, so they didn't need to qualify its existence. EA is just setting themselves up to fail, because everyone will now be looking for reasons to dislike this game and the go to angle will invariably be "it's a clone".

I'm not even saying their marketing should be "we're not God of War", it just shouldn't be all the goofy, tangentially related nonsense for a game that already has questionable credibility based on the concept alone.

One word ... Awesome!

I like the fact that EA is actually putting some thought into their marketing, instead of just putting a trailer during Monday Night Football.

They are pin-pointing their target audience, the sacrilegious, as well. I for one applaud EA's strategy and enthusiasm.

@ EA you are doing it right!

Yup, still buying GOW3 instead.

Nothing wrong with having influences, but this feels more like a direct carbon-copy than anything else. That doesn't mean it won't be fun, but to say this isn't an outright clone is just a lie. And just like a zerox copy, this game looks a bit "rough".

Hot naked women is always a great marketing tool.

...unless you're Amish.

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Pre-order 'Mass: We Pray' for free Dante's Inferno trailer

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