Gears of War 3 will have 'live' TV ads in the UK

by David Hinkle on Sep 20th 2011 11:40PM

Microsoft must be confident in early Gears of War 3 sales numbers, because the company has announced a new initiative to have "live" TV ads market the game. What this means is that during commercials, Microsoft will display the current number of players online in what we can only assume is an attempt to entice people who only want to play games that a lot of other people are playing.

The ad campaign kicks off on September 23 and will run until October 3 in six different 30-second advertisements. Stephen McGill, Microsoft UK Xbox marketing director, says Microsoft is spending the big bucks to advertise Gears. "It is on the scale of what we did for Halo Reach and Halo 3 -- television is the main centrepiece of the campaign."

Gears of War 3 launches worldwide today.

[Thanks, ugotamesij.]

Via: Brand Republic
Source: Marketing Magazine

Tags: ad, advertisement, epic, epic-games, Gears-of-War-3, marketing, microsoft, microsoft-studios, uk, xbox

Reader Comments (47)

i came in here expecting live-action commercials.. I left happy

@Faenix
Same. In fact, this pretty cool. Maybe the U.S could get some of this.

OOoooooh. At first I thought they were putting ads in the game somehow.

@swooded

Haha. I thought the same thing cuz I read somewhere that Deus Ex started putting ads in game.

People just go buy it. Best $60 spent on a game so far in 2011.

@Squawk Absolutely. I've only had a couple hours with it so far and the multiplayer(particularly Capture the Leader) is some of the most fun I've had in years. And I'm a Halo fanboy.

@Squawk
Oh easily the best money I've spent on a video game this year. I've only played online so far(Horde mode to be exact) and it's been really fun. I can't wait to dive into the campaign

That is how you market a game,coughing Sony coughing hmm.

@kmcroc

maybe Microsoft should use all this advertisement money to make some first party studios you know.... to have games..*cough* Sony *cough*

@(Unverified)

I wish microsoft would float some exclusive games to the non-kinect group.

Gears of War 3 was the last exclusive for me, with nothing new announced. It.. sucks.

@(Unverified) Yes they can create or even buy first party developers with that kind of money .but i think they like the part where they buy a select few & invest in them ,than invested in a whole bunch of studios & not make any significant returns on their investments. cause we all know they can afford to buy any house they chose .

@kmcroc
You might be on to something. I know when I play games, I can't enjoy them unless they're heavily marketed. :/

@kmcroc

*cough* i have a cold *cough*

I don't really, I just felt like mocking you ;)

@civilciv love the sarcasm, but my point was why over spend on to many house only to receive but a 1/4 of your investment ,when you can make a small investment & make double or quadruple .

@Marco le Polo *cough* bite me it's late *cough* .

What'd be fun is if everyone playing online timed their sessions so that they all logged off when the commercial comes on.

@EliminatorZigma

Yeah, that will definitely send a message to MS that they shouldn't rely on support from gamers for anything.

@EliminatorZigma

I'm guessing it's not actually in real time, they'll probably update once a day or every couple of hours or something.

@WiredKnight
The article says that these ads will be similar to ads for gambling websites, which give odds on sports events accurate to 30secs prior to the ad airing. So the technology certainly exists to get 'right now' (or as near as dammit to) stats to put into the advert.

@EliminatorZigma

Pretty much my first thought too...

Timed right, this could advertise Xbox Live being down. Turning off the 360 due to an outage, switching over to the TV only to moments later see that counter read zero would be hilarious.

Please let this happen, just the once.

This is great and all, but without a solid comparison to another popular game, it's just a random number to me.

@The Blank Mage Returns

I'm guessing there will be over 9000 players online

@The Blank Mage Returns

That's works for him since he's a black mage and only understands numbers up to 9999.

@Marco le Polo BLANK Mage. I don't have anything like damage dealing spells. My avatar would reflect this if Joystiq's site would except the damn changes.

@The Blank Mage Returns *Accept, I can haz English.

If this was pretty much the only non kinect exclusive I actually had this year, Id market the hell out of it too. MS has to pick up sales, and this is the one thing they can offer that sony cant. (well, one franchise, lets face it everyones got shooters)

I'm a proud owner of a PS3 and i bought it because i love 10 times more the PS3 over the 360, but man, Gears 3 looks so damn SWEET!

Well, you already pay them a monthly subscription anyway, don't you?

Plus, I really don't see this working out as well as MS thinks it will...

"Gears of War 3 launches worldwide today."

Except in Japan. Gears 3 launches there on September 22nd.

@(Unverified)

Joystiq considers Japan out of this world...

@(Unverified) Take THAT, suckas, how's it FEEL?!

@(Unverified)
ummmmmmmmmmm it is sep 22 in japan today

Well isn't it? Ya, gears 3 is amazing, but I still kinda suck at the mp. Im really good at battlefield, decent at cod, but gears kicks my ass. But its a blast and im slowly getting better.

there was a gears 3 advert during big brother the other day, cant see there being many people who watch big brother who would buy gears

It would be funny if it glitched and showed 0000 players.

I've only played a few hours, but I haven't enjoyed a game this much since Dead Space 2.

On another note, anyone else have problems with their beta stuff unlocking? My beta save file is still there, but no matter what I do my skins don't unlock. Kind of a bummer.

@CaramelZappa
I had the same problem, but it only unlocked a couple of them the first load up. When I reloaded it, the rest of the beta unloackables popped up as well

I got the gear of wars system yesterday and tried the game today. I love it and can't wait to finish this

So not only do we have to pay $60+ for new games, plus DLC, we're also going to have to start dealing with TV ads in our games? Lol...

@Ceridith

Did you even read the article...

@Ceridith Epic Reading Fail

@This Little Man Says His Name Is

No, no he did not.

This is what I was hoping for:

(Fade in on an intense firefight)

(Close up over Marcus' shoulder)

(Marcus turns)

"Hi, I'm Marcus Fenix. When I'm not chainsawing some aliens I'm busy crushing their skulls with a well placed curb stomp. That's why I wear the COG Locust Stomper XL. Nothing gives you maximum skull crushage like the Locust Stomper XL. Pickup a pair today, won't you?"

thats the most hilarious marketing: "other people are doing it. why arent you? youre not DIFFERENT, are you??"

@gevenstaines

Then Sony pulls the fatty-fatty-no parents card

I'm not trying to be a negative nancy, but you can bet these ads will get pulled (or atleast the stats) the moment this game drops to less than one or two hundred thousand players daily.

I admit that this ads' life cycle is likely shorter than it will take for that to happen... but you can bet that they'll do all they can to prevent themselves from advertising low numbers.

They all have breasts.

Sorry, you must be logged in to leave a comment.

Breaking News

The most popular posts
in the last 7 days

Rumor: Japanese Vita devs jumping ship, Sony responds 124 comments
Buy 2 get 1 free on select Vita games at GameStop starting today 114 comments
Sony's Rohde: proprietary Vita cards 'completely necessary' to combat piracy 112 comments
Sony: Call of Duty blasting onto Vita this fall 89 comments
Asura's Wrath review: Wrecking the curve 84 comments

Gears of War 3

Gears of War 3 will have 'live' TV ads in the UK

Reader Comments (47)

Posted: Sep 20th 2011 11:46PM Faenix said

Posted: Sep 20th 2011 11:54PM Special Agent Steve said

Posted: Sep 20th 2011 11:46PM swooded said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 12:36AM FlashJS said

Posted: Sep 20th 2011 11:53PM Squawk said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 3:18AM blackangel209 said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 10:22AM Jakes said

Posted: Sep 20th 2011 11:57PM kmcroc said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 12:08AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 12:30AM Faenix said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 12:31AM kmcroc said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 12:33AM civilciv said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 12:56AM Marco le Polo said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 1:05AM kmcroc said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 1:08AM kmcroc said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 12:02AM EliminatorZigma said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 12:44AM Morisato13 said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 3:54AM WiredKnight said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 4:34AM ugotamesij said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 1:31PM Mortim said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 12:15AM The Blank Mage Returns said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 12:18AM Bushman311 said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 12:57AM Marco le Polo said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 1:36AM The Blank Mage Returns said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 1:38AM The Blank Mage Returns said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 12:42AM Cavall said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 12:43AM Jhoalot said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 9:24AM EliminatorZigma said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 1:00AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 1:53AM Morisato13 said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 2:21AM The Blank Mage Returns said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 11:57AM gevenstaines said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 2:21AM SolidDuck said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 2:23AM dosed150 said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 3:49AM Haikiba said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 3:53AM CaramelZappa said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 8:33AM deadwr3ckoning said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 8:25AM echerringtonYAHOOCOM said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 10:09AM Ceridith said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 10:28AM This Little Man Says His Name Is said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 11:49AM papershadow said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 12:02PM Tephlon said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 11:53AM ObiBen8 said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 11:59AM gevenstaines said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 4:25PM Dooliss said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 12:05PM Tephlon said

Posted: Sep 21st 2011 1:23PM (Unverified) said

Gears of War 3 Info

Description

MSRP

Release Date

Genre

Developer

Publisher

Rating

Breaking News

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is the next title from Frictional Games and Dear Esther dev

Featured Stories

Building A Machine for Pigs and expanding the universe of Amnesia

Persona 3, Tactics Ogre, and other PSP RPGs that will live on my Vita

Tekken 3D Prime Edition review: Far from prime edition

The most popular postsin the last 7 days

Engadget

TUAW

Massively

WoW

The most popular posts
in the last 7 days