Each week Jeff Engel and Geoff Brooks contribute Counting Rupees, a column on the business behind gaming:

Apparently, there were not enough word-spreading mouths to begin with, as it only sold 60k copies in its debut month (which includes almost all of May, since it launched May 6^th). Despite what EA's CEO said, this was probably not what EA had hoped for with a game it had collaborated on with the most profitable director in the world. So, what happened?

It should come as no surprise that the impending Grand Theft Auto IV is going to have a marketing campaign that rivals the absolute onslaught that accompanied Halo 3's launch last year. What may surprise you, though, is that much of that marketing push will be coming from Microsoft, not publisher Take-Two or developer Rockstar.

"Rockstar will naturally be doing their own campaign to launch what obviously will be a massive title for them," Xbox UK Gaming and Entertainment Chief Stephen McGill told MCV, "but Microsoft sees GTA IV as a fantastic title to showcase how great Xbox 360 is." As such, McGill says Microsoft will be launching a campaign with "the same sort of scale as our Halo 3 campaign last year" to promote the Xbox 360 version's Live integration, Achievements and, of course, exclusive downloadable content. Judging by our recent poll on the subject, it doesn't look like it will take much convincing to get people thinking that the Xbox 360 is the system of choice for the optimal GTA IV experience.

Spy Hunter, one of the great arcade games of the '80s, is given proper tribute in the amazing commercial found above. OK, ignore for 30 seconds that this is a Pontiac commercial and just bask in the awesomeness of it. The music, the look, the feel ... seriously, if we could focus on what car the company is selling for even a split second we might consider buying it.

But don't be fooled folks, there is some brilliant marketing at work here. Even the car's website is designed with our demographic in mind; featuring a mosaic of the car made up of images like Transformers and Halo (clearly being promoted at the bottom of the page). Admittedly, the whole thing is very slick. Now, if only this car wasn't $30,000 ... oh yeah, and a Pontiac.

[Thanks Josh ... even if you might be a Pontiac marketing guy]

With its April 29 debut only three agonizing months away, it's time for Take-Two and Rockstar to up their marketing for Grand Theft Auto IV. Citizens of New York City may stumble across wanted posters (pictured above at Lorimer and Grand in Brooklyn) asking for tips in capturing Niko Bellic (GTA IVs protagonist). If you've seen the guy -- or just want a special jpeg from Rockstar -- send an email to tips[at]libertycitypolice[dawt]com. If anyone stumbles across or can scan a cleaner image of the viral ad we'll be sure to post it.

It's a fact that, thanks to a relocation, Nintendo's been losing marketing execs like a colander with with marketing exec-shaped holes in it. But honestly, when customers are leaping on your products and mauling them, grizzly bear like, as soon as they hit the shelves, what purpose does your marketing team really serve anyway?

Regardless, Big N announced today that they've brought on two new additions to their marketing staff. Bill Van Zyll will be the new director and general manager of Latin America, while Denise Kaigler will serve as vice president of Marketing & Corporate Affairs, taking over for the departing Perrin Kaplan. We would imagine both will be reporting to the Maytag repairman for all their training needs.

The North American marketing for DS guitar simulator Jam Sessions has been pretty low-key, comprised of a MySpace page, uninspired print ads, and a bevy of videos showing real artists using the non-game to play fake guitar.

Off the charts, then, are New Zealand's excellent television spots for the title, which emphasize how having Jam Sessions in your DS repertoire can transform you into an instant rockstar. According to the ads, being an instant rockstar involves hitting on your buxom aunt, and cursing out your mum for baking you the wrong birthday cake. Honestly, the things those New Zealanders can get away with on television!

If we haven't made it abundantly clear, these videos are definitely not-safe-for-work material. Catch all the raunchy, raucous action after the break (and not a single shot of gameplay, either!).

Anyone who's spent even a little time rocking out to Guitar Hero III has likely noticed the game's heavy-handed approach to product placement, with stages littered with cans of Red Bull and billboards hocking everything from Axe Body Spray to Pontiac. The whole thing feels oppressive and graceless as even the game's underground rock venues are reduced to feeling like props to corporate shilling. And things are likely to get worse before they get better, as Activision today announced that it has inked a deal with Microsoft-owned Massive to provide in-game ads in not only Guitar Hero III, but Tony Hawk's Proving Ground as well.

The two titles have been added to the growing Massive Network advertising collective, which also includes Activision's Transformers adaptation, and will made to include "contextually relevant" dynamic ads. Interestingly, it's unclear if this partnership extends to all versions of the affected (afflicted?) games, or just those for Microsoft's console. What is clear, however, is that as games are now a big business, more and more companies are beginning to get in line for their slice of the money pie, and while game companies and advertisers reap the benefits of this arrangement, gamers are left holding the controller wondering just when their games became interactive commercials.

With the Regginator busy being all presidential, Nintendo's been in bad need of a new chief marketing officer to take names and kick ass. That new officer is Cammie Dunaway, who will officially start directing the company's $80+ million annual marketing budget on Monday.

In honor of the transfer, Marketing Daily has a quick profile of the former Yahoo! and Frito-Lay marketer, who's wasting no time in spreading the message that Nintendo products are fun for the whole family. "I've seen the excitement on my nine-year-old son's face when he's playing a Pokemon game on his DS and spots someone else at the airport playing, too," Dunaway said. "Then I see my mom, who's in her 70s, having fun playing Wii bowling. Myself, I've started to play brain-training games." Take it easy, Cammie ... you don't start for three more days.

The article also details some of Dunaway's previous marketing efforts for Yahoo! Answers, which included building a giant purple brain in New York's Times Square. Here's hoping that a giant, polygonal Dr. Kawashima head is forthcoming.

The word you're looking for is: FINALLY. Sony America finally gets their damn head in the game to sell some PS3s with a new ad campaign for this holiday. Sony Senior VP of Marketing and PSN Peter Dille wrote a long love letter on Sony's blog about the plan with this holiday's marketing. "Last year, we launched the PS3 with a campaign that become known as the 'White Room' and we received a strong reaction to those ads for being provocative and demonstrating the PS3's power," Dille wrote, obviously unaware of the extreme delusion in that statement. "With those technology messages now firmly embedded, we wanted to move beyond the 'power' message with a more high-energy, entertainment driven focus for the PS3. The games are here, the price point is now $399 and we wanted to make the news loud and clear."

The 30 second spot (above) focuses on the exclusive games for the console. And in a shocker for Sony, they actually show the games in the ads. After the break is the 60 second spot focusing on the PS3's features. Now we wait to see if new consumers notice the lack of backwards compatibility in their new $399 PS3.

And we're in the final stretch as the Halo 3 marketing machine goes into overdrive and assaults the broadcast medium this weekend. Variety got the details on what Chris Di Cesare, Xbox director of product marketing, calls "magnifying the mania." Expect original programming that'll bring newbs to the Halo franchise -- and the Xbox 360 -- by focusing on networks with demographics in line with the Master Chief plan.

It starts Saturday on Comedy Central with Fully Loaded, two-minute mini-ads hosted by Mad TV's Bobby Lee, which were taped at Tao Beach nightclub following the Madame Tussauds unveiling on the weekend of the MTV Video Music Awards. Spike TV's Game Head will host a live feed Monday night, breaking in with coverage during commercial breaks, and then air a half-hour special at midnight called: Halo 3 Launched. That program will feature a performance by Linkin Park. G4 has also set five hours of time aside for the launch as well. On Tuesday, Sci Fi Channel will show Halo 3: Sci vs. Fi. Of course, we'd love to stay home and watch all this launch coverage, but we'll be too busy doing our own coverage, which mostly consists of us waiting in line like everybody else, taking photos and getting quotes.

Brandweek breaks down the year-long marketing campaign by Microsoft for the launch of Halo 3. Brandweek says that the ads coming out as part of the "Believe" campaign (created by mega-firm McCann-Erickson) are the last part in the five-pronged assault.

• Phase 1: Starry Nights introduced "Finish the fight" last year during Monday Night Football with 7.9 million households watching.
• Phase 2: The Beta (yes, it deserves the capital B) -- must we say more?
• Phase 3: Project Iris. For the hardest of the hardcore with a tip of the hat to Halo 2's "Ilovebees."
• Phase 4: Merchandising, merchandising! Look at all the product tie-in stuff.
• Phase 5: The "Believe" campaign along with the festivities.

And just to give a small taste of how much madness there is surrounding direct or indirect Halo 3 marketing, we present to you a fan-made audio clip featuring the guys from X3F's podcast in "Buy teh Haloz." Created by Travis Johnson, we have a horrible feeling like we'll be compelled to put it at the bottom of each Halo marketing related post we do between now and launch. Nobody ever makes insane audio clips of the Joystiq podcast.

What you will see above, and after the break, are allegedly official Halo 3 marketing videos in Korea. It's, um, different ... like the part where Master Chief punches a dinosaur in the head and the back of his armor falls off. After the break you'll see what happens when someone dressed like Master Chief poses motionless in a Korean mall and springs to life. That's actually more funny than weird, but totally not what we expect from Microsoft marketing.

As we all know, Korea has a very strong gaming culture, although it mostly revolves around the PC market. Console gaming isn't as popular, but maybe videos like this help? Our Korean translator has been missing since the Starcraft II announcement, so we have no idea what's going on in these videos. We can fully accept that Korean culture is very different from US culture -- this point made clear in the video after the break as the guy in the Master Chief costume is standing in the middle of a mall with a gun. We could see something like that sparking an incident on the local news here.

[Via X3F]

The Campaign For a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC), the group that successfully disturbingly pulled-off getting GTA Vice City ads removed from the Boston metro system, has begun their Manhunt 2 marketing campaign. Sure one could view it as they're trying to stop the game, but these groups seem to only help generate sales, so let us call a spade a spade.

As reported by GamePolitics, back in the day the CCFC demanded Manhunt 2 be rated AO just as the ESRB beat them to the punch. Then came the saga of Manhunt 2, with the latest twist coming this week that the game would be out by Halloween. The CCFC is saying, "Despite industry claims to the contrary, M-rated games continue to be marketed and sold to children under seventeen ... We call upon Rockstar Games to allow the content of Manhunt 2 to be reviewed by an independent review board with no ties to the video game industry ... We ask the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the process by which Manhunt 2's rating was downgraded from AO to M."

Hmm, so the CCFC is demanding a ratings organization allow an outside group to tell them how to do their job, wonder how the MPAA would feel about that for movies? And as if the FTC didn't already have to deal with enough video game related silliness this week. Maybe the Boston-based CCFC can get the city's Mayor Tom Menino to help them out while he's trying to court the video game industry at the same time.

A reader of N+ recently sent in a note about Nintendo's unique marketing approach in Greece. To help promote Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day!, women dress up as nurses and walk around local beaches letting sunners test their brain age. This seems a bit counter-intuitive, as hot nurses plus scantily-clad beachgoers tend to make the blood flow to parts of the body that aren't the brain. But you have our attention, at the very least. More pics can be found on Nintendo's official Greek site.

[Via N+]

Most people who spent time at the Hotel California with independent publisher Gamecock walked away with two major realizations. Gamecock actually figured out how to do this newly formatted E3 absolutely right, even though they technically weren't part of it. The Hotel California was an open door oasis with developers showing their games in casual living rooms as a breeze from the Pacific kept things cool -- the smell of BBQ also helped (which we didn't actually get to eat in all the running around). The other realization, the more important one, is that the games didn't look half bad -- actually, in many cases, they impressed us more than non-indie games we saw.

Yes, the Gamecock name still confuses people and the two pseudo-NSFW videos we have after the break add to the things that turn some people off to the company's marketing -- but once those people understand Gamecock doesn't care, it'll start to roll off their backs and make more sense. As long as their games featured in the video above are fun and sell well, that's probably the only thing Gamecock really does care about. We're definitely curious to see how their first published titles like Dementium: The Ward and Fury, which goes into beta very soon, do at retail. And we really want more info on Pandora Legendary: The Box as soon as possible.