Namco talks about Dark Souls 2 Marketing

Namco talks Dark Souls 2 marketing: "we're treating this as a massive, massive triple-A title"
Would like to attract Skyrim players, but series fans are the focus

Namco played it safe with the original Dark Souls marketing budget, and with good reason - this, after all, is the game that takes pride in being inaccessible. According to PR director Lee Kirton, however, the publisher has no qualms about blowing the bank on Dark Souls 2.

"The good thing this time round is we're investing more in it from a marketing perspective," Kirton told OXM at a preview event in London today. "With Dark Souls and [PS3-exclusive spiritual predecessor] Demon Souls it was very focused, small-scale. We're treating this as a massive, massive triple-A title."

"We're going to go balls-deep and guns-blazing with it, and hope to God that it works," he continued. "We're going after people who love and adore Dark Souls, while hopefully widening the net a little. I'm not saying that every Skyrim player's going to be jumping on Dark Souls, but it would be nice if some of them did. It's a different game, sure."

http://www.oxm.co.uk/53991/namco-talks-dark-souls-2-marketing-were-treating-this-as-a-massive-massive-triple-a-title/

Link does not work for some reason.

Treating this as a massive triple A title? It sounds good but I am wary of it. However bringing Skyrim players here. That sends a slight chill down my spine. Should I be worried or happy? That is what is bothering me.

This is what makes me love FromSoftware and Namco so much. Making a huge comeback on a previous popular title, make it AAA title huge, and at the same time trying to widen the audience while making this game as hard as ever and keeping the old fan-base as well. Grabbing both audiences with one net, these guys know what they're doing.

skyrim players to tortu... i mean engage in jolly cooperation with?

I'm surprised they even mentioned Skyrim in this interview. At first I was gonna call BS but it seems legit, though awkward. Why Skyrim? It's not even close to be the same game. It's like Battlefield 4's PA saying "We'd like to attract more Halo players".

Anyways, I will not doubt From Software and as far as I know, they're the one directing DkS2 so weeeeeeeeee

Skyrim was mentioned and is being mentioned all the time when talking about many RPG-games because, well...it's the most popular and has sold the most copies in it's genre and sells/wide audience is of course important from the marketing perspective.

Also, do you guys remember what super marketing force was behind Skyrims release?
I don't think there was not a single gamer who didn't know that Skyrim was coming 11.11.11 FUS RO DAH...yeah.

I can see no negatives in Namco treating DkS2 as a AAA-title, since it's already said that Fromsoft has free hands on the game and I bet they will deliver.
Souls- series might just be the next BIG thing, are we as a small community prepared?

Bringing in Skyrim players just means latching into more sales. I'm good with that. The pressure is in From to deliver not only a good game but a storyline and RPG better than Skyrim. Lets just hope that the fine line between "accessible" and "this is the real DkS2" doesn't take place too far into the game

I do wonder how they intend to pull this off. The elder scrolls and Souls series are far from the same thing. It will be tricky to appeal to certain Elder scroll fans, as Skyrim is significantly easier than Dark Souls, and have a much clearer (yet rubbish) story.
Skyrim also allow for more exploration, where in Dark Souls is more Linear (Though, it does allow you to enter more brutal areas early on).

I have no doubt From can pull it off though. They have already assured us that DS2 will be the hardest game in the series (Or at least on par with DS), so that will be the least of my concerns.

I have to admit, I have mixed feelings about this. I do hope it works well, but somethin' feels kinda off about it..

I'm a Skyrim player.

When I came to Demon's Souls I was actually looking for something to immerse me in the game world to the extent that Oblivion had. There was a bit of a gap for me. Some good and great games in between but those two were the giants at the ends. I don't even remember how I came across my first Demon's Souls trailer but it wasn't until several months after the game came out. I went and got it and haven't looked back.

With Dark Souls, it again sheer chance that I knew there was another game. And THEN I had to look it up to see it was really another game like Demon's. While I feel Dark had a better marketing push than Demon's for a lot of people, it can get lost in the shuffle.

Point being that, all other things equal (who's making the game, etc.), a bigger marketing push is fantastic for us fans (or at least should be). Skyrim gets ripped on a lot (justifiably in most cases) when we compare it Dark Souls but remember that there's a lot of reasons to like a game. Despite the numerous differences (difficulty, combat mechanics, storytelling) they're both near identical in one aspect that's very important to a lot of fans...

Immersion. In different ways they can both give you a great experience that's easy to get lost in.

I don't care about a more lore friendly game... Even the way it is now, I believe that Dark Souls is more immersible then Skyrim. It's easier to feel nervous while playing Dark Souls then Skyrim.

Well, your stories do make me change perspective.

I was not saying Skyrim is bad by the way, I very much hate **** on a game for the sole purpose of doing it. I was just confused as to why choose to speak about it in a marketing interview.

Thank you for enlightening me

R3dlace, you came across diplomatic so no worries. I only commented the way I did because I've seen Skyrim conversations go very bad very fast. I just like to remind everyone on occasion that the two games aren't mutually exclusive from a target audience perspective.

R3dlace wrote:I'm surprised they even mentioned Skyrim in this interview. At first I was gonna call BS but it seems legit, though awkward. Why Skyrim? It's not even close to be the same game. It's like Battlefield 4's PA saying "We'd like to attract more Halo players".

Umm of course battlefiled guys would say that- they're both FPS games and competing for the same fan base.

Same as souls ans elder scrolls- they want to compete with elder scrolls, i see nothing wrong with that, after all in terms of quality souls blows them out the water

Anyway- the PR guy saying they wanna go 'balls deep' hahaha i love it

i don't think they are saying that the marketing campaign or the game will be tailored to attract SkyRim fans specifically.

i think they are trying to say that they are going to give Dark Souls 2 as much exposure as SkyRim had at the time of its release. which also happened to be around the same time that Dark Souls was released and SkyRim overshadowed Dark Souls because of it.

i don't think Namco wants that to happen this time around.

Juutas wrote:...are we as a small community prepared?...

My blade is thirsty....my hunger is deep.....perhaps the question is....

Spoiler:

I'm getting a 300 spartan kinda feeling right now....

To Thermopylae!

Or however the hell you spell it

This...

IS...

DARK SOOOULS!!!

GET SOME

PS-

Spoiler:

Well, if it can attract more players and stay on course with what makes a Souls game, why not. It was the fact that they explicitly mentioned it that bugged me. In my mind, TES and Souls are(were?) not competing at all.

When dark souls and skyrim came out here in New Zealand, I saw hundreds of skyrim advertisements of TV, not one dark souls ad though.

If dark souls 2 even gets half the number of ads that skyrim had, it will rock.

This is great news for the growth it can bring to the community.

To look at it this in a light perspective I say the benefits are: The game will be better known through the advertising and won't be overshadowed in some places like with what Mildred said about no ads for Dark Souls in New Zealand. The game will bring in a higher player base of possibly new players, who will no doubt need help with this game type, and increase aspects like PvP and co-op. The community as a whole will grow. Heck this place will be revived to good activity again.

Of course there are some negatives but I really doubt any of the ones I can think of will last more than a month or so. Mainly dealing with some players who haven't realized what they are playing and need time to adjust like we all did.

I think as a result I'm gonna be SO damn busy taming the trolls on the chat again

It'll be fun, a few trolls to toy with, noobs to help, more people to post in random off topic...

Looking forward to it- also when my friends see an ad for DKSII on youtube or tv i'll just be like- not so sad now huh? AAA game

Serious_Much wrote:...I think as a result I'm gonna be SO damn busy taming the trolls on the chat again ...

OMG yur skrew'd. Once the "in crowd" gets here yur funked lol...j/k

.... <--Ya know when you point at someone and laugh...

I would love to see a massive influx of people who have no idea what a souls game even feels like to play. It'll be like a mass slaughter lol.

Imagine thousands of people experiencing that tense, paranoid moment when being invaded for the first time,
brings back memories. :drunken:

I also think a lot of people at one time will be able to experience first hand why this particular gaming community has such a great reputation in comparison to others.

I hope they follow through with the hype, I just dont see what could possibly be bad about it.

Souls games = triple A :?: ...

Spoiler:

Well DkS was better than every AAA game of 2011 (remind me if I'm forgetting any amazing games that year), and it was on a tight budget for development.

I can't wait to see how Souls comes through when the moneys really going in- I hope it builds rather than corrupts though