The Marketing MMO
Another entrant into the social online space sweepstakes: NightLife Interactive Gaming, yet another club-themed space, aimed primarily at women. (The old club-operation adage: “get the women in the door, and the men will follow.”) The thing that caught my eye about this one, however, was their overall approach:
And as you might guess–with a game being developed by a marketing firm–there’s another objective, at least for the game’s makers. In Touch has filed a patent application for a form of “seamless,” in-game product placement that lets players click on items and receive an e-mail from the advertiser, with no interruption in the game.
One could argue that games such as Star Wars Galaxies, Pirates of the Caribbean (read this article for an indication of just how much of a marketing exercise that game is), and even ToonTown have always been simply less, uh, direct versions of this. A large part of the point of extending a franchise into the online world space is to provide ongoing legs to the franchise and weave the userbase more deeply into the overall brand lifestyle. You hope that the person playing your ninja zombie MMO also pick up a few ninja zombie books and maybe a ninja zombie action figure (sorry, collectible miniature) that maybe reminds them of their character.
Overall, though, we mustn’t forget that the reason why people are there in the first place is because they like the ninja zombie experience. In the case of NightLife, the club had better be pretty compelling, or there won’t be people buying the products in the email links.
It looks like NightLife knows some of this, because they have features like users owning their own clubs, and plan to have some form of profit sharing for users. Running a virtual club could well be a compelling experience for users, particularly since NightLife claims to provide streaming audio for bands, and providing the monetary compensation is a nice extra touch. Plus, they have the good taste to link to this blog, so I have to say some nice things. 🙂
Nonetheless, there is a bit of an ick factor to see something publicized so blatantly as a marketing device rather than as entertainment. Television works much the same way, but at least the self-promotion for the medium focuses on the shows, not the ads.
18 Responses to “The Marketing MMO”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
ViaRaph comes Nightlife Interactive, a “Massive Multiplayer Role Playing Game” featuring nightclubs, music, performances, dancing. I’m reserving judgement, although warning bells are ringing: it’s always a downer to see an all-flash, no-text-pasting brochure
[…] Marketing MMO The Marketing MMO: “Another entrant into the social online space sweepstakes: NightLife Interactive Gaming, yetanother club-themed space, aimed primarily at women. (The old club-operation adage: ‘get the women in the door, and the men will follow.’) The thing that caught my eye about this one, however, was their overall approach: And as you might guess-with a game being developed by a marketing firm-there’s another objective, at least for the game’s makers. In Touch has filed a patent application for a form of ‘seamless,’ in-game product placement that lets players click on items and receive an e-mail from the advertiser, with no interruption in the game. […]
1. They call World of Warcraft an RTS. Morons.
2. Is this thing going to have a monthly fee when it gets out of beta?
3. The Supreme Court is going to rule on “obvious” patents next year, which will hopefully make their attempt at patenting such a thing, even if it’s accepted, irrelevant.
Bruce
um…..wow, Im not sure my ear drums are going to work this weekend
maybe a volume or on/off switch?
Target demographic: 14 year old 2Pac and Paris Hilton Wannabes? (not that this is a bad thing those kids are loaded!) (note: include small purse dog and cells phones (
I couldn’t even find a game at NightLife Interactive Gaming……
The site is all glam, no functionality.
This is a good thing. We need more people trying different things with the MMO space. Why? How can ‘Nightlife Interactive’ be a good thing for me, the hardcore gamer? Because these guys may just trip into some very cool features for social spaces within the MMO arena — features that can be replicated in other games that I am likely to play.
Is it crass commercialism? Darn straight it is, but if they make some money doing it, and bands can use it as a virtual hangout to promote their music and get in touch with fans, I’m all for it. It’s an interesting twist on the paradigm that we already have… and we need more twists unless ya’ll secretely think that WoW is the bee’s knees, at which point all other games can stop development.
All of that being said, yeah they sure don’t tell you much about their game yet. News had them signing a developer in June so there likely isn’t much game to talk about yet. Cool that they pimp to Raph though. 🙂
“Club Koster” 😉
The beats are kickin’. 🙂
[…] Comments […]
Additional thought: Could this be considered an evolution (of sorts) of Online Dance Battle Auditon (which is now down so I’ll link the Google Cache for the curious.
Funny that ODBA died so hard, what’s that say for the odds of Nightlife?
Does anyone else see as one of the major socially redeeming qualities of the MMO its ability to satisfy consumers’ needs for completely useless junk?
And it does it better than anything else — it doesn’t a) cost you more than $15/mo, b) clutter up your house, c) clutter up the world’s landfills, or d) have more environmental impact that the power it takes to run the clients and servers, and the clients / servers themselves? (Which would arguably exist even without the MMO.)
I’m so glad they patented the idea of clicking on things to get the ads for them. Even if the idea is blindingly obvious, at least this means we won’t have to endure any of that stuff in other virtual worlds.
Richard
Would this fall into the same category as The Lounge? That seems to be a (free) mixture between an advertising tool for The Pussycat Dolls (you can buy t-shirts, caps, and whatnots) and a “virtual nightclub”. Different kinds of mainstream music is streamed to the users depending on where in the game(?) they are localized.
Call me the cynic, but I’m not seeing the “clubbing” crowd being much for staying at home and clubbing online. Hey, wait … that gives me an idea-Anybody want to help me develop a massively multiplayer online health club? It’ll kill!
I’m with Allen — this one will appeal strictly to the teen crowd and ringtone fanbois. Nothing wrong with that, of course. If you can hit that crowd you’ll make a ton of money. Still … I slay dragons online from my armchair because I can’t slay dragons in real life (other than the figurative ones).
Hey, more power to ’em … won’t be the last time I’m wrong.
How are you wrong?
You are just saying that the traditional MMORPG audience is not the audience for this product, but that if they hit the right audience they can profit. I’d fully agree with that and still hope that MMORPG designers look at how they invent their social spaces in this ‘game’ and bring any of the better ideas over to our world (think about the clubs in AO — some of us hardcore people will club…)
The Club Scene in AO rocked. Some players did nothing more with the game than hang around there, these definately provided diversity within the communities around the game. It also served as a scene of sorts for musicians to get their music played to a decent amount of players. Good times 🙂
Very true … but I wonder how they’ll do at getting people in the door if they’re target is not interested in this medium.
SWG (not to cross threads here) came close on this with the entertainer profession (at least before I left), though perhaps it was tied too closely to combat and thus cantinas were simply another brand of medical center.
SL has a very interesting thing going with the live music scene. I’ve been to a couple of really good performances. Some of them weren’t exactly “live” but they were good nonetheless. Problem is, in a themed world this can get sticky in terms of the magic circle. (Not to mention, copyright.)
Still, when implemented well there is no doubt such social aspects can bring rich layers of entertainment to VW’s. If they make this “Nightclub” thing buildy enough, then I think they will get a more diverse crowd. If it’s just about clubbing (and I know it sounds like it’s not) then I wonder about its longevity.
[…] Via Raph comes Nightlife Interactive, a "Massive Multiplayer Role Playing Game" featuring nightclubs, music, performances, dancing. I’m reserving judgement, although warning bells are ringing: it’s always a downer to see an all-flash, no-text-pasting brochure site, plus it’s an offering from a marketing company, which is possibly a bit terrifying. […]
I agree with Bartle.