[Katie]

So we started off the Tomb Raider 9 campaign strong. A cover reveal followed by several official updates on the Game Informer Hub and extra screenshots. Great. Then comes the silence. Not a great move imo - if you're going to launch, launch strong and carry through until release. You've peaked our interest but why the deadly silence? There should be small snippets in-between.

What do you think?

[leepaynetombraider]

Come on Katie we all know what CD are like by now they dont care about fans. Core were a lot better at fan relations including feeding info.
CD will be silent for a while

[Naids]

I totally agree with you Katie. CD were very good with the Underworld coverage, but I'd love to hear something soon. I'm really sick and tired of hearing rumors about the game. I think CD should just release new screenshots or even concept art or just even character profiles to bridge the gap between us fans waiting for updates.

[Katie]

Agreed - or not post at all until they're ready to commit to a full campaign with scheduled releases. I think their marketing department needs some serious assistance.

[trps1]

Hinting at a job Katie? You are now a marketing guru aren't you? Here's a question for your Ask Katie segment - If you were in charge of marketing Tomb Raider, how would you do it? I'm sure you have lots of ideas.

In my opinion, the marketing for the TR series has always been way wide of the mark. They never really promoted what the game was about they just focused on Lara and her image. People got a totally false impression of the game. Every promotion just featured Lara in some provocative pose with guns. It gave the image that it was some sort of shoot-em-up action game with a scantily clad girl to perve on. But the game wasn't a shooter, all the gunplay was taken care of by the auto-aim feature. The game's own AI system took care of the shooting, all you had to do was hold down the button and watch. And the in-game story wasn't about Lara at all, it was usually about ancient civilizations and lost artefacts, Lara was just the default protagonist. For the first few games, anyway.

Essentially, TR was really a puzzle and adventure game. But a lot of players that would have loved that sort of game never even tried it because they were put off by the image that was promoted. I remember I had a friend around once and offered to let him play the game but he refused. In his own words "if my girlfriend caught me playing that I'd be dead." Huh? What did he think the game was about?? And I remember when I bought TR4 the sales assistant at the counter looked at me funny and wrapped the game in a brown paper bag before I left the store. It was like I had bought a xxx video or something.

Promoting Lara the way they have may have sold a lot of magazine covers but not that many games. At least, not as many games as it should sold. They lost a lot of credibility early on. How are they ever going to get that back? Just look at the main promo pic for Underworld. It's a closeup shot of Lara's torso. They are definitely promoting the wrong thing there. Poor girl didn't even get a face.

[Katie]

You bet I've been trying to get in... http://katiefleming.ca

Thing is, for a huge brand like Tomb Raider, you really need to have a full marketing department. Crystal has 2 people + 1 new community manager. It's just not enough. It's nice to see them attempting some community involvement but they are very late to jump on board.

I had to laugh when I read your TR4 game was wrapped when you bought it. For awhile Lara really was marketed as a sex object which is sad since it downplayed the excellent game play. On a plus side Crystal is now steering completely away from that direction, but 15 years into the series it seems odd to do it now.

The series I think is at a make or break point now. This is our 3rd 'version' of Lara that we'll be getting for TR9 and I don't think fans can handle 10 more reboots in the future.

As far as marketing and all that jazz, I have a billion ideas. Maybe one day I'll post my IMC plan but for now my focus is on finding employment, so I hope everyone understands why it's not readily available online.

[trps1]

I thought you might have a few ideas! But of course you need to hang on to your trade secrets.

So Crystal Dynamics have their own promotions people? I thought that would have been the publisher's job (Eidos/Square) and that CD was just the developer. Wasn't that one of the reasons why Toby Gard left TR? Because Eidos was promoting the game in a way he didn't like and he had no control? It certainly sounds like a small marketing team.

I guess game development and marketing go together in a way, and feedback from marketing goes back into the game. I don't envy CD as being the developer though. No matter what they do there will be a large group of fans that don't like some particular aspect.

[TombRaider13]

cd is just being boring. I blame them for the lack in forumming. I'm a social person, people! We need sumthin 2 talk about!

googling.....

[Katie]

trps1, on 22 February 2011 - 11:42 AM, said:

I thought you might have a few ideas! But of course you need to hang on to your trade secrets.

So Crystal Dynamics have their own promotions people? I thought that would have been the publisher's job (Eidos/Square) and that CD was just the developer. Wasn't that one of the reasons why Toby Gard left TR? Because Eidos was promoting the game in a way he didn't like and he had no control? It certainly sounds like a small marketing team.

I guess game development and marketing go together in a way, and feedback from marketing goes back into the game. I don't envy CD as being the developer though. No matter what they do there will be a large group of fans that don't like some particular aspect.

I'd love to put it on my portfolio site sometime soon to see what everyone thinks, but for now I think it's better to keep it private while I job search.

Yeah, they have a very small marketing team in-house. I know they outsource to some ad agencies but the group at Crystal is very very tiny. They should either outsource it all or build up that part of their team, imo.

You're right, there will always be a group that's not happy, but when it comes down to it, marketing the game correctly and utilizing social media to connect with the fan base is a must. Either jump on board or stay back in the 90's and crumble basically

TombRaider13, on 24 February 2011 - 10:11 PM, said:

cd is just being boring. I blame them for the lack in forumming. I'm a social person, people! We need sumthin 2 talk about!

googling.....

Yes, I agree. They've had the series for 5 years now? They are very late coming on board to communicate with fans, but I guess it's better late than never. Even Core Design had one up on them for communication. Did anyone participate in that one group chat over at Lara Croft Online with Gary Reading before AOD was released? That was brilliant.

[Naids]

I'd love it if CD did the group chat on forums as Katie mentioned above. It would be brilliant. I think that if they did that, the game would be a lot more marketable to fans. It could even broaden a wider interest in upcoming games.
I'm just glad that CD have steered away from using Lara as a *removed* object to advertise her. The Tomb Raider 2, 3 & 4 advertising era to me only really worked well for a male audience (I'm not being stereotypical here) and I hardly knew any females that played Tomb Raider back then. But since CD have have broadened their audience since releasing Legend, for me it's time for them to start expanding their advertising. They've already broadened their audience to an equal number of males and females, so why not expand? Over here in Australia, you rarely see advertising for the TR series. Whereas other games like say for example, Assassin's Creed, it just about advertised on nearly every Australian free to air TV channel.
So first, I think CD should start expanding around different countries. I'm sure more copies of TR would be sold over here if there was a strong marketing campaign and more interest would be shown by gamers around the world. They really need to hit the nail on the head when it comes to global advertising, just like Ubisoft with the Assassin's Creed series. Now I know that Ubisoft is a MAJOR gaming company, but to me there's no excuse as to expanding advertising around the world with the TR series.
Lara is well known, so why not show that?

(I apologize for my long rant )

[Darryl_kerr]

Hmmm is there any set relese date for the game? If u ask me im jist glad to see that another game is 100% and looking forward to it, this if it dont take us 2 days to complete lol

[Katie]

I like reading everyone's opinions, always interesting to me. No release date yet...but with E3 coming up in a couple of months I'm sure it will be released by then!

[Naids]

Katie, on 30 March 2011 - 01:21 AM, said:

I like reading everyone's opinions, always interesting to me. No release date yet...but with E3 coming up in a couple of months I'm sure it will be released by then!

I hope so! I really hope there will be a trailer or at least something at E3! That would make my year!

[Darryl_kerr]

3 of my fav game franchises to continue this year :-D zelda, tomb raider and silent hill :-D its going to be such a good year for games

[Naids]

Darryl_kerr, on 30 March 2011 - 05:37 PM, said:

3 of my fav game franchises to continue this year :-D zelda, tomb raider and silent hill :-D its going to be such a good year for games

It sure is going to be!

[Darryl_kerr]

Naids, on 31 March 2011 - 07:37 AM, said:

It sure is going to be!

Just hope it dont distract me from my uni work lol

[Marc1]

I also think there's been too much emphasis on Lara's 'attributes'during promotions and in the latest games, she did look faintly ridiculous.
Anyhow, I'm glad that as a character she is evolving, so to speak, even if we are going back in time to a much younger Lara.
More realism can only be a step in the right direction.
It's a brave move by CD and I really think this will work. A trailer or demo would be good, but demos are becoming far and few between nowadays. (MW2 etc)

[Katie]

Nice to have you back Marc Agreed with the demos comment, but I think CD has been pretty good with getting demos out in the past for TR? Of course the danger with releasing demos is if someone thought they were going to buy the game, tried the demo and decided they didn't like it, there goes a sale of the game

[Nashlayer]

But there is "other side of medal": if there is a demo, then everyone can try the game (if it is a fan of Lara ), and decide for yourself - to buy or not. To my mind, here the main thing - how well the player knows Lara. And as a player believes are Eidos, Crystal and Square...

[Katie]

Oh I'm definitely hoping for a demo! There are times I didn't buy a game because I couldn't test it. Hopefully we'll start to get some more info at E3. I'm not loving their time line though for releasing info...