Virii and Guerrillas, Blogs and Sony

N’gai Croal notes in his blog that Sony should address the problem of them not having an active presence in the realm of blogging. He cites Ozymandias (Andre Virgnaud) and other Microsoft bloggers like Major Nelson, Gamerscore, and Game Tycoon as a nice example Microsoft reaching out and making a connection with the citizens of the internet.

Although Ozymandias’ motives are, as N’gai Croal puts it, “hilariously transparent” Ozymandias’ blog does well to bash anything and everything Sony. Furthermore it provides that consumer to company link that Microsoft needs.

N’gai notes that Sony fails at giving consumers information that they really need, straight from the company they purchased or acquired the products from. For example he says that when PS3 firmware updates are released, nothing in the download process really explains what the updates to. Yes, the updates page on the official Sony site gets updated from time to time, but it’s nothing as powerful, reassuring, and as effective as say, a Major Nelson blog update. Often times people will have to go to sites like like QJ, or at NeoGAF for immediate word on the matter.

Remember PS3 Firmware Update v1.3?

The gap is there. A Sony “fan-boy” would sooner trust an obscure post by 0okm or a quick how-to from Pranav, than wait for the Sony site to update. A Microsoft “xbot” will go to Major Nelson’s blog. Big gap right there.

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N’gai Croal notes in his blog that Sony should address the problem of them not having an active presence in the realm of blogging. He cites Ozymandias (Andre Virgnaud) and other Microsoft bloggers like Major Nelson, Gamerscore, and Game Tycoon as a nice example Microsoft reaching out and making a connection with the citizens of the internet.

Although Ozymandias’ motives are, as N’gai Croal puts it, “hilariously transparent”, Ozymandias’ blog does well to bash anything and everything Sony. Furthermore, it provides that consumer-to-company link that Microsoft needs.

N’gai notes that Sony fails at giving consumers information that they really need, straight from the company they purchased or acquired the products from. For example, he says that when PS3 firmware updates are released, nothing in the download process really explains what the updates do. Yes, the updates page on the official Sony site gets updated from time to time, but it’s nothing as powerful, reassuring, and as effective as say, a Major Nelson blog update. Often times people will have to go to sites like like QJ, or at NeoGaf for immediate word on the matter.

Remember PS3 Firmware Update v1.3?

The gap is there. A Sony “fan-boy” would sooner trust an obscure post by 0okm or a quick how-to from Pranav, than wait for the Sony site to update. A Microsoft “xbot” will go to Major Nelson’s blog. Big gap right there.

Semi-official
So what has Sony done recently to fill it? What have they done to “get connected”? Looking at recent news posts doesn’t make one feel comfortable.

Let’s start from last month. Let’s look at Three Speech. What’s the big deal with that “pseudo” Sony blog? Well that’s the problem with it: it’s pseudo. At least when Ozymandias starts bashing Sony in his posts, we all know that he’s a Microsoft employee. He’s upfront about where he comes from, so when he starts bashing, agree with the bashing or not, we just take it as his own personal/professional opinion.

There’s just something about “Semi official”, that activates an emergency alert in a netizen’s subconscious. It just turns people off.

Viral Faux-pas
Speaking of turning people off, let’s fast forward a bit to a more recent Sony connect-to-consumers attempt that failed. Yeah, we know, all we want for Christmas is a PSP too… har har. Anyway, we’re just glad that the nightmare is over.

God Bless the FTC.

Despite the demise of the horrific beast, it did however, leave a sour taste in our mouths. A whole lot of gaming related websites had things to say about it. For a week we read comments about it from 1UP, all the way to some-site-that-starts-with-the-letter-Z (sorry, too lazy to do Google search right now), even QJ’s very own Victor B. had something to say about it.

Allow this blogger to indulge his personal preferences and let him post here a quote from Penny Arcade‘s Tycho, just because the Penny Arcade writer said it oh so well:

We need to distinguish between “viral” marketing and “guerrilla” marketing. The reality is that no agency can create viral marketing, this is the sole domain of the consumer. Viral marketing is what happens when a campaign works – when we allow their message to travel via our own superefficient conduits. Perhaps it is entertaining on its own terms, divorced from the message. Perhaps it is a game or a story, like I Love Bees or other ARGs, where we take ownership in it. What distinguishes this from guerrilla Marketing is that we are aware of the message. When we are not aware of the message, or when the agents of the message misrepresent themselves, we call this “deception.”

This post doesn’t really want to bash Sony because they’re evil. This post really wants to underscore the fact that Sony feels so distant. Surely, they’re not expecting that we break down and declare ala Winston Smith that we “love Big Brother”? Well, yeah, they’re not. They’re a business, they obviously don’t have that in mind. They serve themselves, but they’re not the “dehbyl”. They’re making an effort, they’re taking “baby steps.” SCEA exec Peter Dille said this in an interview, dated November 15 at Croal’s Level Up:

Being relevant in the digital space is something that I want to see our organization do better. We’ve made some moves recently to do some of that. It’s baby steps, but it’s something you’ll see more of from us going forward.

Like.No.Other
Somehow that doesn’t seem aggressive enough. Kudos to Sony for that amazing Play B3yond campaign, but the site, and the videos in it, as visually appealing as they are, feel like something that is detached and is meant to be displayed on television, not something that’s alive and contagious on the internet. Well, there’s Smedley’s blog, but it isn’t loud enough.

Some of us here at QJ are still avid fans of the company, and some of us still support their products. We still want our PSP’s, our PSP’s, and hope-to-god our future PS4’s. It’s just that so far, their push to be connected with us the gamers have been disappointing.

Look at Microsoft: they’ve got employees being baby-faces, and blogging about this and that, or about XBL updates, demos, and what-not. Look at Nintendo: they’re pushing that they’re being “humble”, they’re saying they aren’t competing, and they’re making grand gestures by replacing defective safety implements things for free.

Sigh. We’re not saying “Sony suxxors”, we’re saying: Look Sony, MGPO is out for the PSP, a Final Fantasy Tactics remake is making its way to your handheld. People are still being loyal and are still waiting (we are) for the Tekkens, the DMCs, the Metal Gears, and the Squeenix RPGs to come out for the PS3. For the love of Bob and all the uncle Dave’s of the Multiverse, reach out to your users.

Do something. Your fans already are. No, that horrific hip-hop routine doesn’t count.