How Lost Planet got sold: more demos

Forbes‘ little profile on Capcom‘s marketing-boy Mark Beaumont reveals the strategy behind how the critically-acclaimed Lost Planet: Extreme Condition sold that many copies. It’s a strategy that should be familiar to gamers by now, but one which Capcom was late getting into, one which also points to the future (or the now) of video game promotion.

According to Forbes, before Beaumont came along, Capcom was still promoting like it’s 1995: buy random TV spots, print ads in game mags, that sort of thing. The old-fashioned way.

Mark changed that for Lost Planet, looking towards the twin pillars of first tastes through demos and community networking. You already know the demos. For community, he got Capcom to start a contest for user-created Lost Planet fansites, and along with the demos, jumpstarting word-of-mouth chain reactions. Only with this foundation built did Beaumont bring out the heavy guns: theatrical trailers, TV spots, the whole nine yards of pre-dot-com marketing.

Hey, it worked, didn’t it? Bungie’s also been doing the same thing for Halo (from I Love Bees to Who Wants To Be A Halo 3 Beta Tester?).

But as Beamont’s story pops up in an important business magazine read by guys in gray suits that head major publishers – not to mention Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo – this may help reinforce the trends we’ve been seeing in the industry. More demos. More interaction with the community. More and more will come to us gamers to promote their material.

At least that’s our take on it. But hey, we wouldn’t mind an avalanche of good demos. That’s one good Moral of the Story we’d all appreciate, right?

Forbes‘ little profile on Capcom‘s marketing-boy Mark Beaumont reveals the strategy behind how the critically-acclaimed Lost Planet: Extreme Condition sold that many copies. It’s a strategy that should be familiar to gamers by now, but one which Capcom was late getting into, one which also points to the future (or the now) of video game promotion.

According to Forbes, before Beaumont came along, Capcom was still promoting like it’s 1995: buy random TV spots, print ads in game mags, that sort of thing. The old-fashioned way.

Mark changed that for Lost Planet, looking towards the twin pillars of first tastes through demos and community networking. You already know the demos. For community, he got Capcom to start a contest for user-created Lost Planet fansites, and along with the demos, jumpstarting word-of-mouth chain reactions. Only with this foundation built did Beaumont bring out the heavy guns: theatrical trailers, TV spots, the whole nine yards of pre-dot-com marketing.

Hey, it worked, didn’t it? Bungie’s also been doing the same thing for Halo (from I Love Bees to Who Wants To Be A Halo 3 Beta Tester?).

But as Beamont’s story pops up in an important business magazine read by guys in gray suits that head major publishers – not to mention Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo – this may help reinforce the trends we’ve been seeing in the industry. More demos. More interaction with the community. More and more will come to us gamers to promote their material.

At least that’s our take on it. But hey, we wouldn’t mind an avalanche of good demos. That’s one good Moral of the Story we’d all appreciate, right?