There goes my hero: Bike Hero was pro, admits Activision
Awww… so it was a professional production after all. I was ready to give those “neighborhood kids” a boxload of Mario stars for the superb “Bike Hero” clip they did for Guitar Hero: World Tour (Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii), until Activision told the bursting-your-bubble-truth about the pros behind this smart marketing scheme of theirs. Revelation spins after the jump.
Looks like the naysayers were right on this one. No, the now-famous “Bike Hero” vid originally posted on YouTube was not made by a bunch of guys who had too much time on their hands. They were, in fact, a professional production team called Droga 5 who shot the whole amazing clip in North Hollywood. This we found out from Activision themselves as they spilled the beans to MTV Multiplayer.
Yeah, it’s kinda disappointing, sort of like finding out that the tooth fairy isn’t real (especially after you deliberately threw yourself on the ground just to get that tooth lodged out), but hey, whatever. It is a cool video, right?
But anyway, going back to Activision spilling the beans. According to an executive from the company, they did expect other people to take on the role of disbelievers. However, they clarified that “It’s not meant to be deceptive. It’s meant to be fun.”
And it is fun! But apparently, a lot of work were put in to get that fun-ness out of the box. Says Brad Jakeman, new Chief Creative Officer for Activision, “We shot all through the night. We wanted to feel gritty and of the medium.”
So at the end of the day, yes, the video was not made out of sheer boredom, but to entice you lot to get into the game of Guitar Hero: World Tour (Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii). Jakeman furthers,
This was always created and put out there to engage the creativity of our gamers. It didn’t take people very long, as we expected it to, for them to unlock the first of the codes, if you like. We wanted people to first figure out that it was something in the marketing realm and then dig in and have more of the conversation that we’re having about how it was done, have people figure out where all the cutting points were, where there was potentially CGI, and engage with that. It’s not meant to be deceptive. It’s meant to be fun.
I find this marketing ploy to be very smart actually. For me, it did ground that feeling of excitement pretty well. Be on your toes, though. Activision admits they still have some more “homemade” stuff like this sneaking around in the future. But it’s not like I’d mind either.
Related Bike Hero Article:
Via MTV Multiplayer
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