The 9 Most Memorable Viral Game Ads

The 9 Most Memorable Viral Game Ads

Obtrusive advertisements can be aggravating, but the following nine game ads are actually quite awesome.

In this brave new Web 2.0 world of ours, normal ads just won't cut it anymore. With the help of pop-up blockers, DVRs, and notoriously short attention spans, savvy gamers can spurn marketers' loud, flashy advances more easily than ever before.

So, how's a videogame publisher to put bread on the table? By getting creative, of course. Here are nine memorable ad campaigns that caught our eyes and, in some cases, even tickled our funny bones.

The 9 Most Memorable Viral Game Ads

Click here to see the trippy Youtube video for Wario Land: Shake It!

9. Wario Land: Shake It! Youtube Video

Oh boy, a trailer. Big whoop, right? Well, this isn't any ordinary trailer. Press the play button and watch as Wario's money mongering frenzy shakes Youtube to its very core. Text scatters to the far corners of the page, windows fall like remnants of a Jenga game gone awry, and related videos litter the landscape. Guess that's what Youtube gets for playing host to a guy who looks like he'd be more at home tying kidnapped women to train tracks.



8. Resident Evil 5's Press Conferences

Resident Evil 5's viral videos were as polished as they were creepy. Fake press releases, romantic soap opera scenes, and autobiographical action shorts were just a few things Capcom sent out into the digital wild. RE5's weird and unusual ad campaign took a bunch of tips from current horror films, giving excited survival-horror fans just a little taste of what they'd be facing in the game. In fact, some of the acting and production values in the viral ads easily rivaled that of the actual Resident Evil film series...



The 9 Most Memorable Viral Game Ads

'I would never put rat in my Ratatouille,' said a feisty Mama while beating some eggs. 'Like any accomplished cook, I create my recipes to appeal to a broad range of tastes and preferences. My only goal is to ensure you leave the table well fed.' (from Cooking Mama's response to Peta)

7. Cooking Mama's Verbal Assaults

Twice have mere mortals had the gall to insult Cooking Mama, and twice they have faltered. First, PETA took a swing at the fiery chef, so Mama responded in turn. That is to say, Majesco put out a press release with comments from a fictional character. Activision's ill-named Science Papa received a similar, though far more personal tongue-lashing (apparently, the two dated "briefly"). Reading press releases has never been so much fun.



The 9 Most Memorable Viral Game Ads

Even we were fooled by EA's protesters when we saw them at E3 2009.

6. Dante's Inferno "Protesters"

"Just say Infer-NO?" "EA = Electronic Antichrist?" Sure, those and other such picket sign gems had us wondering if this E3's Dante's Inferno protest was bogus (shocking truth: it was dreamed up by an ad agency), but they also had us in stitches, which is never a bad thing. Yeah, the whole thing ruffled a few feathers, but this is coming from the publisher that turned a literary classic into a God of War clone. It could've been worse.



5. Bike Hero

We can't even imagine how much work went into this piece of guerilla advertising. The long and short of it? It's Guitar Hero, but on a bike. Everything else both on and around the bike is also done up in true rockstar fashion, with an entire song chart drawn along the bike's path. And it's all synced perfectly to "Prisoner of Society" by The Living End. Our words don't do it justice. Just watch it.

Comments [14]

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karateman

i rmemember this ads, i did'nt think they're were adds when i firts saw theem!

PlasmaSnake

karateman wrote:

i rmemember this ads, i did'nt think they're were adds when i firts saw theem!

PlasmaSnake

karateman wrote:

i rmemember this ads, i did'nt think they're were adds when i firts saw theem!

you're didn't now them? i like the wario

Crunch40

Nice list, my fave was the Wario Land/youtube thing. It was just plain EPIC!

wutisupmon

Nice list and idea...but what about Halo 3? That was an epic marketing campaign that stretched into live-action movie shorts, interviews with 'veterans', and scaled mock-ups. No dice?

Fastthumbs227

What about Tiger Woods walking on water or Rocco Mediate trying to walk in the water and falling

ChokaDaChicken

I loved the Wizard as a kid, I still wonder how the heck that kid knew about the whistle inMario 3 ( greatest game of all time ) when it just got introduced at the tournament on the movie.

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