So, how did Enter the Dominatrix go from being a $30 expansion pack for Saints Row 3 to becoming an independent sequel that was bigger than any of the Saints Row games that had gone before it? More importantly, how did Deep Silver go about convincing gamers that Saints Row 4 was now going to be worth paying full price for?
Speaking to [a]listdaily, Deep Silver’s PR rep Aubrey Norris - who Game Rant is familiar with thanks to her always-entertaining PR releases for Saints Row 4 and other games - discussed the formulation of the marketing campaign for Saints Row 4, which featured gimmicks like the $1 million dollar collector’s edition of the game (including, amongst other bonuses, a Lamborghini Gallardo, some plastic surgery and a trip to space) and was launched with an epic announcement trailer. Norris explains that there was a considerable amount of confusion to clear up:
A lot of the trailers and promotions for Saints Row IV have been tongue-in-cheek, not only poking fun at other games but also, in many ways, parodying the nature of video game marketing campaigns and some of the techniques used to promote them. Asked about their heavily humorous approach to selling the game, Norris explained:
“It’s not something you can fix overnight… You can’t show everything that you have right away, otherwise what kind of marketing campaign would you have. It was something that we had to overcome over time. The game very obviously is its own deal and very obviously a full game, so it wasn’t hard to overcome that, it was just a matter of time. You have to get to a certain point where you’ve shown enough.
True to the spirit of the series, the trailers for Saints Row IV showcased the most ludicrous new features available on the game, including the superpowers that the Saints Row Boss and newly-inaugurated President of the United States acquires, new weapons such as the appropriately-named dubstep gun and weapon mods that can reskin a rocket launcher to look like a guitar case.
The marketing for Saints Row IV ultimately paid off, with the game selling 1 million units within a few weeks of its initial release, and tripling the first week PC sales tally for Saints Row III. The original expansion pack, Enter the Dominatrix, is now planned to release as a piece of DLC for Saints Row IV (possibly as part of the text-based 8 bit dominatrix game that has been teased in some of the trailers).
Tell us if the Saints Row IV marketing campaign convinced you to buy the game, or whether you were planning to purchase it all along, in the comments.
Saints Row IV is out now on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.
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Source: [a]listdaily
