As part of a new analyst note, Janco Partners' Mike Hickey has referenced the latest Grand Theft Auto IV-satirizing trailer for THQ's Saint's Row 2, suggesting the move is "unusually pompous" and reiterating "conservative" sales expectations for THQ's urban open-world title.
Commenting within an entertainment business round-up sent out to clients and selective press, Hickey noted specifically:
The trailer directly attacks Grand Theft Auto IV in game content, an unusually pompous position in our view, considering GTA IV is estimated to be the highest grossing 1st week entertainment release of all time - and is currently the highest quality scored game on both the Xbox 360 and PS3 according to Metacritic.com.
We remain conservative on our sales expectations for Saint’s Row 2, in light of mediocre game previews and a delayed release in-part from quality concerns."
The game's delay, originally announced on May 29th, meant that Saint's Row 2, developed by original series creators Volition and due to debut on August 26th, will be released on October 14th in the U.S.
Saint's Row 2 is a key franchise title for THQ, which recently 'realigned' following a loss in fiscal 2008, and is concentrating on a mix of original IP and licensed family titles "to take advantage of the expanding demographic on the growing installed base of new gaming systems."
This kind of marketing has been around forever. Pepsi ragged on Coke for a few summers back in the days. Sega had an array of commercials that directly mocked the 8bit Nintendo system during their "next level" campaign. Nintendo fired back (i think with star fox) with "why go to the next level when you can go light years beyond" slogan. It's just part the marketing game; they are playing off of the success of GTA and it will likely bank them a few thousand extra copies sold. I think it's humorous more than pompous.
The problem with this marketing is that it doesn't succeed because it's not over the top enough.
Saints Row is in a bad place with the state of their game, and the bottomline is that they need better marketing to get a big payback from it. But unless they start doing smarter marketing, they're doomed.
I wouldn't call it any more pompous than the same sort of jabs that the GTA series takes at numerous other games. It comes across, for the most part, as more of a light hearted "Play me too" sort of jab than a "GTA sucks".
I think it's just a matter of, "Well, our game is clearly going to sell far fewer copes and get far poorer reviews, so let's at least do SOMETHING to get noticed." It seems a lot of fans expecting more over-the-top content as seen in San Andreas took to the adds.
I thought the clip was great, all of those activities in GTA IV were worthless junk on top of too many broken, carried over systems from previous iterations of the series. Hopefully SR2 isn't as big a let down at GTA IV was.
Saints Row is in a bad place with the state of their game, and the bottomline is that they need better marketing to get a big payback from it. But unless they start doing smarter marketing, they're doomed.
AB
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