Analog Gamers Gaming From a Slightly Different Perspective

By now, I think the entire internet has seen the video embedded in this post. It was released last week, and was rumored to be Dead Rising 2. When I first saw it, I thought that it looked far too polished to be a prank, especially coming as it did on the day the New York Comic Con began. As it turns out, I was right.

Capcom has confirmed that the video is indeed a very small glimpse of Dead Rising 2. The confirmation read as follows:

THE DEAD WALK AGAIN AS CAPCOM CONFIRMS DEAD RISING 2
Sequel to 1.5 million-plus seller announced for multiple gaming platforms
London – February 9, 2009 – Capcom®, a leading worldwide developer and publisher of video games, today confirmed that Dead Rising™ 2 is in development for three different gaming platforms: the Xbox 360™ video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and Sony Computer Entertainment’s PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3™) and the PC. The sequel to the 1.5 million-plus selling Dead Rising™, Dead Rising 2 will take the franchise to a new level of zombie-killing fun with tens of thousands of zombies, the all new gambling paradise of Fortune City to explore and conquer plus a host of new in-game objects that can all be used as deadly weapons to stave off the zombie assault.

All of this hoopla makes me wonder if what we’re seeing is the future of video game advertisement. After all, the distribution of the video around the internet on Friday was amazingly fast. People were weighing in with their predictions all over in a matter of minutes. Dead Rising fans were scouring the net looking for more news, and in the process spreading the word even further and faster.

While viral marketing is not new, these types of thinly disguised ads remain highly effective. People will watch them simply for the idea that they are seeing something secret, or something uncovered. Then, those same people will tell their friends, post on their blogs, embed the video, and spread the word far more effectively than an ad on a website could do, and with far less expense.

What do you think? Will we continue to see the market move toward these viral marketing types, or will they only be used in addition to more traditional marketing methods?