Metal Wolf Chaos XD
Honestly, Devolver Digital doesn’t even really need to try to make Metal Wolf Chaos XD hilarious. On its own, Metal Wolf Chaos is one of the most unintentionally funny games ever made and just existing is enough to support a marketing campaign.
Still, Devolver’s marketing efforts that consist of just smashing together gameplay and cutscenes from the game, alongside dramatic music and effects, is genius as they contrast so effectively with the absolutely absurd premise of the game.
It’s the end of the first quarter of the 21st century and the United States is in chaos as Vice President Richard Hawk successfully leads a coup d’état against 47th president Michael Wilson.
Fortunately Michael Wilson is equipped with a state of the art mech suit and is going to bring freedom back to America… through any means possible.
Also, Devolver created a new animated trailer which perfectly encapsulates the game’s classic opening scene and line: Let’s Party!
Anything That Involved Kevin Butler
Kevin Butler, former fictional VP of everything at Sony, cemented himself as a video game marketing legend during the PS3 era.
Played by actor Jerry Lambert, Butler promoted many Sony exclusive games over the course of two or three years, and even made an appearance at E3 2010, giving one of the best speeches ever at the conference.
At the time the commercials started rolling out, the PS3 was still reeling a bit from its slow launch in the United States.
Butler’s TV spots rekindled a sense of swagger and confidence in Sony’s marketing that was lacking at the time, and they proved to be among the funniest and most memorable marketing campaigns of the previous generation of consoles.
Crash Bandicoot During the PS1 Era
Speaking of swagger, there are few gaming characters in the 90s that had more than Crash Bandicoot. Looking to carve a name out from under the shadow of gaming giants Nintendo and Sega, Sony adopted Naughty Dog’s Crash Bandicoot character as a mascot of sorts for the PS1.
The character was a central part of in your face commercials that even saw Crash go to Nintendo HQ with a megaphone to call out Mario.
Crash Bandicoot was quite revolutionary for its time, and the marketing strategy of “a guy in a Crash suit” has been revived by Activision in recent years with the release of the remastered versions of Crash 1-3 and CTR.
Whatever Segata Sanshiro Wanted us to Play
Segata Sanshiro is not only a video game marketing legend, he’s a borderline horror icon too.
He was a man with a strange passion: the extremely ill-fated Sega Saturn console. I harbor no love for the Sega Saturn. I didn’t own one and it’s failure set up the much improved Sega Dreamcast for failure which was one of my favorite consoles of all-time.
However, even I can’t deny the majesty of Segata Sanshiro, who would aggressively show up like Michael Myers from Halloween anywhere people were doing literally anything other than playing Sega Saturn.
Go to the 2:00 mark in the video above for my personal favorite moment.
World of Warcraft
It’s safe to say that Blizzard has probably the most star studded marketing campaigns in video game history. The red carpet was rolled out for stars such as Aubrey Plaza, Mr. T and even Chuck Norris to start in various TV commercials for World of Warcraft.
Hell, you can argue that the World of Warcraft episode of South Park, Make Love, Not Warcraft, was one giant marketing stunt. It’s an all-time classic episode though, so whatever it took to make that happen, it was worth it.
Personally, I was always fond of the Mr.T commercials which highlighted Mohawk Warrior Grenades which actually appeared in-game for a limited time. Plus, come on… it’s Mr.T!
Super Smash Bros.
This one is just a classic right? At the time of its airing it was one of the most shocking marketing campaigns Nintendo has ever done. All of the cute, friendly Nintendo characters bashing each other? Blasphemous!
It was a bold move that paid off for Nintendo though, as it helped launched Super Smash Bros., a game that would eventually become one of the most popular video game series of all-time.
Devolver Bootleg
Devolver has no shortage of wacky ideas to promote their games. Hell, their entire E3 press conference is, by design, a mockery of the traditional press conference and has turned into now this bizarre movie that we get updates on once a year.
Anyway, at this past E3 we got a commercial for a game called Devolver Bootleg which at first most people thought was a joke, but it turned out to be real.
The game features demake knock-offs of popular Devolver published games such as Shootyboots, Catsylvania, and Hotline Milwaukee.
Not only did they sell us on a new game in the most surprising and funny way possible, it’s also a not so subtle marketing campaign for the real versions of all those games. Genius!
Conker’s Bad Fur Day
It’s hard to believe this was a real commercial that Nintendo signed off on. Depending on your sense of humor, you might find this commercial for Conker’s Bad Fur Day funny at face value.
It’s not really my jam, but there’s no denying it’s one of the most shocking and iconic games of the N64-era and this commercial does a pretty good job of describing what players are in for.
For me though, what makes me laugh is how absurd everything in this commercial, from the description of this woman’s night out with a squirrel, to the bathroom noises, and the uh, belly rub. Again, this is a commercial that actually was made and it’s definitely funny to laugh at now in 2019.
Clash of Clans
Liam Neeson starting with Batman Begins and then later with Taken and The Grey, has turned himself into one of the most bad ass actors in Hollywood.
Although there’s nothing that’s super dramatic about Clash of Clans, a popular RTS mobile game, Liam Neeson turns it into a scene out of Taken, threatening to make “BigBuffetBoy85” pay for ever crossing him.
Team Fortress 2
Team Fortress 2 was already extremely popular before the “Meet The” series of videos came out.
While the first couple were just quick vignettes to introduce various classes, the quality of the videos eventually stepped up and became among most popular video game marketing videos on YouTube.
Meet the Medic (above) for example has over 50 million views! It’s for good reason too: all of the videos are hysterical.
Valve has done a number of shorts featuring the Team Fortress 2 characters and if they really wanted to, they could turn Team Fortress into a regular animated comedy series, that’s how much charm and personality the characters have.
Those are 10 marketing campaigns that stood out to us as being particular funny, but what about you? What are your favorites? Let us know in the comments below. If you’re interested, we’ve also done a round up of some of our favorite video game commercials of all-time.
Published: Aug 30, 2019 04:41 pm