EA appear to be releasing some UK localised viral marketing for Left 4 Dead 2, which seems to be aiming for the Shaun of the Dead fanbase. Two guys in a shed, explaining how to survive the zombie apocalypse caused by the “L4D2 virus”. But this one’s a misfire.
It falls short of the standard we’ve come to expect of L4D2 promotions. There’s clearly mileage in zombie survival guides – goodness knows there’s plenty of them. Zombieland most recently played on this idea very successfully, its list of rules for survival woven hilariously into the movie. But this would surely be two guys pratting around in their shed on a bored afternoon, were it not for the obviously high quality camera, array of props, and make up effects at the end.
It’s fair to assume this isn’t aimed at the average hardcore PC gamer, who’s going to be following the leaks and trails coming directly from Valve HQ in the build up to the game – this is about reaching outside of such a group. And it has a fart joke.
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A 25 million dollars marketing campaign on this ?
This might just be the first mediocre thing I have ever seen with Valve’s name attached to it. Very strange feeling.
it was mostly ea
Don’t you mean second? /rimshot
What the hell was that?
Badly done, EA / Valve. Badly done.
Should I make a “EA ruinned everything” comment?
Nah, I have standards.
I have read one of these “Survive a Zombie Invasion” handbooks, and found it really boring. I think all the discussions on the XKCD boards about surviving a “Velociraptor Invasion” are more ralistic and fun.
But I have to admit I like to talk to such things in forums.
Re: Video
I have nothing bad to say. Is bad?
Was it the Max Brooks one? I read that and it bored me to tears, but everyone else raved about it. The Z Wars thing he did looks better.
Valve still refuse to take my suggestion to make Velociraptor the tenth TF2 class seriously.
Yea, the Max Brooks one. It reads like like a manual *in a wrong way*· I think I have read enough weird literature ..by now, …to say is a failed experiment. I sould probably have buy any of the other books… that now are tempting.. but I say NO.
The line of “I miss the internet” from L4D was epic.
*cough* http://www.cracked.com/photoshop_90_the-world-tomorrow-if-internet-disappeared-today_p20 *cough*
Yea, the Max Brooks one. It reads like like a manual *in a wrong way*· I think I have read enough weird literature ..by now, …to say is a failed experiment. I sould probably have buy any of the other books… that now are tempting.. but I say NO.
The line of “I miss the internet” from L4D was epic.
*cough*….photoshop_90_the-world-tomorrow-if-internet-disappeared-today_p20 *cough*
If by failed experiment you mean on the New York Times Bestseller list, then yeah, it is.
Fail.
I’ll show you how it’s fukin’ done!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnNIs4YKtZM
Valve royally fuck up all the time: PowerPlay , original Steam release, Half-Life 2 release date etc…
Many people probably don’t remember that the Friends part of Steam was offline with a “Coming back soon” message for about 5 years or something silly.
Are you sure this isn’t a Game advert? Because Lord it’s about as terrible as all the Game/Gamestation nonsense we’re used to.
Actually with the weapons at the end they look like Airsoft rifles which any serious airsofter is likely to own. But yeah the zombies look pretty good. Only the camera gave it away that it’s a viral. The zombies actually look quite alot like http://www.beazombie.com zombies actually
looks like this was made by GAME to sell pre-orders
EA have a schizophrenic marketing division. The way they’ve handled Brutal Legend is a good example.
Web advert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLivCZ1bGpc (Pretty good)
TV advert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVo98qkUoTc (What did I just see!?)
Their output is all over the place.
Holy shit that was shit.
I thought it was really funny in a Shawn of the Dead sort of way, his mate even brought him back a 4 pinter of milk – but it was from Morrisons so it was probably nearly out of date.
I’m going to file this next to “the new shit” and ignore it. Valve still knows what they’re doing, even if marketing still doesn’t.
I agree with you 100%, couldn’t have said it better. And really, once I’ll be playing Dragon Age and L4D2, I seriously don’t think any of these silly ads/trailers will matter.
…. wtf
Hehe. The guy’s assistant reminded me of Gareth from The Office. :D
Fucking work experience kids.
This is awful :(
Yeah, he looked pretty angry when he staggered towards him with it as well haha
Bleh….That was just…
…Bleh.
How is this from EA/Valve? The user that posted the video is http://www.youtube.com/user/L4D2outbreak
Nothing on that page could lead one to believe that either Valve or EA produced this.
It’s likely that the video was produced by Game.co.uk.
It was produced by EA according to the PR company promoting it.
Ah, didn’t see this before making my post below… Glad it wasn’t Valve, anyhoo.
This makes me sad.
Having a Grumpy(er) Tuesday now.
You know that Ad agencies and PR companies were the first to see redundancies during the recession. But like a zombie, those fuckers just will not die.
“I blame EA”
-Trad.
My girlfriend works on the finance side of a media company, you wouldn’t believe how many millions of £ companies spend per month to advertise their product. As far as her company was concerned, there was no recession.
It would be extremely unusual for a games outlet to produce an original ad for a game, rather than simply using stock material from the developer/publisher themselves with the store name/narration patched on (like at the end of this). Can anyone think of any other examples? I can’t… Then again, it did look like this cost a few thousand at most to make. Not a huge viral investment.
It would be comforting if this weren’t made/sanctioned by Valve, though I can see how the original concept *might* have sounded like it would work. This clearly doesn’t.
Not only do I find the lack of a chainsaw disturbing, but the fact that they used an electric strimmer puzzling indeed… yes, I admit… I watched it *cries*
I watched about 30 seconds of it, and then recognised it was Horne and Corden. It explains it all really.
It’s not. It looks a lot like them (which was probably the intention) but it isn’t them.
So you mean to say there are others worse than those two calamities?
I think I need to sit down for a while…
Worst thing is, there’s a part two as well.
Dont think it is Horne and Corden.
As much as I enjoy L4D, they are the furthest thing from “zombies”. At least Shaun of the Dead understood zombies (the last movie to do so might I add).
I don’t think it was bad. But Valve can better, that’s true.
Got to agree. I didn’t think it was a bad advert, it had a little humour to it, just that Valve and EA can do so much better with an ad.
yeah, same here. pretty funny at points, but with Valve’s and EA’s combined resources, you’d think they could’ve put out something with a little more awesome in it.
I have to admit to a minor chuckle at the idea of attacking a zombie with a lawn trimmer.
I’d so very much prefer a lawn trimmer over a chainsaw.
We’ve gone full circle. Our simulations of the embarrassingly shit are back to being embarrassingly shit. We are now living in the past that people look back on and mock. AGAIN. Except that I fear that we won’t even have that level of awareness in the future because it’s not a circle any more, is a helix, spiralling down in on itself. This crap will become so ubiquitous that our great-grandchildren, whose culture is as a muddledly self-referential as Wikipedia in 2030, will laud it the art of the ancients. This is cultural suicide by endless dilution. Homeopathic humour, the masses laughing at nothing because there’s supposedly a joke somewhere in the sea of piss. FUCK.
Absolutely awful.
Eh, it’s a commercial. Who cares?
Nick Frost and Simon Pegg already did their own Zombie survial guide as part of 5000 volts:
First part is here
Ooop, someone already stealth posted this above.
Still watch it! Its perfect for Left 4 Dead 2.
Am I the only one who thought the last couple bits were kind of funny? D:
I mean, it wasn’t laugh out loud territory, but the last few made me smile.
Am I the only one that actually thought this was kinda amusing?
Duhhhh, must learn to read before posting.
This and delaying the PC demo release today makes me want to kick Valve in the balls.
First Dragon Age and now this, terrible marketing.
At least the Brutal Legend commercial was awesome.
Hay EA, how about you give all your allotted promotional budget to Valve so that they can do something useful with it? Thanks.
I didn’t enjoy it, but I’m not sure what’s so surprisingly bad about it. It’s an ad for a vide game, they’re usually a bit rubbish.
I quite liked it
You people just don’t like it because the blog post said that you shouldn’t like it. But it’s all good, it’s a trend on this site anyway :D
I thought it was funny. Not 'rofl' funny but amusing. Strimmer…lol :)
I'm glad he remembered the milk…
Right next to “The Glass Castle” by Jeanette Walls eh? ;)
@apa please may i be the first to tell you to fuck off you condescending twat…
i watched the video and came to my own conclusion and thought it was weak and really a bit embarrassing…
Hey there, calm yourself down. This isn’t the Youtube comment section. We’re civil folks around here.
Well, it got people talking, so it’s win for them?
have you seen this viral support or what is it…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf4mttk5ygc&feature=player_embedded