>Okay, so back in my post on porn as advertising, I talked about the growing prevalence of using porn to advertise free MMOs. Today I’m going to target a somewhat related phenomenon – the breast play now button. Cheesecake women with heaving bosoms and not enough clothing are a tried and true tactic in MMO advertising, but some advertisers (*cough*Evony*cough*) really go the extra mile with the “breast (or sometimes ass) now button”.
Here, I’ll show you what I mean with some examples:
All right. Now does anything strike you about the placement of this button? Like, say, that it’s right next to her luscious faerie ass? In order to look at the “Play for Free” button, you literally have to ogle this poor faerie’s backside.
In a fairly marketing shill piece on mmocrunch.com, an Allods marketing rep was asked why Allods is using such sexual advertisements. Response is as follows:
Allods Online: This ad actually only makes up around 2% of our ad spending, while 98% of our spending goes towards ads that rave about Allods’ graphics and award-winning gameplay. Sometimes these other ads just get lost in the marketplace and a different strategy is required to break out of the clutter.
Riiiiight. Clearly this ad is justified because it’s bringing something new to the world of MMO advertising. I mean no one else has ever used breasts to make their product stand out, right?
All sarcasm aside, this response is entirely disingenuous. He’s trying to make it sound like the boob-tacular advertisements are a very small part of their marketing portfolio, but notice the wording. “This ad”? Well if you consider that to mean that particular permutation of that ad, well he might be telling the truth. But wait! I’ve seen at least three different versions of the lesbian fairies on the internet. And how the hell does he explain this?
Oh my god! This is, like, the most clever ad EVAR. You see what they did there? It’s a quest for chests, right? And the word CHEST is over the hot chick’s mostly bare CHEST. OMG. You guys are like the best marketers ever.
This is from Lords Online. Their button for buying game currency requires that you actually click on her breasts. I mean, come on, people. Could you be less subtle? Why don’t you tie your business card to a brick with “TITTIES” written on it and hit me in the face with it?
Ugh.
>I just found your blog via…erm…actually, I just spent a lot of time going back and reading all the posts you've made up to now, so I can't actually remember how I got here :pIn any case, just wanted to leave a quick comment to let you know you've got one more subscriber :)Keep up the good work!
>Dive deep. Like, into her cervix. Ew.
>You were so captivated with her breasts you failed to mention they misspelled "treasure."
>Mike: That's funny. I guess their tactic worked. I was too busy staring at her crotch.
>I can't believe you didn't mention Evony. For a medievil farmville-like they are the worst at this. "Play now, my lord."
>Adam: Making fun of Evony is like shooting fish in a barrel. It's too easy. (Also I talked about Evony in my porn as advertising post)
>I remember those evony ads, for the longest time I thought my partner had gotten something ad/spyware-ish* onto my rig because I kept seeing these damn adverts for bra's everywhere, it wasnt until someone started talking about this new evony game they played that I realised those ads were for a browser game…advertising fail.I'll admit that the few times I've seen the lesbian fairy one it did get my attention…and then got blanked for probably being crap.*She was doing x-massy shopping for clothing and stuff online and those ads seemed to fit what she was looking for.