Hitman: Absolution To Use Hollywood Talent, Technology

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IO Interactive brought in over a dozen Hollywood actors to better sell the story of Hitman: Absolution. Keith Carradine (Cowboys & Aliens) will play the game’s villain in Blake Dexter, while Marsha Thomason (White Collar) will be Agent 47’s handler Diana Burnwood.

“Diana is 47’s only true human contact,” said Thomason. “They’ve known each other an extremely long time, and in the Hitman world, she is what Q is to James Bond. So she sets the assignments, tells him where to go and who to kill.”

“The character I play in Hitman: Absolution is as multidimensional as any well-imagined character should be,” said Carradine. “The vividness of the world entered by the gamer hinges on detail. To fully engage the attention of the player requires nothing less than the most completely realized universe of geography and personality.”

The performance capture was done at Giant Studios, sometimes with several actors at the same time. Because of the long takes, the performances were more like theater work than movies.

“We had actors like Marsha and Keith come in and do full-body acting with facial and voice being captured simultaneously in scenes,” said Tore Blystad, game director at IO Interactive. “Some of these scenes were very complex with all kinds of props and interactions amongst the actors.”

“We’ve designed a more stylized, more serious, and darker game this time around in both the story line and the visuals,” Blystad added. “The hope is that the movie will be going in a similar direction, and then when they both come out they will speak the same language. They won’t follow the old Hitman games, but rather go with this newer direction. There are more central characters in this game than we’ve ever dealt with before and they all have names and an important role in the story, so working with Hollywood talent was crucial to us. It’s important within the framework of the game for players to be able to connect with these characters.”

“We’ve seen the grit and texture and the character-driven context that IO Interactive is going for with Hitman: Absolution and it’s our goal to bring Agent 47 back with a vengeance next year in a movie,” said Adrian Askarieh, who is producing a second Hitman film with Chuck Gordon and Fox International. Daniel Casey (Jimmy Six) has written the latest draft of the script for the movie that will be independent from the story and characters of the game, but will retain the same look and feel.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Shadows Of The Damned Offers Pre-Order Soundtrack

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Electronic Arts has announced that there will be a pre-order bonus for Shadows of the Damned. The offer will be available via GameStop, Amazon.com or the EA’s online store.

Those that preorder the game will receive a digital download of the game’s soundtrack, with a dozen original songs by Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka. The game is being developed by Grasshopper by Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami and Killer 7 creator Goichi Suda with a release on June 21.

Facebook Put Out PR Hit On Google

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A recent report on USA Today said that it hired two reps from a PR firm to plant negative stories about Google. While Apple or Microsoft were initially suspected, it has been confirmed that the company putting the PR hit out was Facebook.

Facebook admitted to hiring the firm when confronted with evidence. They said they did so for two reasons: that Google s social networking-related actions raise concerns about privacy, and that Google’s Social Circle service was pulling data from Facebook for secondary connections which they claim as a violation of terms of service.

We are concerned that Google may be improperly using data they have scraped about Facebook users, said the Facebook spokesman.

This incident is embarrassing both to the PR firm and to Facebook, which has been working to make itself out as trustworthy. When informed about the details, Google said it would have to consider its response.

Source: AdWeek

L.A. Noire Blurring Line Between Movie Production And Games

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Team Bondi’s L.A. Noire is set to blur the lines between Hollywood production and that of video games. The ambitious title employed over 400 actors and implemented a 2,200 page script within the interactive story.

One of the things we wanted to do was move away from exposition cinematics, said Rob Nelson, art director at Rockstar Games. We incorporated the exposition into the gameplay, which blurs the lines between story and game. There s a lot of dialogue and exposition while you re playing the game. This was a pivotal focus for us and I think we ve done it reasonably successfully.

Brandon McNamara, game director at Team Bondi, is pushing the technology and can foresee a day when game and movie production blur. “People focus on transmedia but I think they re slightly missing the point in thinking that you have to make a film and a game all from the same story, but with different productions, said McNamara. What I m saying is it will be possible to make the same things from the same production.

Source: IndustryGamers

Saints Row: ‘Win A Rim Job’

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THQ has announced a new promotion called Win a Rim Job. Based around the Rim Jobs car customization chop shop in Saints Row: The Third, players will be able to win a free Saints Row car customization.

Fans love the Saints Row franchise for its over-the-top gameplay experience and incredible customization abilities and Saints Row: The Third ups the ante in both areas, said Tyrone Miller, director public relations, THQ. The combination of E3, Los Angeles, Saints Row fans, cars and rim jobs will offer a one-of-a-kind experience that only THQ can deliver.

The Win a Rim Job sweepstakes will have sign ups at www.saintsrow.com/rimjob until May 24, with a winner drawn at random. The car remodeling will take place at a tune-up garage outside of the Los Angeles Convention Center during the 2011 E3 Expo.

Tekken Blood Vengeance Takes Names

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A lot of game studios have been discussing how they would prefer to control their own IP for future movies and Namco Bandai has taken that to heart. They’re expanding some of the impressive CG work that has been done for the Tekken series in the past into a full blown movie!

Feature: The Science Behind Portal 2’s Marketing

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Portal 2 was easily among the most anticipated titles of the year and is now one of the year’s most acclaimed games. While being well received by critics is no small part of this success, the marketing campaign set the stage for the game and really brought the hype to a fever pitch. We talked with Doug Lombardi, Valve’s head of marketing, and discussed the multiple elements that went into marketing Portal 2.

The primary focus of the ad campaign has been on the robots Atlas and P-Body rather than Chell. What prompted this decision to focus on new characters in the co-op campaign?

We tested marketing collateral with Chell vs. collateral with the bots. The results showed the initiated Portal 1 fans liked both, while the uninitiated responded primarily to the bots. Science won.

The new Chell.

What was the reception like to Gabe Newell’s initial reveal at the Sony E3 press conference and the first trailer?

Surprise followed by happiness, best we can tell. There are millions of PS3 gamers out there and it’s our pleasure to have made a game internally for them and to have been given the opportunity to do so with Steam support included. 

Portal 2 on PS3 has Steamworks and the free copy of the game on PC. Do you think these moves improved the reception of the game to PS3 fans?

Both the pre-orders and the week 1 sales of Portal 2 show the PS3 version is making up a larger share of the overall mix than is industry standard for a title in the core games category. So, the numbers would indicate that it has caused an improved reception.

Valve has worked with advertising firms in the past, correct? Why did Valve assume total control over the advertising of Portal 2 in this case?

Actually, that’s not the case. We have a long history of meeting with outside agencies and ultimately deciding to produce the creative internally (after being presented with a host of “me too” ads and/or ads that indicate the agency has no idea what the game is about). All the Orange Box, Left 4 Dead 1 & 2, and Portal 2 collateral was done in house. Portal 2 was just the first time the topic came up, so I think the assumption is that this is the first time we took the creative internal. That said, we have and still do work with outside agencies for media buying (a.k.a. placing the ads).

Talk to me about the creation of the Cave Johnson investment ads and what you think J.K. Simmons brings to the role.

The Cave investment ads were a stroke of genius created by a small team here at Valve (the Portal 2 writers plus a group of Valve animators). In January, we met and came up with the idea to produce a series of shorts. The big idea was to make a set of pieces that would help promote the game and potentially work as stand-alone pieces of entertainment. Weeks later we reviewed the roughs with a placeholder voice on Cave’s parts. We all knew, even then, that they were working. But when they were updated with JK’s voice, they really came to life. He’s a fantastic person to work with, and seemed to really enjoy the part. It was great to see him steal a bit of Mr. Merchant’s spotlight with these, though Merchant was also tremendous as Wheatley.

Atlas and P-Body

 Where did the idea for the “Romance Safety Compliance Guide” trailer come from? It’s hilarious, but it’s very random.

The extremely lovely and talented Mr. Richard Lord (a.k.a. the original voice of Wheatley and one of the super talented folks on the Portal 2 design team). He is a wonder and basically did the entire thing, by himself, in about 1 week.

What has the fan reception been like to the various alternate reality games you’ve had going on for Portal 2?

Over the course of the ARG, the Aperture Science web page received 9.9 million page impressions. You can grab a visual image of that from Alexa.com by calling up the web site. It’s hard to scientifically quantify the exact reaction, but this is one metric that points in the positive. In addition, our final week of pre-orders on Steam and at retail were higher than any other single week of pre-orders (on Steam and at retail) in the history of Valve games, as was our week 1 sell thru. So it definitely seems to have helped a successful campaign. We also learned a ton about doing cross-media promotion, something allowed by Steam and a direction we hope to explore further with future releases.

This has been an extensive and varied campaign . . . anything else I missed or that you’d like to add about the marketing?

From the ARG that announced the game last spring, to the Cave “investment” videos, to the launch ARG, we really tried to put a focus on making the marketing for this title a form of entertainment. It seems to have worked, which is a great result to the experiment. But it was an experiment in trying to move beyond the usual glorified trailer TV ads and basic banner ads, and it was a bunch of fun to produce.

Doug, thanks.

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L.A. Noire Getting Major Ad Spend

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Rockstar Games has announced an extensive ad campaign for the U.K. designed to put L.A. Noire in front of as many as five million males. Along with sponsoring Champions League semi-final matches on ITV, they’ll also run ads for the new four weeks on channels like Sky Movies Crime, Thriller, Sky Anytime, Box Office, 4OD and Blinkbox.

There will also be video and targeted ads on Google and YouTube with online ads on a variety of sites like Nuts, Empire, The Sun, Sky Sports, MSN and IGN. L.A. Noire will also be seen in outdoor ads, including a three week London Underground poster campaign and in print with a wrap on Shortlist, cover placement on Evening Standard and insertions in The Guardian and The Times, along with regular gaming media.

Source: MCV