Electronic Entertainment Design and Research, an interactive entertainment research firm, says that the success of Capcom's *Resident Evil 5 *can be attributed to the marketing strategies behind its release in March.
EEDAR's most recent report showed that the survival-horror shooter was one of the few new titles to break into the top 10 selling games this year through June, selling nearly two million copies in the U.S. and five million worldwide.
Besides *Resident Evil 5 *being a high-quality, widely acclaimed title (it received a Metacritic score of 85 for the Xbox 360 version), EEDAR executive chairman Greg Short told IndustryGamers.com that a good-sized marketing budget and a strong marketing team helped the title greatly.
Short also praised the company's "Kijuju" virtal marketing campaign and said that Capcom also did an excellent job promoting trailers for the game, citing that media for Resident Evil 5 on GameTrailers.com received 24.5 million views.
While we don't doubt the effort and effectiveness of Capcom's marketing for the title, the article dances around the elephant in the room regarding the game's trailers. Many may recall that the first trailer for Resident Evil 5, which debuted at E3 2007, cause a huge firestorm of controversy over the racial undertones in its depiction of black Africans seen by some viewers.
The heated internet debate surrounding the trailer certainly drummed up additional publicity for the game. Although the race discussion probably wasn't intentionally part of the marketing strategy, it surely had to cause awareness for the title outside of gaming media and, perhaps, contributed to its sales.
Image courtesy Capcom
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