Comments on: Gaming desperately needs celebrities

By: njoroge

njoroge — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 11:06:35 +0000

Ha Ha! You must be joking. YES! Xiong is right we see enough of those types everyday on TV. but your point on people wanting to know about people cannot be rejected. we are human beings serving human beings so you are right about the person bit. heed this gamer a celebrity addicted game industry might be endangered if it cannot defend its own nature by allowing subliminal morphing friendly prone take overs.

By: xiong

xiong — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 04:47:22 +0000

Ha Ha! You must be joking. NO! We do not need celebrities and Do NOT want celebrities. Frankly, we do not need more of the likes of Hilton, Cruz, or the Spice Girls telling us what to play. We see enough of those types.

I’m sure you are right, and that by marketing games with celebrities and personalities developers would sell more games. However, as a gamer I see the video game industry as still in its infancy and virtually pure. We don’t the want the video game industry to be making mediocre boilerplate games, such as Hollywood is with films. Employing celebrities to market games will only result in the public buying poor games.

I hope most gamers stand with my opinion. If I am wrong, this is a sad day in the gaming universe indeed.

By: Pablo

Pablo — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 06:39:02 +0000

Peter Molineux? Coming from a British standpoint, I understand why you’d mention him, but as far as gaming personalities in the Western hemisphere (thus not including Miyamoto, Kojima, etc.) go, I’d have to say that perhaps Nintendo’s Reggie is the biggest. With Nintendo’s growing popularity among the masses, I think he’s got the biggest chance of becoming one of the first publicly recognized gaming celebrities, since the media’s spotlight would naturally focus on him to explain the massive success of the Wii and of Nintendo’s new gaming strategy. Then again, perhaps I’m wrong, he acts principally as a Nintendo spokesperson – knowing his personality, I doubt he’d participate in the activities and the lifestyles thanks to which most celebrities are written about in papers and magazines. It’s hard to imagine a paparazzi taking pictures of him at the beach and speculating on his love-life.

If that’s the kind of celebrity you intend, well, the media loves young, successful, edgy people. Businessmen and spokepersons would not go across terribly well, what you need is someone who’s got a lively character and an interesting, exciting life outside of the workplace. Perhaps Gears of War’s lead designer, Cliffy B. from Epic. He seems to have the attitude for it, and could be marketed well as a celebrity, in my opinion. Or hell, if Microsoft really wanted, they could revamp Bill Gate’s look and sell him as a little more hip with the times, but that’d take an enormous amount of work, and I doubt the big man wants to sit through the humiliation, particularly with the power he’s got.

By: Thom Primer

Thom Primer — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 07:29:55 +0000

I have spent many an hour day dreaming about being a big celebrity developer. I think the game industry tends to focus on the celebrity of the studios more so than the individuals. Everyone knows Blizzard and Rockstar and Bungie, etc and buy their games without knowing much if anything about the people that are involved. I myself pay attention to important people in games development and look forward to the next game from, say, Warren Spector (Damn I love Deus Ex) regardless of where he makes it. The average gamer is not so dedicated.
In Japan it is common-place for developers to be celebrities with the likes of Miyamoto, Kojima and Itagaki but I think that is more due to the higher visibility and popularity of gaming in general than any concerted effort to promote them.