Viral marketing is insidious and horrible. Anything that openly names itself after a malicious foreign body that invades organic matter, twisting it to its own torrid ends cannot be trusted. To make matters worse, it’s almost always more cloying than regular, old, huckster-with-a-smile advertising (let us never forget the late, not-great Sony “All I Want For Christmas is a PSP” campaign.) That said, I have to hand it to publisher D3. Their viral campaign behind upcoming (but still-unseen) title Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard, is absolutely hilarious and brilliant in its execution. They’ve created two websites, a fan page and news blog, devoted to an imaginary classic gaming series surrounding a convincingly vintage character by the name of Matt Hazard. Starting with a 1983 arcade game named The Adventures of Matt in Hazard Land, D3’s constructed a full history of a non-existant franchise that hits on all of gaming’s milestones from the past thirty years. While the 8 and 16-bit parodies are well-trodden, sprite-based fare, the fake cover art and screenshots for Matt Hazard’s late-90s and early-aughts adventures are hilariously spot-on. Take a look at the obviously Nintendo 64-inspired packaging for 1995’s You Only Live 1,317 Times:
That is downright convincing. Who knows what Eat Lead will end up being, but D3’s managed to impress my cold, cold heart with its effort. Sending up gaming’s early years is old hat, but Matt Hazard has managed to send up the entire medium in just a few pictures and lines of HTML.
God damn it. Here I am, doing viral marketing’s bidding. That is just disgusting!
(Link: 1up via Siliconera)
Related links:
Horrors that Time Forgot: GamePro TV
Whatcha Playing: The Thirst For Adventure, Pointing At Things, and Not Knowing What to Say
My Last Mega Man 9 Post, I Swear
Yahtzee Presents A New Angle On Nostalgia (Sort Of)