During an interview with BioShock developer Irrational Games on their Irrational Interview series, Epic Games design director Cliff Bleszinski noted that the critically praised PS3 title Heavy Rain missed out on a golden opportunity: marketing to women.
"Because women love true crime! I don't know what it is. I've said it before – they love two things in life: queso dip and true crime,” Bleszinski commented.
"Y'know, you'd see Heavy Rain advertised in PlayStation Magazine and things like that. I'm like, dude why isn't this in Entertainment Weekly? Why aren't you marketing this to the right crowd?”
"There were scenes were I was almost literally dropping the controller it was paced so well. If you had that and shipped a disc with all those women's magazines you'd maybe have sold twice as much."
With 1.5 million in sales, the game did well for the lack of marketing. Quantic Dream knows the game did well, but the next title can do a whole lot better.
[Thanks to Eurogamer for the tip]
3 Comments
November 5, 2010
Because women play only Bejeweled games and other casual games that doesn't take too long to finish.
November 5, 2010
He makes a very good point as my wife is in love with that game. Watching her play is what made me start my own game under my profile.
November 5, 2010
Cliff knows what he's talking about, which is why women characters are playable in Gears 3. My female XBL friends are still wondering why Activision won't allow you to play as women characters online in Call of Duty games. Maybe they have something against women and guns...