IndustryGamers - Informing the Games Industry

Uncharted Posed a Marketing Challenge for Naughty Dog, Sony

Posted November 2, 2009 by James Brightman

Naughty Dog's Uncharted franchise is arguably now one of the key IPs on PS3, right up there with Resistance, Killzone, Ratchet and Clank, and God of War. Marketing the first game in the series wasn't so easy, however, according to Creative Director Amy Hennig, who spoke to IndustryGamers recently for an in-depth interview on the game making process for Uncharted 2, working on PS3 and more. 

Hennig explained that there was no "hook" to Nathan Drake, and that made selling the concept a bit challenging initially.  "There were some concerns on the previous game I think. To be honest, I think it was a little bit of an enigma for people. It's not a very typical game. Even though we're coming from this action-adventure tradition, I think people were looking at the game and wondering, 'What's the hook?'  We're looking at Drake in a t-shirt and jeans... how do we sell this guy? He's not Kratos and he's not a space marine, so how do you communicate this somewhat ambiguous message that if you buy this game you'll be playing a summer blockbuster? I think it took us a while, both internally and at Sony, to figure out how to get that message across," Hennig explained.

She continued, "I feel like we've done a much better job on Uncharted 2. It was a gradual thing to engender enough support and faith that even without that iconic hook that we could communicate this message and people would latch onto it. Thankfully, the response, both critically and in terms of sales, I think has confirmed that. You don't have to have some one-word hook or costumed hero... I think you can market a game like you market a film, and there can be some nuance to it and people will respond. In a way, I don't think it was until we came out of E3 that any of us realized what kind of momentum that game already had. That helped light a fire under all of us."

Hennig further noted that a lot of positive buzz was fueled by word of mouth from the fans. "...when you've got that kind of fan support that's even more gratifying than thinking some multi-million dollar ad campaign is selling a bunch of games. That people are evangelizing it to each other is way more flattering," she said.

Be sure to check out the full interview for much more on Naughty Dog, PS3 development and Uncharted.

James Brightman has been covering the games industry since 2003 and has been an avid gamer ever since the days of Atari and Intellivision. He was previously the EIC of GameDaily Biz.