brand-e

By Steve Mullins. How do you market a revolutionary game derived from the cinema experience? Well, if you’re Sony Computer Entertainment you come up with a film from director Neil LaBute that integrates the new title even more deeply with moviemaking.
The game, released in February this year, is Heavy Rain, a thriller focusing on the mystery of the Origami Killer which features four main characters affected by the villain’s murderous intent. Players can interact with the action and change the course of the narrative on their way to unmasking the criminal… but all the while they are faced with a personal dilemma based on the question ‘how far would you go to save someone you love?’
“Heavy Rain tells a cinematic story,” says Alan Duncan, Sony Computer Entertainment UK’s marketing director. “It’s a noir thriller where the player has an involvement with the narrative and it’s a game which differentiates PlayStation 3 and shows what it can do. … If you’re a gamer, it’s challenging and you react to visual prompts using emotion-based controls. There’s lots of pressure, lots of intensity and you really do care about the characters so there’s a good deal of involvement in the story.”
So, rather than talk about the not-inconsiderable PS3 tech capabilities which make Heavy Rain possible, Sony Computer Entertainment decided to develop a campaign to push the game as a filmic proposition, with endorsement from the film industry.
“That was the impetus for the documentary – picking out the central idea of ‘how far would you go to save someone you love?’,” says Duncan. “This was a clever insight. And it reflected how we wanted to act as a brand.”
Enter LaBute and his documentary exploring emotional decision making in storytelling, with the title How Far… ? It’s an eight-minute talking heads piece involving an impressive roster of film industry members, such as Samuel L. Jackson, Peter Bogdanovich, Hanif Kureishi, Nicolas Roeg, Chris Weitz Stephen Frears, Ben Chaplin and Nicholas Hoult. And can hear and see the film right here.
And how far would these cinematic luminaries go? Mr Jackson says ‘not very’. Chris Weitz’s body is a lethal weapon ready to kill at any time. Hoult would likely do things he thought himself incapable of.
“The games industry is pretty conservative and Heavy Rain was risky,” says Duncan. “We decided to put the bulk of marketing investment in this rather than behind [action-adventure game] God of War 3. This was a big punt but we really believed in it. This the whole point of PlayStation3 in terms of marketing and vision – it takes you somewhere you don’t expect to be. We really needed to show it was this was something different.”
He says he can imagine the Heavy Rain story continuing, and one episode has already been released to extend the game. “It has a great open-ended plot so we can explore the characters and add more depth. I find it more engaging than film, physically and emotionally, as there’s active decision making required.
“And there’s lots of word-of-mouth around it – more so than with regular games, and people are not talking about the technology, but about emotions.”
And the film?
“That was a great response to the brief,” he says. “So many people from the film industry wanted to talk about this. Don’t forget that computer-generated imagery has such a high profile within film, so directors and actors have got to be interested.”