13 Days of Gears

Taeil and I recently participated in an Xbox 360 promotional sweepstakes on Gears of War 2. The details can be found here:

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/g/gearsofwar2/13daysofgears/default.htm
The gist of the promotion is that if you play a public matchmaking game everyday for thirteen days you will be entered in a chance to win a prize. In this specific sweepstakes there are daily prizes as well as a grand prize drawing; but realistically, everyone participating just wanted to win the Samsung LCD.

On the surface is appears to be a brilliant marketing campaign. What gamer doesn't want to play games to win prizes? This is like a carnival game you don't have to pay to play (other than buying the game). It isn't too much of a commitment because although you need to play for thirteen straight days, you only need to play a game a day. The fact that it requires any commitment at all leads the participant to believe that other players will drop out of the grand prize drawing.

This contest is obviously a test product for Microsoft. Although they have somewhat of a sponsor in Warner Bros., they did little to advertise the movie. The only time I heard anything about the movie was when I had to download the gamer pic required for registration. Taeil registered online and didn't even know that 'Friday the 13th' had anything to do with this promotion until I told him. The net cost of performing this contest is minimal. There are 13 grand prizes, and the total value of all the prizes was estimated at a little over $20k on the sweepstakes rules page.

So Microsoft basically threw together this contest, got a sponsor, and tested the registration system. If this was not just a test, I have to think this contest was a complete failure for two reasons. The first reason I've already mentioned. In order to properly advertise for their sponsor they need to make the sponsor visible. In this case, I had few opportunities to even find out who the sponsor was. Most promotions tend to drill sponsors into your head repeatedly. If I was Warner Bros., I'd be pissed if i paid any money for this at all.

Secondly, there must be something in it for Microsoft. They probably have two objectives: sell Xbox live and sell the game. By requiring public online play to gain entry to the sweepstakes, they force the player to partake online portion of the game. I had received the game for Christmas and had played through it, but had not yet tried the online matchmaking system. I believe this was also the case for Taeil. By being forced to play online, we discovered playing with the rest of the 'Gears' community. Xbox Live is a subscription service, and any impetus for the player to continue their subscription is revenue for Microsoft.

If this online play turns out to be an enjoyable experience, I may in turn dramatically increase my opinion of this game. By word of mouth, I will encourage others to buy this game and thus increase sales. I doubt anyone actually bought the game just to participate in the contest, but if I really enjoyed the game I can convince others to join me in my enjoyment.

The real problem with '13 Days of Gears' is that Microsoft is trying to sell something that's broken. I played the first Gears of War and had a great time with the campaign. I enjoyed it enough to justify buying the second at some point in time. I never enjoyed online play in the first as play seemed to be very linear. Little strategy was required, and the lack of respawning kept me out of action for most of my games.

The maps and game types in the second installment are much improved, but Microsoft is still trying to sell me a broken product. Whatever matchmaking algorithm the game uses to match players is extremely inefficient. Gameplay is better, but not more enjoyable than other options I have. The fact that matchmaking was broken is well documented and Epic, the developer, could have made an effort to fix it. By the end of the thirteen days, I was extremely sick of the hassle. I may have entered myself to win a spanking new tv, but I've also played myself out of Gears of War 2. In fact, I may never play that game again.

So I sincerely hope that this was just a test run for Microsoft. I fully expect more sweepstakes to pop up in the future, but hopefully they're for games I'll enjoy.