Bungie has acknowledged it made a right cock up in the marketing of Halo 3: ODST in that while the game was a genuine triple A title, the initial lead up made the game out to be an expansion and when it released, received criticism for its price. Writer and Creative Director Joseph Staten commented:
“We got criticized, fairly, for doing a poor job communicating what ODST was, an expansion pack or a full-fledged, AAA release. It definitely turned out to be the latter. But, unfortunately, we didn’t know how much great work we were going to pull-off when we first announced the game. It’s impossible to know, but my gut says that if we’d never said the words “expansion pack” we would have seen an appreciable increase in the review scores.”Community Director Brian Jarrard agreed, commenting:
“If you look at the lower scores, they almost all cite an issue in perceived value based on an initial expectation that was set for an “expansion” and then a feeling that they were overcharged for the final product. For the most part, the gameplay and experience itself received a lot of praise with many saying it was the best of the series. Criticisms around the lack of matchmaking for Firefight and mechanics to add more longevity and community activity to the core game were fair and is something we would’ve done differently it if were possible within the scope of project.”Design Lead Lars Bakken chipped in his thoughts too:
“I’m no PR expert, but it’s pretty obvious the game had a series of stumbles; from the naming, to the initial E3 2008 countdown reveal failure, and finally pricing. It would definitely be nice to have a do-over for the game introduction.”It still managed to shift a tonne of copies though.
Source: G4
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