Is This a New Way of Advertisement ?

This is my third post which includes about Hellgate London. Maybe some of you will ask why I always include this game in some of my postings. It is because there are some aspects outside the game itself which I consider interesting. So, to make this posting more interesting, I include a new twist to it. I guess you already know what it is.

About a month ago, I bought the first trilogy of Hellgate London novel. The title is Exodus so I will using that name to refer to the novel for the rest of my posting. I finished reading Exodus in a week and I was quiet pleased with its story. The story of Exodus was about three characters whose names are Simon, Leah, and Warren. They all had a role in this story and they also referred to the three classes in the game. As mentioned by its writer, Mel Odom, the story in Exodus happened eighteen years before the story in the game. If you interested with it, you can read it by yourself because I’m not going to give any spoiler about the book.

Besides the story, I also interested about the function of this book. I don’t think it’s just an ordinary novel based on a game. It’s bigger than that. In my opinion, Exodus is a part of the marketing campaign from the game publisher and developer. Why I can say it ? Because Exodus is published four months before the game is released. As a comparison, everyone knows about the famous Harry Potter. There are games and movies based from it, but all of which are made and released after the novels. The games itself only act as a company for the film and are targeted for the Harry Potter fans.

The opposite thing happen for Hellgate London. The novel or graphic novels only act as a support for the game. Easy to say, the novel acts as a teaser for PC gamers, especially gamers who have waited for the game. After the game is released, the novels still have its usefulness. They act as long term advertisement. Any PC gamers who don’t know about the game but have read it will be curious to play the game. So after about a year or two after it is released, there are still gamers who will buy it.

The developer of the game has learned that novels can give a great advantages for a game. Blizzard with its famous game, Warcraft, have proofed it. Those of you who are curious about Blizzard can read my previous posting. The first Warcraft game was released in 1994, and was followed by its second and third series. The newest game from the series is World of Warcraft. Prior from its released, Blizzard has contacted some fictional-novel-writers to make stories based from the Warcraft series. Some of the stories take place before the Warcraft I story begin. If we combine all of the stories with the game, we will know the whole story about what happen in the Warcraft universe. With this, in the future, Blizzard can make Warcraft IV to continue the Warcraft story. Gamers who is curious with the continuation of this story will likely buy and play this game. This process will continue to happen untill Blizzard decides to end the story of Warcraft.

I think this is what the developer of Hellgate London wants to happen.

(This posting is dedicated for Blizzard for making such a great game and all of the writers who write the novels based on Blizzard games)