BioWare's Zeschuk Talks Dragon Age Marketing Choice

BioWare's Greg Zeschuk is aware of the discussion around Dragon Age's curious advertising campaign, which many felt presented the game as an action drama rather than the much more slowly-paced RPG experience it actually is. The high-contrast, dramatic ads were heavy on the blood spatter, as if to attract a different kind of consumer than would usually enjoy Western RPGs -- and to an extent, that was the intention, Zeschuk tells us as part of a new Gamasutra feature. "It's interesting to me obviously because of the controversy with it," says Zeschuk of the ad campaign. "I think we were trying -- and we've always said... the real objective for us [was] to show what was in the game." But he concedes: "Obviously, the advertising wasn't in any way representative of the proportionate time split. Everything from the advertising was from the game, but it was only part of the time. There's a lot of other stuff." However, it attracted a lot of attention and was effective in that respect, he says. "It got people really looking at the title. I think it probably expanded the audience a little bit into people -- it's one of the hits of the fall, and it's one of the big games -- and they're like, 'Okay, well, it looks action-y enough that I'm interested in it,' and I think that was actually the reason that it worked." New audiences might have a harder time understanding the tone of the game or being drawn to its more complex elements without the hand-holding presentation, Zeschuk agrees.