Since Mighty No. 9 released their first trailer about 5 days ago, they have succumbed to an overwhelmingly negative response due to how offensive the trailer was to gamers. Before I say anything else, if you haven’t seen it already, you should watch it before going any further.
Fans who once backed Mighty No. 9 on Kickstarter have come forward to say (after viewing the trailer) that they are now regretting backing the game. It’s that bad.
The very first thing you don’t do when creating any kind of marketing material, whether it’s an image or a trailer, is you never assume your audience is stupid. From the very beginning of the trailer, the voiceover is yelling at you to stare at the screen—which you obviously already are. Plus, he goes on to describe to you every kind of dash, which, if you’re a gamer, you probably know what a dash is. I don’t know a gamer who doesn’t know what a dash is.
I understand the developer thought they were being funny, but there’s also another rule you should follow in marketing: don’t try to be funny unless you’re absolutely positive you are funny. Because that wasn’t funny, it was just annoying and cringeworthy.
But we need to talk about the most important and cringeworthy aspect of this trailer.
Somewhere in the middle of the trailer, the voiceover makes the comment, “...cry like an anime fan on Prom night.”
What. The. Hell.
And of course, people on Twitter have been firing back about their disgust with the quote.
Does the developer for Mighty No. 9, Comcept, realize that so many gamers are also anime fans? I, who am a hardcore gaming fan am also a huge fan of anime; it’s a part of the nerd culture I think and sometimes it blends together like in Pokemon or Attack On Titan. So is Deep Silver, the publisher, trying to say all anime fans are losers who don’t get dates on Prom night or what kind of comment is that? What does it even mean?
While I can understand where Deep Silver wanted to go with that trailer, the execution was horrible and the concept just ripped apart at the seams. And when they had an opportunity to prove to everyone that all of their backing money went into something worthwhile, they let it die the moment they started offending their very own target audience with cheap jabs filled with disgustingly tired stereotypes.
And if you lose the faith and trust of your audience, which I think Deep Silver initially did after Mighty No. 9 came under multiple delays, it's up to the developer to bring that trust back to the relationship. But it seems Deep Silver has only buried themselves deeper and it's hard to say if there's any way they'll be able to dig out.
It wasn’t until this year that Mighty No. 9 finally announced an official release date after years spent in development hell. But it seems, from the look of that trailer, people won’t be so psyched for its release later next month. Deep Silver had better think of something fast before people lose hope in the game entirely. Although it may already be too late.
I'd really like to hear what you guys think about the Mighty No. 9 trailer and if you were among those who were offended. Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
