SimCity gets World's Largest Ball of Twine in toothpaste promotion
Gosh, wouldn't it be great to have the World's Largest Ball of Twine or a giant dinosaur statue in your SimCity to attract tourists? Yes, wouldn't it just. Unfortunately, these and another three roadside novelties are exclusive to a marketing promotion with Crest and Oral B, through codes in specially-marked packages. Sponsored content is to be something of a thing with SimCity, it seems.
Gosh, wouldn't it be great to have the World's Largest Ball of Twine or a giant dinosaur statue in your SimCity to attract tourists? Yes, wouldn't it just. Unfortunately, these and another three roadside novelties are exclusive to a marketing promotion with Crest and Oral B, through codes in specially-marked packages. Sponsored content is to be something of a thing with SimCity, it seems.
This is the second batch of marketing-y content announced in only two weeks, following a free electric car sponsored by Nissan to promote its new horseless carriage, the Leaf. While free things are nice, it can feel a little icky.
This pack includes five new attractions: a Giant Garden Gnome; Dolly the Dinosaur; Llarry the Llama; a MaxisMan Statue; and the World's Largest Ball of Twine. Remember to bring your broken golf ball retriever and Jesse James' severed hand. EA explains that they make poor people happy, and "will also bring in all three wealth classes of tourists into your city."
It's part of a promotion with Procter & Gamble which puts codes in packs of its Crest and Oral B tooth-cleaning products. The codes can also be redeemed for $5 off an EA game on Origin which costs over $40, but why would you want to do that? Alternatively you can get some virtual cash for The Sims Social, the Facebook game which EA announced yesterday will shut down in June.
Marketing content does feel a bit tacky as SimCity is only just back on its feet following the disastrous launch. Do bear in mind, though, that deals would have been inked long ago and adding new buildings almost certainly uses parts of the development team which would never work anywhere near server stability.
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replyAlice O'Connor posted a new article, SimCity gets World's Largest Ball of Twine in toothpaste promotion.
Gosh, wouldn't it be great to have the World's Largest Ball of Twine or a giant dinosaur statue in your SimCity to attract tourists? Yes, wouldn't it just. Unfortunately, these and another three roadside novelties are exclusive to a marketing promotion with Crest and Oral B, through codes in specially-marked packages. Sponsored content is to be something of a thing with SimCity, it seems.-
i hope we see this behavior move into other games soon. i think there's some great opportunities for valve and dota 2.
general electric sponsored zeus skin?
batrider with an exxon mobil cape?
aww yea-
It's a shame that they will inevitably ruin the art direction due to cross-promotion like happened with TF2. The tournament couriers are already fairly ugly but at least non-distinct.
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Sounds like they ripped off Sam & Max Hit The Road to me. >:|
http://recollectionsofplay.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/sm-ball-o-twine.jpg
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Welp, guess I should actually click the article. Didn't know the same pic was posted there lol sorry Alice.
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I think the idea is older, no?
http://www.kansastravel.org/balloftwine.htm
I remember fondly this story where Uncle Scrooge meets Flintheart Glomgold and they get into a kind of competition to see who has the biggest string ball.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second-Richest_Duck
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" Alternatively you can get some virtual cash for The Sims Social, the Facebook game which EA announced yesterday will shut down in June."
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This game makes me laugh. As much fun as I had for the first 20 hours of playing this, I really wish I hadnt supported it.
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Same. I enjoyed playing it but I don't see myself buying anything from EA for a long time.
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yup same here... I doubt I'll go back to it unless it gets a major overhaul.
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:-/
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They've made a lot of fixes since launch, including restoring Cheetah speed and getting server load under control. At this point I'd say that it's pretty stable, and that programmers should focus on path-finding etc. Artists and scripters are probably useless for the remaining bugs. It makes sense to be releasing new content.
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My friend has 6 city that cannot be loaded due to server issues.
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As Alice pointed out, they probably have little choice in this implementation, as it would have been a contract they set up before the game even launched.
Doesn't excuse all the problems the game has, but getting upset over this because "they should be fixing it" is pretty silly.-
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I dislike in-game advertising as much as the next person, but I don't see upholding contractual obligations as being "what's wrong with gaming".
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Alice, you write the best articles ever. Please write more.
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's not my call! Phone your congressman and vote YES on Proposition A.
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All these promotional goodies make it clear EA was obligated to release the game when they did.
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Weird Al much? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKeHQpT5wVE
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I live about 20 minutes from that "Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota". No lie!
We use it as a punchline. I'm a music teacher, and before we announced where we are going on our summer trip, the "Twine Ball Tour" was my standard response. Start in Darwin, MN, then go to the two other record-setting twine balls in Kansas and Wisconsin. (Ours is the biggest built by one guy, the one in Kansas was built by a group, and the one in Wisconsin is smaller in volume but it's the heaviest.)
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Let me know when Sim City becomes a game worth playing. That means no online connection needed, and large maps. As it is, it looks like pure shit. The music sucks as well. Previous Sim Citys had edge to their music, and their soundtracks weren't banal, ultra-homogenized audio paste. Where's the quirk? Fuck you, EA.
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