Final Fantasy 13: Advertising and release

With the new Final Fantasy title being premiered within the last week, I felt it fitting to just post a blog on the advertising following up to the release of the game, as well as it's initial reception by the public.

As with Final Fantasy 7 and it's successors there has been much hype during the build up to the release of Final Fantasy 13. Ever since the announcement of the game back in August 2008 there has been plenty of speculation within fan communities. Everything from the re-vamped, real time battle system to the blockbuster graphics has been discussed in great detail, however SquareEnix seem to have gone into great lengths to promote the game, seemingly to draw in new gamers.

Final fantasy 13 seems to pop up frequently up to its subsequent release in various mediums. Even walking through the city this is apparent posters are plastered across the sides of buses. Televised adverts are also cropping during prime time hours advertising the games amazing beauty. The below links are examples of the T.V ads to air in both the UK and the USA;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLOi5gXRYfY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDR-gJKKJlQ&feature=related

In Japan FF13 adverts have even been flooding the radiowaves, with frequents commercials popping up on a daily basis leading up to its release in the East.

After going to so much effort in trying to hype up the series, it would be interesting to see if this has benefited the games sales in any way. It is certain that this part of the FF franchise is by far the most advertised, but has this lead to an expanding fanbase?

This is defiantly something I would like to look into in the proceeding weeks after the release of FF13. I hope, after giving sufficient time for sales data to be gathered, that I will be able to record this research into some sort of graph that will help me determine weather or not the advertising campaign for FF13 has boosted sales.