I happened to mention in the previous entry that sometimes Midway Games sometimes happened to have odd promotional items to go with their games. While I worked closely with some people from the public relations department at the time and have nothing to say but good things about them, I sometimes privately questioned some of the decisions of the marketing department. However, the only time I encountered a real “WTF” is after one Gamers’ Day event, when I received a “thank you” item that had to be expensive.

In early 2007, I had attended the Midway Gamers’ Day event in Las Vegas. For this event, I was covering the announcement that Mortal Kombat: Armageddon would be coming to the Nintendo Wii. The event was a more or less quiet one for me, as all I needed to do was tape a presentation and then interview Ed Boon and Shaun Himmerick. In any event, it was a pretty slow year as far as Mortal Kombat was concerned, as there wasn’t a major release planned for that year. For a month or two after the event, things went about as slow as one might imagine during the downtime between releases.

A couple of months after the event, I was at work when I got a call from my father. He told me that something had arrived via FedEx from a company that I knew Midway did marketing work with. I certainly wasn’t expecting anything from Midway, and was even more confused when Dad said that it was something very heavy. So, that evening, when I got home, the first thing I did was get the FedEx box from where Dad had put it. He was right; it WAS very heavy. Even more confused, I opened the box, and was shocked to see what was inside.

Yes, that is a poker chip set box with the Midway logo embossed on it.

After I got over my shock, I went ahead and opened the box. The chip set was of casino quality. In addition, the chips and cards were labeled with the logos of games shown at the Gamers’ Day event. The cards had the logo of John Woo’s Stranglehold on it, while the chips had the logos for The Wheelman, Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, Hour of Victory, Blacksite: Area 51, and John Woo’s Stranglehold. Whatever Midway paid for these, it could not have been cheap.

The chip set came with a form letter that thanked me for coming to Gamers’ Day, and stating how much they hoped I would help get the word out about the games announced and shown. Once I looked it over, I put everything back in the shipping box, and put it in a safe place. I’ve only rarely taken it out of its storage place since then, and it has not (and will not) be unwrapped for use. This is definitely a collector’s item.

The thing is, though, that this is an example of bad decisions that I think helped sink the company. I mean, hell, I appreciate that they sent me this item and I wasn’t about to send it back, but still… this was a LOT of money for Midway to spend, and at the time Midway was really starting to hurt. In my opinion, they needed to put this kind of effort far more into their game design process. They already had a policy of “you ship on this date, no exceptions”, which led to unfinished games being released. That of course led to games that should have done well in stores getting panned. Mortal Kombat: Armageddon was easily the weakest of that generation of Mortal Kombat games, and Hour of Victory (which I thought looked horribly derivative at Gamers’ Day) was released irreparably broken. In the end, Midway went bankrupt and the Mortal Kombat assets were purchased by Warner Bros.

These days marketing for games like Mortal Kombat seems to be done smarter. Warner Bros. has more money to spend than Midway did, but they’re putting it to much better and efficient use. To my knowledge, freebies like the books and the poker chip set are out. While I will miss stuff like that… it’s good to know the focus is back where it should be: the games.

As one might imagine, my bookshelves tend to be a bit eclectic. Admittedly, most of the books I own fall under the categories of science fiction, fantasy, or horror. Still, almost everything in the bookshelves is of value to me, if only sentimental (gifts from friends, for example). However, there does tend to be the odd book or two that is just weird for me. While looking for a book to read the other day out of the ones I haven’t, I chanced upon one book that I’d been meaning to read. It’s still an odd duck for me, and I figured I would share its history.

The book is called 7 Deadly Wonders, and it’s written by an Australian named Matthew Reilly. The title is the US-only title; the original title is Seven Ancient Wonders. I guess it’s another of those examples of marketers pandering to the American Idiot, who would also wonder what the hell a “philosopher’s stone” is. In any event, the book itself is rather innocuous; it details the story of several groups of people trying to harness the incredible power of an ancient artifact sealed away by Alexander the Great. Pretty pulp-sounding stuff, really, but not something I would normally pick up in the bookstore.

I got it at a Midway Games media event.

It was actually at the 2006 Midway Winter Gamers’ Day event. Despite the name, Gamers’ Day was for the gaming news media; gaming news sites would be invited to see announcements about upcoming Midway game releases. I was there on behalf of Mortal Kombat Online, as Midway was announcing Mortal Kombat: Armageddon at the event. The event started with numerous presentations. Once the presentations were over, we were essentially free to do whatever we wanted, but the main draw was that several of the announced games were playable in some form or fashion on the event floor. One of the playable games was a game called Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War. In a sense, the game was your bog-standard PC RTS along the lines of Age of Empires. Essentially, you control one of several ancient armies, and attempt to defeat your enemies. The catch that was supposed to make Rise and Fall stand out was that during the battles, you could take direct control of your army’s “general” (Alexander the Great, Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, etc.), at which point the game switched to a third-person action game.

In any event, when I approached where the PCs playing Rise and Fall were set up, I noticed something curious. There was a large stack of hardcover books, free for anyone to pick up. So, I wandered over, and picked one up; the book was one I had never heard of called 7 Deadly Wonders. I read the description on the inner flap, but was still a bit confused as to why they would be given away at a Midway event. It was then that I saw a sign saying that it was a promotion for Rise and Fall. I flipped to the back of the book, and saw an ad for the game there. I shrugged, and placed the book in my laptop bag. It struck me as being a rather odd bit of cross-promotion, as there really was no link between the book and the game other than the fact that both books involved Alexander the Great. They didn’t even take place in anywhere close to the same time periods, either, as Seven Ancient Wonders takes place in modern times.

Ah, well. It certainly wasn’t the only time Midway did some cross-promotion. It was simply one of the stranger ones. I actually never saw any more of the book/game promotion outside of that event, so I don’t know if the copy of the book that made it to US shelves contained the ad. I know I didn’t see anything in any bookstores about it. As for the game itself, it was released to little fanfare and disappeared quietly. According to Wikipedia, it was eventually re-released as a free ad-supported version sponsored by the US Air Force. I didn’t hear anything about that at the time of re-release, either.

The book still sits on my bookshelf to this day. Perhaps I’ll finally get around to reading it soon. :-)