The success of Shadow of War

Brendan McLaughlin

The video game, Shadow of War, is massively popular partly thanks to it’s ad campaign. The advertisements focused non an aspect in the game where every choice you made affected you throughout the game. So in the commercial’s, orcs would either repeatedly help the player throughout their life, just like in the game the would. Similar commercial’s would feature orcs repeatedly making things difficult for the player like in the game by destroying their car. In both of these examples, it is clear that humor is being used to get customers to purchase the game. 

Other advertisements were more in honor of people. The game’s creator, for instance, died from cancer before it could be released. So to honor him, a character was made for the game that was named after him. This conveys an emotional appeal that customers would be swayed by in order to make a purchase. 

So by using these techniques, customers were more easily convinced to purchase the game. In fact, had it not been for these commercials, this game might have actually sold less copied.