Selling the Scourge Dog

This is the kind of World of Warcraft Merchandising I was thinking of:


Maybe it's because I just got back from a trip to Universal Studios Orlando, but everywhere I go, I see Spiderman and Shrek products. Obviously these are movie tie-ins, but none-the-less they're everywhere. This is the kind of stuff I've been brainwashed to zombie-click over to the nearest store and buy or stop at the nearest burger joint for the contest piece on the cup.

So..., if they can make a Spiderman i-Dog, aka the the Spi-dog (seriously, I'm not making this up):


...then could there be an Undead i-Dog? The "Un-Dog" might be modeled as follows:



And one little tweak to this Shrek Doll - and Voila - he's an Orc Doll:

When you pull the string, instead of saying "Donkey!" he says "Zug, Zug!"

Come to think of it, the one item I would pay money for is probably the Murloc doll. Pull his string and he says "Aaaaaughibbrgubugbugrguburgle!"

(I got stumped on how to write the sound and so stole it from my trusted WoW Wiki - which much to my smiling face also has an MP3 of the sound to check it against.)

Visa Card - Jumping the Shark?

I was reading WoW Insider and came across the World of Warcraft Visa article and followed some of the links.

/doubletake

1st Response - lmFao. That picture of the Elf and the Credit Card - I couldn't dream of a photoshop idea that good.
2nd Response - omg this is not a joke.
3rd Response - Oh no. I take it back. I. Take. It. Back. Whatever I said about Merchandising. This is just wrong.

It's hard to explain why it just doesn't feel right. The best attempt to express it is to compare it to a story that Jumps the Shark.

Jumping the Shark -
You know - take your favorite show that's been on a while and then add some big event or twist that was completely NOT foreshadowed and is therefore an obvious attempt to re-energize/remake/reenvision the show into something different than what you signed on to watch.

It's one thing for your favorite TV family to have a new baby - it's another thing when it shows up next season 8 years old to deliver punchlines.

Well this piece of Merchandising, is like a new baby that came back the next episode and suddenly he's 37. And he's delivering more than punchlines.

No Lead In/No Foreshadowing:

Dear Credit Card Executive,
We are Blizzard. Perhaps you've heard of us. (Insert visual of the evil villain stroking his netherwhelp pet here.)

We have a few million WoW Subscribers in the US. We would like you to partner with us to provide them with a credit card reward program that grants free play time.

To show you that our subscriber base is willing to purchase beyond their $15.00/month subscriber fees we offer you the following history of branded items that we have marketed successfully:

• T-Shirts and hats

Please contact us for further information.
Sincerely yours,
Blizzard

4th Response - These people are freaking Brilliant. Because without the entry level merchandise, without any real history to show we'll bite - they still sold it. And it's brilliant because I'm sure they set this up to be profitable with even one subscriber. Heck, I'm advertising for them for free right now.

Economic Impact - I used to work at a tiny little credit card company. I was nowhere near the front lines but I know that any card company would kill to partner with someone who can deliver millions of prospective applicants.

The way I figure it - if they get 100,000 to 200,000 subscribers to pick up this card and put a typical balance on it - this is like First National of Nebraska's swallowing up my old employer and all its assets. Only no merger costs, no severance, no consolidation of systems, etc.. But more jobs - say 100 more customer service reps, collectors and/or processors. Holy crap. This is hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional revenue for this bank for several years and Blizzard is getting some kind of revenue sharing for their part.

The guy who set up the t-shirt deal and has been sitting on his butt since then, telling the boss he's busy working on the "Baby Night-Elves" cartoon deal and matching pajama buddies and bedsheets is hiding in his office right now... ashamed to come out. Meanwhile, the guy who set up the credit card deal is high-fiving real blood-elf babes and has probably been given license to make his own in game item that doubles all gold drops.

Brilliant. Freaking brilliant. Jump the shark! they're calling... Jump that shark.

Just nobody tell them what happens to the average FICO score of anyone who gets addicted to WoW.

More on the Coloring Books

How-To
For those interested in making your own coloring pages you can boil the technique down to these two steps (using Photoshop Elements):

• Under the menu Filter -> Stylize -> Find Edges


• Under the menu Enhance -> Adjust Color -> Remove Color

There are some other things you can do to try to remove some of the extra lines but essentially, that'll get you the picture. The tricky part to making them printable is to crop them to an appropriate size.

More Pics:
Here are some more pics I didn't bother to crop to fit exactly on an 8.5 x 11 paper (typical in North America):

WoW Coloring Book

I'm surprised that Blizzard hasn't put more staff on the whole WoW Merchandising thing. Sure there's the clever hat with the exclamation point but is that really how they're going after our discretionary spending? Where's the lunch boxes? the Halloween costumes with the picture of a night elf on the chest? ok maybe I'm dating myself here, but how about a coloring book? Kids still color, right?

Unfortunately, I can't draw for crap, but I can do a few things with Photoshop. I took a few screen prints to see if I could turn them into coloring-book pages and here's how they came out:

I guess it would be a bit of a change to have kids coloring in their honorable kills. But hey, there's still WoW-ios the delicious part of an otherwise complete breakfast and WoW-Legos still to be negotiated and wrung for all they're worth.

Slot Machine

While I was in Lag Vegas I saw a Star Wars Slot Machine. (Video) The film mini clips/moving icons embedded into it were awesome to say the least. I've never been so excited to get a losing payout... but look it's Han Solo! (It was "New Hope" centric - we won't get into the whole first trilogy whips the butt of the second trilogy deal - but I'll just say I was very happy.)

I of course immediately thought that there should be a WoW Slot Machine. Unfortunately I don't think we'll ever see one. Of the 7 million players I doubt half (a third?) of them would have legal access to a casino (age, proximity, laws, etc..). Plus I found these quotes in my research:

Article about Themed machines:

Generally, slot makers seek a theme that will cut them a wide slice of the market pie. "We use a recognized brand or mark or show ... that has some established familiarity, that can add an additional level of entertainment to a game," Rogich explains. "It brings instant recognizability and a fan base."

but...

"There is no dead-on template, such as 'only recognized stars' " make a viable slot theme, Bone says. He notes that his company's "target market is basically a 55-year-old woman with a certain level of disposable income." For that reason, he says, WMS has not done many games themed to male-oriented interests such as sports. Competitors have, however. One maker, Aristocrat, has a game based on Brazilian soccer superstar Pele.

/sigh. Darn. Ok, so absent a real one, here's my imagination of what the main panel might look like: