April 24, 2004 Mojo working the vid game trailer business By Paul Hyman      If the trailer for the forthcoming first-person shooter "The Chronicles Of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay," looks like it belongs on the silver screen, that's OK by the game's publisher, Vivendi Universal Games.      In fact, it paid a premium to hire Hollywood-based Mojo LLC, a 5-year-old ad agency best known for making movie trailers for big-dollar, high-intensity films like "Terminator 3" and "The Matrix." Mojo would also like to be known as a producer of cinematic trailers for video games. Call it one more step in the convergence of Hollywood and the video game industry.      VU Games is, in fact, releasing the Xbox-only game in June simultaneously with the movie on which it is based, Universal Pictures' "The Chronicles Of Riddick," which is the sequel to "Pitch Black," both starring Vin Diesel.      Not so coincidentally, Diesel -- who appears prominently in the game -- is also the owner of Los Angeles-based, 18-month-old Tigon Studios, which develops games based on his movies, including this one.      It may seem like a tangled web woven of movie and video game interests, but Anthony Crouts, marketing vp at VU Games, insists that the links are natural ones.      "The same audience who watches movies plays video games, and they've been sensitized to seeing the same high-quality content in both," he explained. "Game publishers are reaching out to the mainstream consumers and we know what their expectations are and what they think is really cool. The movie industry produces trailers to inspire the public to shell out $10 to see a movie; we need to do the same to convince them to shell out $50 for a video game."      That's where Mojo comes in, according to Nicholas Longano, president of the company's brand-new Mojo Interactive Media Division -- and, by the way, VU Games' former group vp marketing. "What VU Games wanted was a big theatrical sell. It wanted us to create a very high impact trailer that matched the big cinematic feel of its first-person shooter. If you take a look at the trailer, I think you'll see that we've done that."      Having just launched its games division, Mojo likes to think there's a trend brewing here. Not only will bigger-budget games come with bigger marketing budgets, it says, but there has developed a real need for game publishers to differentiate their games. The competition for shelf space and for the attention of gamers, Longano says, has reached a fever pitch.      "The retail buyer is very much aware of how we're supporting our games," said VU Games' Crouts. "If a Wal-Mart or a Target puts you on their shelves, they want to know whether you're getting behind the title and spending for lots of publicity, which is one reason we're doing Hollywood-style trailers."      At Atari, Wim Stocks, executive vp sales and marketing, confirms the need for game publishers to launch with a bang. "In marketing a game, we are all about the launch. The first four weeks in the stores sets the tone as to whether a game will be successful or not. The same dynamic exists in movies in terms of trying to generate awareness quickly to pull in the consumer."      Stocks says this is nothing new. "But what is new," he adds, "is the emphasis on heavy spending in the media to make as much noise as possible. The budget to make a game is approaching that of a small movie. So the level of investment is much greater than it used to be."      Today, a leading-edge, high-tech console game can cost $12 million to produce, almost tripling the $4 million-5 million just three years ago. That's because gamers' expectations of what makes a great game have skyrocketed.      "The latest generation of console hardware has raised the bar on what games are capable of doing in terms of graphics and gameplay," says VU Games' Crouts. "The pressure is on to devote more resources to make sure the product quality is there. That means bigger creative teams -- more artists and programmers -- which drives up the development budget. And when you're spending that much to build a game, you want to make sure you're supporting your investment with appropriate marketing."      At the same time, the size of the gaming audience has exploded, creating a challenge to publishers to capture the biggest slice of the pie.      "The PlayStation 2, for example, is in 20 million homes and we're just 3/5 of the way through the life cycle," said Atari's Stocks. "At this point in the PlayStation 1's life cycle, the hardware was only in 12-13 million homes. Clearly more consumers have accepted the medium of video games as a viable and appealing entertainment form. And we are just on the cusp of lower price points that will result in an even broader audience."      To reach that growing audience, marketing budgets have risen accordingly -- to $5 million-6 million per game from $1 million-2 million three years earlier. VU Games says it may spend as much as $6 million promoting its heavily anticipated "Half-Life 2" while Sony reportedly spent close to $9 million to promote "SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs."      While no one would comment on how much more it costs to employ a company like Mojo to produce a game trailer, Lori Iman of VU Games' brand marketing insists the expense is well worth it.      "They really know how to combine all of the elements -- sound effects, music, voice, and visuals -- to create a complete experience in 90 seconds of footage," she said. "They are able to succeed in making a strong game trailer because they take the same approach with a game as they would with a movie."      For instance, said Michael Kahane, Mojo's co-owner and creative director, the same editors who cut the "Terminator 3" movie trailer were used for the Riddick game trailer as was a narrator who has heavy theatrical trailer experience.      While Riddick was Mojo's first game trailer, Kahane and Mojo co-owner Jeff Lamont are clearly counting on the Hollywood-ization of game marketing to grow their business.      "One key reason we decided to branch out into gaming is the fact that more studios are creating games out of their movies," said Lamont. "It was a natural progression for us to make that same leap."      Indeed, Mojo is moving on to other game projects, including "Fight Club," "Red Ninja: End Of Honor," and "Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude" for VU Games and "Shadow Ops: Red Mercury" for Atari.      At Vin Diesel's Tigon Studios, producer Cos Lazouras is not surprised by the transition at Mojo.      "We deal with music production companies that have always worked exclusively for the movie industry," he said, "and now they're all trying to embrace the games industry. What we're going to see is a further homogenization of the entertainment industries -- TV, movies, and games -- which will be reflected in the marketing. If you've got a great game, a cinematic one that looks amazing and makes you feel like you're playing a movie, you really need a more spectacular approach to marketing it. And what better way to do it than to give it that Hollywood sizzle?" Paul "The Game Master" Hyman was the editor-in-chief of CMP Media's GamePower. He's covered the games industry for over a dozen years. His columns for The Reporter run exclusively on the Web site. Hollywood Reporter Article Here