Friday 21 August 2009

Now that's what I call marketing!

A couple of years back a very low-budget web series called The Guild appeared online. Written by and starring actress Felicia Day (previously best known for working on various projects with Joss Whedon, such as a recurring role on Buffy) it attracted a reasonable amount of attention and become a bit of a hit. The show's success inspired Joss Whedon to make his genius-like musical, Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, which walked off with a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation this past summer, breaking Doctor Who's four-years-in-a-row winning streak.

With the series in its third season, its popularity looks set to explode with the well-timed release of an entertaining music video called 'Do You Wanna Date My Avatar' (starring the regular cast), which has spread like wildfire through the World of WarCraft fanbase and across YouTube, generating 1.5 million hits in just a few days, once again proving if you want to get some attention appealing to fans of a computer game with a jaw-dropping eleven million regular, monthly players is definitely the way to go. The Guild's Facebook page and the viewing figures of its individual episodes have accordingly sky-rocketed in the last few days as people checked out the music video, liked it, and took a look at what else the team have been up to.



The Guild, for those not in the know, depicts the real-life adventures of a group of people who only know each other from their online roleplaying game (which is probably World of WarCraft but the name is never mentioned for legal reasons). A rather disturbing incident (one of the players starts stalking one of the others) results in the group meeting up in real life and getting to know one another, resulting in much hilarity. Considering it was made for next to nothing, it is quite entertaining and worth a look.

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