30°

The Quest for Sony's Mascot

Having a mascot is a fairly common practice when it comes to building a brand of any kind. Everything from restaurants to sports teams, and tech companies utilize the power of mascots, the main reason being that they are symbols and are meant to be instantly recognizable characters that we associate with a certain name brand. Just the sight of a mascot can immediately put emotions of happiness or hatred into the minds of an audience. Video game companies through the years have been one of the biggest users of mascots, especially the company that revitalized the industry when it was nearly gone.

Z5015288d ago

1.KRATOS
2.Nathan Drake
3.Some random hot chick

GWAVE5288d ago

Sony has many mascots. Simply choose the one that fits your interest.

Kratos, Nathan Drake, Sackboy, Ratchet and Clank, Jak and Daxter...

It just goes to show that Sony is all about variety.

himdeel5288d ago

...SONY fans probably each have their character they'd consider the SONY mascot. That in itself is quite a feat and I do not think they need nor could reasonably just have a single mascot.

Raoh5288d ago

Sony doesnt need a mascot, it has an entire animal farm of characters to pull from.

mcgrawgamer5288d ago

Don't need a mascot when you got Kevin Butler....

cmrbe5288d ago

As Gwave said. Sony has many mascots and it depends on your age, the type of game you like and where you are from.

If Sony picked a mascot then it would have stereotype the PS brand as well as its gamers which would be a disaster for Sony.

Every time people think of Nintendo they think of kids because of Mario. Every time people think of xbox they think Halo and shooter nuts. Everyone = Playstation , including soccer fanatics, car fanatics, RPG lovers, music game lovers, action adventure fans,platformer fans etc etc. Thats the way it should be.

Unicron5288d ago

That guy Halo is the best mascot. He wears green and doesn't afraid of anything. I love Halo. He's almost as good as the other green guy Zelda. Go Zelda!

=)

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320°

Most Offensive Video Games That Would Never Cut It Today

Times are changing, and these games would have never been made in today's climate.

Read Full Story >>
wealthofgeeks.com
thorstein40d ago (Edited 40d ago )

Every single time someone uses this phrase whether it's music, movies, books, comics, video games, etc it's always the same claim.

The ubiquitous "they" won't allow it to be made. And every decade these claims are made the claimant completely ignores all the "offensive" material that is published when the claim is made.

In ten years, you can write a new article about how you can't make games like Helldivers 2, Resident Evil VIII, Mortal Kombat I, Dragon's Dogma 2, Alan Wake 2 etc etc etc any more.

MrBaskerville39d ago

Yeah, people wouldn't be constantly outraged if there weren't games that people found enraging. The whole SBI discourse shit wouldn't be a thing if all games were inoffensive. A game like Starfield can make a guy froth at his mouth, so there will always be room for a list like this.

0hMyGandhi39d ago

Normally, I'd be inclined to agree with you, but there are massive caveats.
TV shows like Venture Bros, Ren and Stimpy, and Aqua Team wouldn't/couldn't be made today. Hell, Ren and Stimpy was a *children's* show, same thing with Rocko's Modern Life.

It's not for some arbitrary reason, either. It's branding and IP alignment. Companies are far more risk-averse than they were when I was kid in the 90's. Of course, you have companies coming out of the woodwork to hell spur on similar content, but remember: Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon and some incredibly provocative material.

And for movies? it's pretty obvious. American Pie/Wedding Crashers/Eurotrip among many other "raunch coms" have fallen out of style, and are absolutely outside what the modern day film industry is willing to stand by.
Ace Ventura 1 and 2, Dumb and Dumber, Freddy Got Fingered, Rat Race, Harold and Kumar, and Van Wilder follow suit.

Remember: I am not explicitly talking about films put onto streamers. I am talking wide-releases in actual theaters. Same thing goes for games: Carmageddon, Duke Nukem, Manhunt, Six Days In Fallujah (with their original concept), Hatred, and so on and so forth. Of course, I'd be inclined to mention most tactical shooters like Rainbow Six and Joint Ops as well, due to cultural sensitivity regarding *who* you are shooting and why.

And not all of it is bad (obviously). Tastes change, and perspectives change to fit the demographic.
I should add that I'm a lefty, living in L.A. Working in film.

thorstein39d ago

The Boys, Invincible, Jojo Rabbit, Deadpool, Gen V, Last of Us, Banshee... There are plenty of media being made today that people will claim "can't be made today".

Profchaos39d ago

Yeah but if you consider manhunt which was basically a snuff film could you seriously make that game with high than PS2 era graphics.

thorstein38d ago

The Outlast Trials just came out.

But the storyline of Manhunt was that you were executed. But then lived. And if you didn't do as you were told, you'd die. And the people you killed were not innocents.

It was all filmed by a psychopath.

As we speak GTA VI is being finished up for a release. You get to play a Bonnie and Clyde type of protagonist who run up against the law.

Bodycam looks so real.

People are making those games. Articles like this will always exist no matter how incorrect they are, no matter how many times they blame "them" for whatever it is "they" do to prevent "those" games from being made.

Number1TailzFan39d ago

The UK is the biggest junk country pandering to that nonsense as well, with laws against free speech and expression to match. It got so bad even Rowan Atkinson made a video on free speech about it.

Now the UK raises the age rating on harmless films like Mary Poppins, it's just a load of pansy weak ass nonsense.

MrDead39d ago (Edited 39d ago )

The right wing Tories have been in power in the UK for the 14 years you know the ones that are "anti-woke", blame them for your perceptions.

Killer2020UK39d ago (Edited 39d ago )

Are these snowflakes in the room with us now?

This is more faux outrage designed to get hits. The consequences are unfortunately creating hysteria amongst those willing to buy into it and blame "them" or "the left" or "liberals" meanwhile the left are kicking off about genocide, actual real world abhorrent acts. Nobody is campaigning to censor this shit.

Huey_My_D_Long39d ago

Not too mention the fact that some of these game are controversial for you know, underage porn and encouraging rape.

So either the guy just came in to comment snowflakes without reading anything, or he is calling people snowflakes for having a problem with said titles. Crazy how much brain rot someone can have.

banger8840d ago

Dead Island: "The early PC version of the zombie game swapped the playable character Purna’s Gender Wars skill with a prototype name, which shouldn’t be mentioned directly. The skill name made fun of both Purna as a character and feminists."

"Feminist Whore" lmao

gold_drake39d ago

ill add one more to the list.
drakengard 1.

its ridiculous tho, especially since they'd still be able to find their place in alot of places in the world. except america of course ha. and maybe Australia.

ppl are so sensitive these days. ha. but it is what it is.

Barlos39d ago (Edited 39d ago )

They're not offensive.

And we need another Fat Princess. Fantastic little game!

Some people just have no sense of humour if this sort of thing offends them. They need to lighten up and stop taking themselves so seriously.

Deeeeznuuuts39d ago

Would love a new fat princess game 🤟

CantThinkOfAUsername39d ago

Games literally about sexual assault, mass genocide, bombing civilians, and school shooting. None of which is satirical.

isarai39d ago

Actually it's about fat princesses

Huey_My_D_Long39d ago (Edited 39d ago )

Its crazy that people are fixated on Fat princess when clearly the list is going over controversies, and not all of them are equal. Like way worse examples but pretend the entire list is like that.

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70°

‘People laughed at it’: the unlikely story behind the music of Crash Bandicoot

For many, the game became the sound of the 90s – but Josh Mancell tells us how the music for PlayStation’s first mascot game originated in Kraft cheese and Kraftwerk

Read Full Story >>
theguardian.com
80°

Seven Video Games We'd Love To See Get TV Adaptations

The WellPlayed team has come together to share which video games they’d like to see turned into a TV show.

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well-played.com.au