The Soapbox: Why Can’t Sony Do Anything Right?

Sony, what is it with you and shoddy viral campaigns? You let a viral sit for half a year, send me free shit that I don’t want, made National Treasure for old people (Angles & Demons), and worst of all, you keep letting Roland Emmirich make movies. Seriously Sony, why can’t you guys do anything right?

I have been following the District-9 Campaign since Comic-Con 08. After an initial surge, it went dry for 6 months. Take a look at good virals (The Dark Knight, Cloverfield, Star Trek, Year Zero), they never went dry for more than one month. Once the campaign starts up again, I have no interest in it.

Now that they are breaking the fourth wall on EVERY site, it just takes the fun out. That’s what made other viral campaigns fun, the hunt for a site; now all you have to do is go to d-9.com and you will see each new site to the side. When Cloverfield’s campaign was running, we actually had to work to find new sites and we analyzed everything. But with D-9, Sony is handing everything to us on a shiny silver platter of shit. Don’t even get me started on The Dark Knight campaign, which did everything right, involved the real world, gave me free shit that I actually want, and most importantly, it was fun. You could really learn something from 42 Entertainment and Bad Robot, Sony.

Lets take a look at a few other Sony films with “virals”. Angels & Demons, now I don’t know why we even covered this, but this viral sucked ass. They made ONE site for it, ONE, and it added nothing to the film . . . which is what virals are for. Now, onto the shit-fest that is known as 2012, sure the movie isn’t out yet, but I can still rip on it! Yeah, a couple videos on YouTube, that’s about as interesting as Quarantine’s viral. OK, and the IHC, what the fuck can they do? Taking pre-cautions for the end of the world? How the fuck do you survive THE END OF THE FUCKING WORLD. That’s equivalent to Bear Grylls teaching viewers how to jump into a lava pit and live.

So, thank God that last paragraph is over. Now Sony, I hope you can learn from your mistakes and create some intricate and entertaining virals.

NOTE: Sorry guys, had a party last Saturday, next time The Soapbox will arrive on Saturday.