When World Of Warcraft & Nintendo join forces, it can only end badly.

The collaboration shown in my comic has not happened, of course – but if it did, it would be sure to fail miserably.
I think that trying to have the Wii users and WOW users work togethor on a common platform would be harder to orchestrate than world peace.

Unfortunately, this collaboration could well be something that is on a gaming marketing executive’s “brainstorm” list somewhere.

Lets face it, worse ideas have been pitched by marketers of games – and some have actually been followed up on!

Some recent failed gaming marketing ploys include  Sony’s Failed PSP Viral Marketing Stunt and recently, EA’s “Sin to Win” contest for Dante’s Inferno

There are also too many examples of cross-promotional merchandise that marketers have pushed onto the consumer public.
Check out these 6 Crappy Items Marketed Towards Gamers, such as :

– Caffeinated Soap
– Video Game Champion Glove
– Game Fuel (which was Mountain Dews attempt to cash in on Halo 3)

Crosspromotion and co-branding is a way of life in marketing and many online games (I am looking at you, Second Life) even include branding opportunities within them.

This can sometimes be very successful.
But in my view, even when they succeed, it still feels like a sell-out.