Viral Frenzy

Some companies fail utterly at building up suspense for their new products. These range from computer moguls like Microsoft (when was the last time people were pumped about a new Windows release?) to brick and mortar shops like McDonalds (woo! a new heart-attack burger came out! I can't wait!).

Some companies however manage to keep the spark of their consumers, and manage to feed the frenzy just enough to ensure there are a legion of basement lurking denizens virally spreading all possibilities of a supposed product. We don't even know what the product is but it has simply left the tubes of the internet absolutely filled to the brim.

Well if you haven't guessed by now I'm writing about Blizzard. After a quick stop at their website this morning I saw the next iteration in what I'm dubbing "viral frenzy". Simply a splash page with all of their games listed along with the ship dates.

To get the jab in? The right side of the screen has a fancy glowy section with a question mark. Booya, well played Blizzard. Everyone has known for over a month that the company is releasing information concerning their next large scale title, but now this will reignite the somewhat wavering flame and people will make hypotheses upon hypotheses based off of all sorts of muddled conjectures, tarot, and possibly even star charting.
To top it all off there is a cult classic text line from Deckard Cain, everyone's favorite sole surviving member of the Horadrim.

That's one great zinger. People will undoubtedly over analyze the splash page too, making assumptions and drawing misguided conclusions about hidden messages left there by Blizzard for only the most degenerate of minds to rationalize out.

Viral Frenzy at its best, Blizzard I salute you.

\\drew