Rift: Storm Legion – Sex won’t make gamers play your game

Does sex sells?

The fine folks over at Trion Worlds, the developers of the MMO, Rift, seem to think it does.

Rift was a bit of a hit when it came out, but its following soon dwindled after players burned through the content. Now, with Mist of Pandaria pulling in almost 3 million players and Guild Wars 2 doing almost as well, Trion Worlds’ prospects for the Rift expansion, Storm Legion, which releases on November 13, has to look pretty bleak. So maybe they can be forgiven for behaving like dinosaurous pigmaleass. Maybe.

Trion Worlds’ ad campaign for Storm Legion features a mostly naked woman. The private parts are covered so it’s safe for work. So they’re acting like pigs. Nothing new there, right? Nope. Not in the mostly male-dominated gaming industry. But it’s not the 1960s, anymore (Thank goodness.), and men aren’t the only gamers. They never were. One scantily-clad advertising campaign sorta ignores a key demographic in gaming – girls. Guess Trion Worlds doesn’t care about selling to gamer gurls.

So does sex sell? I suspect it’s just a dinosaur notion from the Mad Men era. That doesn’t keep people from still believing it, though. And you can be pretty sure this advertising campaign isn’t going to work for gamer gurls.

I don’t know if sex sells, but it does keep making morons out of people. The Trion Worlds marketing staff are just the latest victims.