Oh my, what have we done. We discovered Atlus was publishing My World, My Way (aka Sekai wa Atashi de Mawatteru), Steal Princess, and The Dark Spire before they got a chance to announce any of these. They still haven’t announced the latter two which has led to speculation about what The Dark Spire is. Kid Marin who suggested Genmu no Tou to Tsurugi no Okite sounds like he’s on the ball. Poor Atlus.
I braced myself for an inevitable angry e-mail since, you know, publishers like to announce their games on their schedule. Instead Aram Jabbari, Public Relations Manger, at Atlus sent me the following “announcement”.
ATLUS TO MAKE ALL FUTURE GAME ANNOUNCEMENTS THROUGH ESRB WEBSITE
Unprecedented move to revolutionize game reveals
IRVINE, CALIFORNIA — DECEMBER 4, 2008 — Atlus U.S.A., Inc. today turned gaming PR on its head with the news that all future Atlus game announcements will be revealed first on the ESRB website.
“Our experiment has been a rousing success,” said Aram Jabbari, Manager of PR and Sales, beaming. “Allowing information about our upcoming titles to be silently posted on ESRB’s website has been a triumph, and we’ve decided to abandon all direct, overt disclosures of our future games in favor of quietly allowing the posting of new titles onto ESRB.org. Every other publisher puts their press releases out there in the same distribution channel, and sometimes the news gets overlooked. By sneaking all future game announcements onto the ESRB website for just a handful of passionate editors to find, we distance ourselves from industry conventions.”
Atlus will start this groundbreaking game launch tactic in 2009, and hopes to continue the practice as long as it remains effective.
“We’re sure we’ll have everyone doing this at some point, following in our footsteps. And maybe at some point it will force us to change direction. But in the mean time, we really feel that indirectly leaking all future game announcements and hoping a few people stumble upon them and tell everyone they know is the best way to go at this juncture.”
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About Atlus U.S.A., Inc.
Located in Irvine, California and founded in 1991, Atlus U.S.A., Inc. is renowned for its proud tradition of publishing exceptional role-playing games with strong niche appeal. The Atlus library of critically acclaimed video games includes Odin Sphere, Trauma Center series, and the award-winning Shin Megami Tensei series. For more information, visit https://www.atlus.com.
For breaking news, special promotions, insider info, and more, visit https://www.atlus.com/faithful to join the ranks of the Atlus Faithful!
This press release was a joke. (note: emphasis is mine)
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Well, I suppose this officially confirms Steal Princess and The Dark Spire, but now I feel kind of bad. Should I say sorry?
Images courtesy of Atlus.
