In a story-driven game, if the ending sucks it can ruin the whole franchise”: evaluating a narrative brand’s crisis recovery

ABSTRACT

The Mass Effect video game series, a narrative brand, and its Canadian developer, BioWare, were investigated to determine if their brand equity had recovered in 2016 after a brand crisis in 2012 by analyzing comments posted on five online news outlets using thematic analysis and non-participatory netnography. The investigation found that, although both brands had positive prior reputations, they had not recovered. Many players were intensely emotionally attached to the narrative brand and viewed the narrative shortcomings as a performance-related crisis and attributed it to BioWare and the Mass Effect 3 writers. It was also found that the video game industry and video game journalists failed to recognize the importance of narrative to the games’ players. These results have implications for crisis research, video game journalists, and the video game industry as well as publishers of other narrative brands such as movie and television series.

RÉsumÉ

La série de jeux vidéo Mass Effect, qui met la trame narrative au premier plan, ainsi que BioWare (son développeur canadien) ont fait l’objet d’une enquête visant à déterminer si, après une crise en 2012, leur capital de marque s’était rétabli en 2016, et ce, selon une analyse thématique des commentaires publiés sur cinq médias en ligne et selon une netnographie non participative. L’enquête révèle que même si la réputation des deux marques était excellente au départ, celle-ci ne s’est pas rétablie. De nombreux joueurs qui étaient émotionnellement attachés à cette marque reconnue pour ses trames narratives ont perçu les lacunes narratives comme une crise de performance, et l’ont attribuée à BioWare et aux rédacteurs de Mass Effect 3. On constate également que l’industrie du jeu vidéo et ses journalistes n’ont pas su reconnaître l’importance de la trame narrative pour les amateurs de jeux vidéo. Ces résultats ont des implications pour la recherche en matière de crise, pour les journalistes et pour l’industrie du jeu vidéo, ainsi que pour les éditeurs de marques concurrentielles qui produisent des films ou des séries télévisées.

KEYWORDS:

• Brand crisis
• crisis communication
• thematic analysis
• narrative brand
• video games

MOTS CLÉS:

• crise liée à la marque
• communication en cas de crise
• analyse thématique
• marque
• trame narrative
• jeux vidéo

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Dr Joanna McIntyre for her comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript and the anonymous reviewer whose comments strengthened this article. The corresponding author wishes to acknowledge the Commonwealth of Australia for providing financial assistance under the Research Training Program scholarship, although the Commonwealth was not involved in the design of this research.

Disclosure statement

There are no conflicts of interest to declare.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jacqueline Burgess

Dr Jacqueline Burgess is an Associate Lecturer in International Business and the Program Coordinator of the Bachelor of International Business at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia. Her research focuses on the brand management of narrative brands and has been published in multiple peer-reviewed journals including the European Journal of Marketing and the Journal of Consumer Marketing.

Christian Jones

Dr Christian Jones is Professor of Interactive Media and the leader of the Engage Research Lab at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia. His research focuses on human–computer interaction, interactive media, and affective computing. He leads multiple large-scale, collaborative projects and his research has been published in over 100 international, peer-reviewed conference and journal articles. His work has also been covered by various journalists in news outlets.