Click breast, er, buy now!

Okay, so back in my post on porn as advertising, I talked about the growing prevalence of using porn to advertise free MMOs. Today I'm going to target a somewhat related phenomenon - the breast play now button. Cheesecake women with heaving bosoms and not enough clothing are a tried and true tactic in MMO advertising, but some advertisers (*cough*Evony*cough*) really go the extra mile with the "breast (or sometimes ass) now button".

Here, I'll show you what I mean with some examples:

All right. Now does anything strike you about the placement of this button? Like, say, that it's right next to her luscious faerie ass? In order to look at the "Play for Free" button, you literally have to ogle this poor faerie's backside.

In a fairly marketing shill piece on mmocrunch.com, an Allods marketing rep was asked why Allods is using such sexual advertisements. Response is as follows:

Allods Online: This ad actually only makes up around 2% of our ad spending, while 98% of our spending goes towards ads that rave about Allods’ graphics and award-winning gameplay. Sometimes these other ads just get lost in the marketplace and a different strategy is required to break out of the clutter.

Riiiiight. Clearly this ad is justified because it's bringing something new to the world of MMO advertising. I mean no one else has ever used breasts to make their product stand out, right?

All sarcasm aside, this response is entirely disingenuous. He's trying to make it sound like the boob-tacular advertisements are a very small part of their marketing portfolio, but notice the wording. "This ad"? Well if you consider that to mean that particular permutation of that ad, well he might be telling the truth. But wait! I've seen at least three different versions of the lesbian fairies on the internet. And how the hell does he explain this?

Oh my god! This is, like, the most clever ad EVAR. You see what they did there? It's a quest for chests, right? And the word CHEST is over the hot chick's mostly bare CHEST. OMG. You guys are like the best marketers ever.

Sweet! In order to download the game, I get to click on that fairy chick's boobs! I totally understand now that your advertising is all about graphics and award-winning gameplay! I'm sorry, Allods Shill Guy. I was so wrong to doubt you!

Okay, enough sarcasm. Let's get back on topic. The Breast Now Button! This was actually emailed to me by a friend around the same time that I started noticing other ads for this game. Depressingly, it seems like YET ANOTHER game jumping on the Allods bandwagon:

Oh wow. Yet another boob related pun! I sure hope you fellas didn't strain anything thinking up this work of genius. You're like, the DaVinci of boobs.

Hey look, it's right another giant "play" button right next to another pair of giant fake breasts. And what's with the "feeling naughty?" slogan here? Do they want people to equate clicking the button with feeling this chick's boobs, or what?

They just got lazy with this one. It looks like they ran out of shitty jokes and just said "eh, let's just put the button on her boobs".

Now, if you own an MMO and you're not comfortable with having this many Breast Now Buttons as part of your advertising campaign, don't worry. It's easy enough to add just one to your current mix. Consider the following:

"Oh, baby! That's not all I'll grab!"

...sorry, I couldn't resist. The possibilities are almost endless! I mean, look at the way she's sticking those ta-ta's out there. What else am I supposed to think?

"Anyone got a Sharpie? I'm going to sign up, all right. Sign up ALL OVER HER BREASTS. Woo! High five!"

Okay, this one is actually a Crotch Now Button instead of a Breast Now Button. See, it's telling you to DIVE DEEP and CLAIM your TREASURE. And then there's a TREASURE CHEST in front of her CROTCH. It's almost like they're telling you to dive RIGHT INTO HER PANTS!

But I saved the best for last. It's small, but check this out:

This is from Lords Online. Their button for buying game currency requires that you actually click on her breasts. I mean, come on, people. Could you be less subtle? Why don't you tie your business card to a brick with "TITTIES" written on it and hit me in the face with it?

Ugh.