Ubisoft has released three ad-supported games, now available on File Planet.  While you’d think that’s a pretty big deal, and worthy of some attention, there’s no mention of it on Ubisoft’s home page.

It doesn’t make much sense to me to put together a deal like this and then not tell people about it, but there’s more than enough botched marketing to go around in games.  It does speaks volumes about the big game publishers that for all their millions of ad dollars they spend, the company web sites seem to actively avoid trying to connect with their audience in any meaningful way.  Sure, they look pretty, but as far as I can tell there’s no reason to actually visit them.  At best they act as portals to the individual sites for the games that they publish working on, but at least most portals are generating ad revenue.

Compare that with the genuinely inviting feel of a top casual site, and it quickly become obvious that most publishers seem content to put up a little flash and sizzle and then let it age until someone in marketing ponies up the cash for redesign.  Compared to the gushing worship of game fan sites like GameTrailers, many publishers seem to have something that verges on scorn for their consumers.

Here’s another example : Take2 Interactive has what is currently the most talked about game in the industry in Bioshock, and their homepage is still featuring three aging, middling hits above the fold.  They haven’t even bothered to build a header movie for it.  Meanwhile they’re still busy pimpin’ Prey and The Warriors.

*Sigh*.