CASE HISTORY AND SAMPLE CLIPS
Bohle Was There in the Beginning
With id Software’s FPS, Doom
The Bohle Company was hired to generate coverage of id and its best selling software games in consumer and business media; the company’s publisher managed gamer press. That five year engagement allowed us to help make Doom one of the best-selling first person shooter titles of all time, Wolfenstein 3D, Quake and their sequels; manage visibility for legendary programmer John Carmack; and help the game industry thwart negative publicity over violent games. Along the way, we generated massive coverage in the game press along with front page stories in USA Today, a profile of the company in Forbes and stories in the New York Times.
Challenges:
• Id produces first person shooter games for the hard core player. Although the company’s products are voluntarily offered for review to the industry rating group, and the packaging for the titles carries a “mature” label and parent warning, the company is often attacked for producing “violent” entertainment by parents groups and has been called out in congressional hearings
Strategies:
• Use our extensive contacts with game writers at the top consumer publications to generate first time coverage of id titles
• Isolate and pitch exclusive story ideas to the reporters for major publications, who rarely review individual titles
• Allow key reporters access to id’s reclusive founder, John Carmack, considered the technology guru in the first person shooter space
Results:
• Extensive coverage for id games in the lifestyle, men’s interest and Top 25 daily newspapers; several exclusive wire and syndicated features; an 8 –page story in Wired
• Expert positioning for Carmack and Todd Hollenbeck, president, in industry trend stories in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and other major business publications as well as a 10 minutes interview with John Stossell on ABC’s 20/20
• Company profiles in Forbes, USA Today, Time and other national news weeklies, business pubs and tech columns
