September 2010 – What the Chow Saw

Recently, I talked to a Sauder Alumni who graduated with a Marketing degree. I, being curious, asked her if there is a designation in Marketing to which to replied no.

That got me thinking. One can be a Financial Analyst, a Chartered Accountant, Certified Managerial Accountant and so on, but there is no designation for marketing.

To my understanding of designations, along with the ruling body that gives and takes it away, allow an industry to be professionalized. Wouldn’t that create a more attractive environment for one to go into marketing? People earn this designation will be able to put an acronym after there electronic signature. The industry itself can potentially make itself more recognizable. And there regulating body would protect the profession.

I also understand that would be issues such as the start up costs of creating the regulatory body would be really expensive. This entity would have to maintain power or risk being obsolete. And marketers would have to write a series of exams.

However, at the end of the day, doesn’t that make marketing more marketable?

About a month ago I completed Mass Effect, a video game for Xbox 360. I thought it was a typical Role Playing Game, where you get to choose your own adventure and any actions you take have an impact on your environment and beyond. I did not enjoy it as much as I thought I would have (although I have to admit, some parts did give a mellow feeling) until I heard about the sequel that is.

Mass Effect is science fiction game where Humanity has conquered space travel and has built up this mass armada called “the Alliance”. As the protagonist you must protect the rest of the galaxy and from an unknown present threat out there. The weapons, graphics and game play were up to my standard, but there were some things I could not stand such as the long wait when my character is in the elevator (this was used to mask the loading time) and the same old mass customization allowed in the game. I could play the same over a hundred times differently depending on if I want to be a good guy, bad guy or something in the middle and who I choose to be in a relationship with.

Now, I finished the game and I said to myself “school’s about to start. Thankfully I finished and have no need to play again. At Least I won’t be distracted in September.” I had some sort of appreciation for the game, enough to read about to the new “Mass Effect Wiki”. Reading about it, I found out this game is a few years old, but more importantly, I found out that there was a sequel. I was curious enough to click on that and read up about it. At this point I was clearly distracted at what I saw.

The sequel, Mass Effect 2, allows you to import your character from Mass Effect One! That is a complete first in my books and the RPG genre. I was completely excited to play the sequel and at that point I was engaged in a learning period.

RPGs as a brand are known for the amount of options it gives to its consumers. There are limitless possibilities for anyone playing whether it is weapons customization, order of completing quests, entity affiliation and team choice. However, this is a point of parity in any RPG. The point of differentiation was the fact that one’s actions in the game would transfer over to the sequel, which is also an RPG. This leads to another chain of events not seen in any other game of the same genre.

This new addition in the RPG genre raises the standards of any subsequent games that have sequels. Gamers in the industry will definitely love the elevation in the choice. I know that even after September I will be more than distracted.