L.A. Noire - Marketing and Release

Marketing and Release

Prior to its release, L.A. Noire was marketed and promoted heavily through the use of numerous Internet and TV trailers and through promotions that played on its noir and movie background. L.A. Noire was selected to be shown at the Tribeca Film Festival, the first videogame to be recognised by the festival. L.A. Noire was screened as a sixty minute long film on 25 April 2011, followed by a question and answer session on the game's story and the technology used to make the game. continuing the movie theme of its promotions, Rockstar ran a competition to win a trip to Los Angeles to attend the Festival of Film Noir at the Egyptian Theatre (which is actually featured in-game as a location), take an Esotouric Black Dahlia bus tour, and play the game a month before its official release.

Rockstar collaborated with several retail outlets on preorder bonuses available through store chains throughout the world. The pre-order bonuses were the bonus case The Naked City, the side quest The Badge Pursuit Challenge, the bonus detective suits "The Broderick" and "The Sharpshooter" and the traffic case A Slip of the Tongue. The official online Rockstar Games store, the Rockstar Warehouse, offered a L.A. Noire T-shirt as the pre-order bonus. Target offered a $5 Gift Card, and a free Rockstar Games t-shirt if the game was purchased in-store during launch week.

In addition to the pre-order bonuses, all new North American copies of the PlayStation 3 version of the game came with an extra traffic case, The Consul's Car. The Consul's Car traffic case became available for purchase from PlayStation Store on 27 July 2011, for European players. On 6 June 2011, Rockstar published L.A. Noire: The Collected Stories, a collection of short stories from noted crime authors, all based on the L.A. Noire universe. The Rockstar Games Social Club is a website that displays the gameplay statistics of registered users and feature competitions and awards based on player activity within the game.