The A8 chip found in the latest iPhones, “Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon says in a new Apple ad, “brings gaming to the next level — I mean, if you’re into that kind of thing.”
Apple Ad Makes Gaming Seem (Shock!) Geeky, Angering Gamer Geeks
“Stop playing like a n00b!” says Jimmy Fallon.
Apple
“Yeah, if you’re into that kind of thing,” frequent Fallon collaborator Justin Timberlake chimes in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CEa9fL9nS0
The rest of the 30-second spot is Fallon and Timberlake spouting off unintelligibly dorky lingo from the new multiplayer game Vainglory. There’s talk of vain crystals, minion candy and eclipse prisms, none of which viewers are supposed to get. At one point, Fallon advises Timberlake to “stop playing like a n00b!”
That geekery has ruffled a few feathers online from thin-skinned Internet commenters. One Reddit user wrote that after viewing the ad, “[I] cringed myself into a black hole that destroyed the earth.” The video was upvoted by 95 percent of Redditors on /r/fellowkids, a section of the site devoted to making fun of corporate attempts to connect with The Youth.
Never mind that the ad is itself poking fun at how real gamers* sound to everyone else. The ultimate irony: All the things Fallon and Timberlake say are real terms from Vainglory; creator Super Evil Megacorp has advertised the game as “unapologetically core” in a bid to attract “core” gamers who traditionally play more on console and PC.
That message probably sounds great to Apple, since the game that primarily inspired Vainglory, Riot Games’ League of Legends, grossed $624 million in 2013, according to digital research firm SuperData.
About a quarter of the viewers of the YouTube version of the ad have given it a thumbs-down, far more than the generally positive response to other ads on the same official Apple channel.
* Not to say that Fallon isn’t one — see this recent interaction with Michael Cera about Mario Kart.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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