XCOM: Enemy Unknown

XCOM: Enemy Unknown’s lead designer struggles to sell his own game (video)

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XCOM: Enemy Unknown

XCOM: Enemy Unknown isn’t out yet, but that didn’t stop its lead designer from heading down to a local game store in an attempt to sell a few copies to less-than-eager customers.

The new game from Civilization developer Firaxis (due out Tuesday on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC)  is a turn-based tactical role-playing strategy game. Check out our preview here. That’s a lot of descriptive concepts. This is probably a challenging game to explain to people. Hell, I don’t even know if the game’s lead designer could do it.

That didn’t stop him from trying.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown lead designer Jake Solomon posed as an employee at Power Gamer, an independent game store in Glen Burnie, Md., to sell his game to random customers. Here are the hilarious results:

Solomon is very funny in the video. He goofs with the customers while telling them about his game’s alien enemies and huge choices. But no one seems very receptive to what he is selling. By the end, it isn’t clear if he sold any copies of his unreleased game.

A demo for XCOM: Enemy Unknown is available now on Valve’s Steam digital-download service.