In game advertising

quad_red

Got Rainbow Six: Vegas this weekend and am greatly enjoying it.

But something that stands out is the sheer volume of ingame advertising for Axe Deodorant (the US equivalent of Lynx). It's bloody everywhere! Billboards, bus stops, posters.

It's sort of bizarre. Although more widespread, it's still not as intrusive as the Dell XPS advertising in Fear.

Branoic

Hmm, must say I've completed R6V recently, and never once noticed this. I'll have to go back and have a look!

The absolute worst for me though is the "Nivea For Men" product placement in Splinter Cell Double Agent. THAT was insane. In any level where there was a bathroom (the hotel, the cruise ship etc), the bathrooms could be guarateed to be overflowing with Nivea products! There were also of course huge billboards and commercials on in-game TVs.:rolleyes:

Saruman

I have not noticed this in any games.. then again does it matter? Just makes the game more realistic

Branoic

Saruman wrote:

I have not noticed this in any games.. then again does it matter? Just makes the game more realistic

Every bathroom in the in-game world being filled with bottles and tubs and tubs of Nivea For Men is realistic?

If I ever met anyone who had the amount of Nivea products that the men of Tom Clancy's world seem to have, I'd be very worried. I mean, the bathroom at the start of the cruise ship level has the counter overflowing with the stuff - mostly multiple bottles of the same product!

quad_red

How did you not notice it? At one point at the end of a level, the chopper rises above three enormous Axe billboards, one after another.

Saying that, given that it was supposed to be Vegas, they fit in cos they all feature hot chicks!

The Dell XPS placement in Fear just pissed me off though - it really burst the bubble in terms of atmosphere for me (in the end I ended up blowing them up on site )

And I didn't realise Sam Fisher used Nivea!

Branoic

quad_red wrote:

How did you not notice it? At one point at the end of a level, the chopper rises above three enormous Axe billboards, one after another.

Hmm, if its that blatant then I guess I'd have to say my only defence is not actually knowing that Axe was a real product, so it didn't jump out at me. If they had said Lynx instead, I daresay I would have spotted them

Kintarō Hattori

Hmnn I never noticed the Dell product placement while playing Fear. Heh Heh, guess I wasn't paying enough attention.

SeantheMan

BF2142 is riddle with ingame ads :eek:

MikeHoncho

Welcome to the future lads. Believe it or not advertising will be one of the big drivers of online gaming. Advertisers will be serving ads in much the same way as they do with banners on websites in the next few years. One day you will be playing GTA or something like it and the posters will be for Lynx the next day you play it the posters will be for Burger King. If you let your girlfriend have a go and set up her own profile she will get ads for high street fashion chains and chocolate because she is a different demographic to you.

Reason for this being that less and less people are using TV as their prime media consumption point so advertisers are looking at new ways to target the people they want to see their product. Also think about the impact of things like sky+. Tech savy consumers now fast forward through ads on TV. This means they need to find a medium where you have no choice but to see the ad.

grimloch

So long as this doesn't get to the stage where we have to look at an extra Lynx loading screen while we wait for the game to start, I won't mind.

Puteq

I wouldnt mind so much if it knocked a bit off the price and wasnt too out of place though (I would be well annoyed with lynx advertising in World of Warcraft for example). Still though, I heard of some MMORPG that is going to be released and it will be completely free to play, but will be full of advertising. I'd give that a go (dont remember the name of it though)

Dman001

I think advirtising should be more in games especially on Xbox Live. That way it could be free. I wouldn't mind watching a 30 second ad on Xbox Live so long as Xbox Live would be free.

Moojuice

It’s wrong. It’s just another avenue for advertisers to invade our mental space with their crap. It’s bad enough that adverts are every where you look these days, TV, billboards, urinals etc. Now they are even invading our virtual space. When they do come prevalent I hope some counter-culture hacker releases software or mods to block them. I don’t think they make games more realistic; they just line the pockets of scum-bag advertisers and give them a reason to keep living.

As someone mentioned, if it brought the cost of games down it might be tolerable but they haven’t so far and I don’t think they will. Playing any game with overt advertising leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I didn’t notice it in RB6: Vegas but that is probably due to me not being aware that Axe was the American Lynx.

Retr0gamer

Game publishers are using it to get extra revenue that isn't being pasted on to the customers. I wouldn't mind so much if it meant cheaper games. It's also the publishers that make the money and not the development team.

BlitzKrieg

isnt there a trick in the game if you click on a can of axe or something it plays a rainbow six blooper reel?

SeantheMan

grimloch wrote:

So long as this doesn't get to the stage where we have to look at an extra Lynx loading screen while we wait for the game to start, I won't mind.

Bom Chicha wow wah :cool:

Branoic

Puteq wrote:

I'd give that a go (dont remember the name of it though)

Ahh, the power of advertising at work

Call Me Jimmy

hmmmm..... sorta torn in that I don't mind the developers making more money on a game because the costs of making them are skyrocketing. I can foresee them raping us with advertising in games in the near future though.

johnny_ultimate

Didn't Zool have some advertising in it?
Joke.

madmarco245

SWAT4/Sketchkov Syndicate... Nuff said...

tuxy

Call Me Jimmy wrote:

hmmmm..... sorta torn in that I don't mind the developers making more money on a game because the costs of making them are skyrocketing. I can foresee them raping us with advertising in games in the near future though.

Are you able to read a thread before posting?
It was already said that the developers do not make extra money from this.

im...LOST

The R6V ingame adverts change all the time. I'd say people without the internet are glad for once!

quad_red

im...LOST wrote:

The R6V ingame adverts change all the time. I'd say people without the internet are glad for once!

Really? I hadn't noticed that. Or is it just the PC version?

neGev

Retr0gamer wrote:

Game publishers are using it to get extra revenue that isn't being passed on to the customers.

QFT

MOH

Branoic wrote:

Hmm, must say I've completed R6V recently, and never once noticed this. I'll have to go back and have a look!

The absolute worst for me though is the "Nivea For Men" product placement in Splinter Cell Double Agent. THAT was insane. In any level where there was a bathroom (the hotel, the cruise ship etc), the bathrooms could be guarateed to be overflowing with Nivea products! There were also of course huge billboards and commercials on in-game TVs.:rolleyes:

But not as bad the the Airwaves cut-scene in the earlier (third?) one