Product placement in games.

Hobbes

KdjaC wrote:

i took that as tongue in cheek and found it very funny, to me thats the kinda in game advertising i would like. Theres another game mentioned


kdjac

I thought so too until you notice in your game case there is an advert for Prince of Persia

TerrorFirmer

little stupid to listen to loud music

Yeah that was ridiculous, I mean how was she supposed to have a sharp reaction time in battle without being able to hear anything?

I cringed so much when I saw that - not only did it come across as painfully out of place - it also made a farce of the fight scene. pretty much a deaf human versus super agile vampires. I think she'd need all the help she could get....without listening to deafening music.

Imagine the terminator, kyle fighting the t850 while listening to the latest tunes :rolleyes:

steviec

I don't think it's that big an issue, depending on the game. In a game like Gran Turismo I'd be disappointed if the real circuits weren't saturated with Vodafone logos... On the other hand I don't need to see a picture of Tiger Woods every 5 seconds while racing in Burnout 3. But at worst it's only a slight annoyance and at best it really adds to the realism of a game. So I don't have a major problem in general.

Does anyone remember Cool Spot on the Megadrive? That was pretty surreal product placement, playing as the spot from the 7up logo!

Explosive_Cornflake

What I think will be a problem for all this in film/game advertising, is what will the ads look like in 10 years when we are playing/watching the games. An ad for something new, thats ten years old, will look stupid i think. It makes everything a lot less time less.

Smellyirishman

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/04/11/news_6121928.html

There y'all go, bit of an article for ya :-D

dearg_doom

Smellyirishman wrote:

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/04/11/news_6121928.html

There y'all go, bit of an article for ya :-D

Jesus that's the wrongest thing I've ever seen!!

I hate seeing ads in games, especially how EA ruined Burnout3, which I was really looking forward to with huge LYNX ads !!

I mean seriously, did you buy more LYNX or Tiger woods games, simply because you saw them at every corner in a game?? No, niether did I, but I vowed never to buy LYNX again as a result.


The worst game-o-ad I can remember was the SNES game based on the 'Motorcycle Mice from Mars(or something:)) briought to you by Snickers!!

And G-Police(a good game) had a lot of hype because the cops and badguys were kitted out in Diesel gear!!


Still though, games == good.

Adverts == bad.

monument

dearg_doom wrote:

Jesus that's the wrongest thing I've ever seen!!

Well, that's just the worst thing I've seen in some time!

i_am_dogboy

I don't think there's a problem with ads in games as long as it doesn't get in the way of the game. It could even add to the realism in some cases, such as posters on the walls of a subway station or something.

But if the ads are in the games I can't help but think they will indeed get in the way.

MrPinK

jill_valentine wrote:

I was wrong, 'twas the Genesis.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/g/sega_genesis/mcdonalds_treasure_land_adventure/overview.php

In that case they released more than one game, cause I remember one for the Amiga that looked nothing like that.

DonkeyStyle \o/

monument wrote:

Well, that's just the worst thing I've seen in some time!

I feel sick. (although it may have been those expired sausages I had about an hour ago)

I play games so I don't have to watch TV and all the shíte adds.
I can see this getting out of hand... to the point where you have people asking "hey where can I get a no-adds crack for GameXYZ?!".
If I pay full whack for a game, they have no right to pimp crappy 3rd party products to me... I don't owe them that, or anything like it.

They've been given "the inch" already with various games and nobody seems to care... now it looks like they're going to take the mile aswell :rolleyes:

Stephen wrote:

The US version of NFSU2 is basically one long advertisement for the Cingular mobile network - lame.

I did notice that whole "Cingular" branding crap in NFSU2 alright (it may have been the US demo I got from fileplanet) but I wasn't 100% sure if it was a real company... sweet jumping jesus though, now that you mention it, that's horrific. :eek:
I mean, the in-game Burger King outlets were bad enough... but this puts EA even further into the depths of soulless corporate wh0re territory.
/me adds EA to his boycott list alongside airwaves and coke.

The really sad part is, this in-game advertising rubbish will probably work for them, at least in parts of brain-dead consumer america where people don't mind having products rammed down their throats.... sitting there watching a half-hour show with a half-hour of adds chopped into it. :rolleyes:

jill_valentine

I'd have no problem at all with product placement in games...


...if the games got cheaper.

How likely is that? Not very. Not as long as folks are happy to pay sixty quid for a special edition ("Now with awkward tin box!") Why would they? Would you knock the price, if you could extort money so easily?

DonkeyStyle \o/

jill_valentine wrote:

Why would they? Would you knock the price, if you could extort money so easily?

Exactly, they'll just keep pushing this further and further.
The only way it'll stop is if people refuse to buy games that are essentially interactive advertisements.
There needs to be a central shít-list of add-ware games so people know what to avoid.

koneko

Activision advertise their games in their other games. I mean, in Vampire Masquerade: Bloodlines (published by Activision), there are Call of Duty pinball machines.

IIRC though the soda-cans were "C0ck" and not "Coke". Nice touch.

dearg_doom

Ah yeah, joke ads are great.

Those fake ads in the GTA games are some of the funniest games jokes I've seen/heard!

jill_valentine

Ah yes, the other side of the coin. Joke ads are wonderful... The Exploder ad campaign in Vice City is hysterical...

"They've got your wife!"
"But I'm not married!!!"
"You are now! To AMERICA!"

... as is Sprunk in San Andreas...

Fysh

The thing that concerns me is how advertising in games will affect game development. Previously it was a case of the game company making sure the game would sell. Now, as we see happening with TV as well, games companies will use the excuse of rising development costs (granted, it's an issue - but on the other hand, not every FPS needs to have a coded-from-scratch ultra spanky physics engine, damnit!) will resort to advertising to generate extra revenue (ie profits, since there's bound to be shareholders involved and more money is always nice, so price cuts will most likely not happen, at least not across the board). End result is that advertisers will likely veto "controversial" games, so anything innovative or daring will have a harder time getting that kind of support. Net result? As with commercial television, the end users get more and more crap, and less and less innovation. Which, in my experience at least, means fewer fun games and more mind-numbing EA sports sims type games.

Yay for advertising in games. *sigh*

DonkeyStyle \o/

Really good points Fysh, I can see it now... hot-shot executive trying to please the investors with games that have a 'proven track record' and hence re-hashing the same shíte over and over (the sims anyone?)... stuffy PR/marketing types having creative input into games going "ooh no no no, we don't want our product associated with such behaviour, change it to this instead."
With any luck, they'll shoot themselves in the foot, and discerning gamers will avoid the end product... although I don't have a lot of faith in that happening judging by the popularity of a lot of the tripe passing for games these days.

I agree that the radio adds in GTA were fantastic, but I wouldn't really call them adds ... it's some very well written comedy advertising non-existant companies.

Aren't there laws on this side of the planet against product placement though?
I remember seeing a TV info spot from someone like the British advertising/television standards agency or someone like that where they waffled on about protecting people from product placement, accompanied by a skit clip of an aussie soap where one of the characters puts a soft-drink can infront of the camera so it fills the screen... just to get their point across. Does anyone remember this?
It makes me wonder why NFSU2 didn't do the whole "Cellular" thing on the UK release... initially I thought it was because that company didn't operate over here, but now I'm wondering are we protected legally somehow? There again it didn't stop them putting BurgerKing outlets everywhere.

simu

DonkeyStyle \o/ wrote:

hot-shot executive trying to please the investors with games that have a 'proven track record' and hence re-hashing the same shíte over and over (the sims anyone?)...

Um, no. The Sims was a totally new type of game when it came out and the Sims 2 is a worthy sequel with far more possibilities than the original game. As for the add-on packs, you didn't have to buy them as it's possible to download a whole load of free objects and hacks for the game and they actually provided good add-ons at a reasonable price. How about a million different soccer games, anyone?

BlitzKrieg

we don't want our product associated with such behaviour, change it to this instead."

this already exists with most racing games...car companies will not allow their cars be submitted to in game damage if they feel it will reflect badly on the vehicle itself...

DonkeyStyle \o/

simu wrote:

Um, no. The Sims was a totally new type of game when it came out

Well I really loved the original Sims, as you say it was a nice original title, but they really milked the shít out of the whole thing with those expansions... wow a new selection of carpets and more stupid-looking costumes! only €35?! How can I lose?! Reasonably priced my hole tbh.
Maybe I'm just more fudged-off hearing about the sims - takin' a poop than you are.

How about a million different soccer games, anyone?

Urgh, who makes those Championship Manager games btw?
As far as I can see it's the same game with a new database of players/stats every year... and you pay full whack every time.

BlitzKrieg wrote:

this already exists with most racing games...car companies will not allow their cars be submitted to in game damage if they feel it will reflect badly on the vehicle itself...

Well that explains a lot, I'd assumed it was lazy/stupid developers who couldn't be arsed putting in the man-hours to implement it.
Funny, now that I think of it, I was playing Mercedes-Benz World Racing last year (where every car you can drive is a merc) and remember they were talking about the cars stats, and even with the slider set all the way from 'arcade' to 'realism', there was still a 10 or 20% increase in traction over each cars real-world handling... I had thought it was purely a gameplay thing, but I wonder now were they just protecting their image.

iregk

DonkeyStyle \o/ wrote:

I remember seeing a TV info spot from someone like the British advertising/television standards agency or someone like that where they waffled on about protecting people from product placement, accompanied by a skit clip of an aussie soap where one of the characters puts a soft-drink can infront of the camera so it fills the screen...
It makes me wonder why NFSU2 didn't do the whole "Cellular" thing on the UK release... initially I thought it was because that company didn't operate over here, but now I'm wondering are we protected legally somehow? There again it didn't stop them putting BurgerKing outlets everywhere.

I remember that alright and as far as I know there is some sort of law about it but I don't think it governs games. May be wrong there though. I think though they have really missed the whole Brian O'Driscoll Powerade product placement in post match interviews, its almost ridiculous.

But on the car crash thing as well, I heard that also. Hence why there is no crash damage in need for speed 2 despite the fact that you hit a solid brick wall at 140... oups sorry Metric, thats 225kph.

Fysh

Think those were the ASA (advertising standards authority) ads on Sky. There are fairly strong rules about product placement in the UK (not sure if they apply over here) but they seem to apply more to TV programmes than films - the idea being essentially that producers are not allowed to focus on a product unless it's necessary to the progression of the programme itself, and not in such a way as to basically be an advert in the middle of the programme. Not sure how they'd square this against films like I, Robot if they did apply it stringently to films though.

The Irish equivalent is the ASAI. I've dropped them an email (info @ asai.ie ) enquiring as to whether advertising within games would be covered by their guidelines and what they can do if people complain about a given game's adverts. Admittedly it may not do much, but if enough people mail them they'll have to do something.

iregk

Well fair play fysh for getting the ball rolling.

I have to say I admire Rockstar games for their refusal to put corporate logos into the GTA series, lets face it they could make a fortune!!! But instead the choose to use dummy companies. Ironic though that while we are complaining about logos etc... the number 1 download for GTA3 on the pc was the GTA Real patch that replaced all teh cars and logos with real world ones.

tman

http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews/20050418_183910.html

absolutely ****ing disgusting :mad:

simu

DonkeyStyle \o/ wrote:

Maybe I'm just more fudged-off hearing about the sims - takin' a poop than you are.

Coooool! When's it coming out?

BlitzKrieg

has anyone here purchased a product based on its representation in a computer game yet?

i mean how pointless will most of it be?

Products change advertising campaigns AND the products change quite reguraly so wont alot of the placement become worthless as the games age. Its like that bizarre love affair that advertisers had with adverts on vhs cassettes. never really took off. Adverts in cinemas make sense because the film is in the cinema for a limited time.

Product placement in films to a degree make sense. A film uses *real* sets and actors to create the fictional story, so using real products in it can not only be acceptable to the viewer (except when overdone) but also is fuctional as it presents the actual product in front of the viewer.

But computer games are 100% created on computers so the product is not really on show.

the only form i see working is a billboard or special item style advertising in mmorpgs of a real world or sci fi setting. And only if the monthly charges are deduced.

DonkeyStyle \o/

simu wrote:

Coooool! When's it coming out?

At some point after "The Sims - Keepin' it regular" hits the shelves.

DonkeyStyle \o/

BlitzKrieg wrote:

has anyone here purchased a product based on its representation in a computer game yet?

Nope and I make a point not to... just like email spam, unwelcome adds have the opposite effect.

BlitzKrieg wrote:

And only if the monthly charges are deduced.

Neeeeeeever gonna happen. (I assume deduced = reduced+typo)
They've already got thousands of people willing to fork out 50 a month in subs, the only way they'll reduce it is if they think they can get a massive amount of extra players by doing so, and so can increase the rates they charge for add placement that ballances the reduction in subs, and come out on top after the extra overhead the new players would cost in bandwidth/support.
There's no sense of fairness in business, they'll only do it if there's something big in it for them, or if they're already losing market share because everyone else is doing it already.

It's all so wrong though, I mean, if I buy a DVD in the shops - I don't expect to have to sit through 15 minutes of adds before the feature. (although some rental DVDs are really starting to take the píss)
Why not do it with Music CD's aswell then? Have a 30 second add between each track, or insert commercial slogans into the music subliminally? ... I mean, we only payed €20 for the fuking thing... these 'struggling' artists and executives need our support!

iregk

eh the whole music thing is already happening, thats nothing new. artists have been doing product placement for years in songs and music videos...

take Pinks track - Get the party started. Mercedes pain 200k to have their name and car associated with that song and how does the song go: "ill be cruzin in my mercedes benz" also in the video she drives a merc.

Product placement in music really took off in the 90's and now with hip hop its stronger than ever so you dont need ad breaks between tracks when the song has them already in it!!!

DonkeyStyle \o/

Product placement in music really took off in the 90's and now with hip hop its stronger than ever so you dont need ad breaks between tracks when the song has them already in it!!!

Yeah but you could make so much more money, why not go all out? - The share-holders would be thrilled.