2old2play, a website I rapidly find myself identifying with, is reporting that a London-based organization called Bunnyfoot did a study on in-game advertising and found that, for the most part, it's completely ineffective. One of the more humorous examples is Project Gotham Racing 3, which had an effectiveness of zero because, let's face it, who can read advertising at 250 MPH?

I'm hoping that this is the first of many studies that will finally get in-game advertising out of games. I'm angered by any in-game adverts that I see -- advertising is supposed to be the payment you make for free things. If PGR 3 has advertising, then why isn't it half the price of other games? Morgan Webb of X-Play fame made a similar point about a month ago on G4: If online play inserts advertising into the game, why isn't Xbox Live (for example) a free service?

Today's games do not anymore fit into any small size (maybe except casual games). And when most of the retail games cost a lot of money and when many also have considerably high advertisement values, you cannot really escape higher prices, in-game ads since you do not only buy a game, you buy the whole package. Moreover, you also have to have high-end systems in order to run these games!

As an old-school gamer, I don't play much. And when I play, I usually prefer classic games, or games like Wonderland. I try to continue playing like a simple gamer. It's really hard today to maintain that since today's games, most of the time, regard its gamers as mere consumers. If the companies who give advertisements within the games want to reach the gamers, I guess they should immediately abandon this in-game ads and start to make games which do not treat its gamers like consumers. Example? What about Cool Spot?

We have a whole group set aside for Advertising/Product Tie-Ins, that is games are filled with content to promote a specific brand or service. Essentially the "corporate sponsorship" of games. While not all of the games listed in this group are commerical, enough of them are that it should raise a few eyebrows. Despite the name, most of these, such as Cool Spot aren't "advertising in the game" so much as "designed from the beginning to be an advertisement by using certain trademarks"

On the other hand, every game which has paid a licensing fee of one kind or another is essentially doing the same thing: Advertising a brand. And while it may be NFL or Toyota or Kawasaki... it's still doing the same thing. The only difference is that Sports gamers might expect the popular franchises of their region.... and racing gamers might expect the game to use real-world types of cars (usually at the sacrifice of any kind of realistic crash model which would put the licensed cars in a bad light when they impact something).

Too old to play? I understand the feeling. Now I'm curious...

Yeah, in-game advertising is the last thing we need, especially since the price of new releases has been going up as of late.

There is one exception that I can understand however. In Wizardry 8 as you leave the game there is an ad for Falcon Northwest. But this was done because the company was out of funds and it was either scrap the game or generate some revenue to finish it. Had Wizardry 8 been a best seller, it was still quite possible that Sir-Tech would have closed.

Personally, as long as the advertising fits cleanly into the game, I don't mind it. I mean, seeing advertising on a NASCAR game makes sense to me. All the fake advertising found in some of those games just looks stupid, imo.

Or, if I'm walking around a city, I'd expect to see billboards and other things with advertisements on them.

When it doesn't fit into the game is when I don't want to see it... Imagine Morrowind with a Coca Cola billboard ad in the first city you arrive at after docking.

I agree 99%. I actually like some of the fake advertising. ie: Hassy in Blue Sting(k)er

In that case, I'd like a game that only takes place in communist countries. Lots of saved texture memory.

communist racing games where the driver runs out of fuel and has to barter on the black market ... fun

Hah! That sounds fun!

Obviously before you even get to race you would have to wait several years to get your Lada...

I heard the latest EA-money grabbing trick is the ad-ware style in-game ads that games like the last Rainbow Six have, which seems to track your browsing habits and updates the ads in the game accordingly. Its hard not to defend piracy when confronted with crap like that.

Anything like that gets an immediate firewall block from me, if I really want to play the game. If I don't want to play the game that badly, then such games will never see a penny from me.

Many of Microsoft's recent game releases have had advertising during load screens. That's about where my tolerance ends. If we've got in-game ads that supposedly add to the immersion, they should at least be destructible.

Battlefield 2142 is another such game, it even comes with a written disclaimer in addition to the eula about how the game contains monitoring software that records your IP, browsing habits and other "computing habits" (????) all so you can see McDonalds in the billboards of the far future.... Fuck EA man.

Sounds like we need to consider boycotting EA until they wise up. It's not like they'll stop doing this when they continue to have great sales. Of course, this won't happen and I'll get Spore no matter what, anyhow. :)

It's understandable to get spore in spite of EA's habits, because there is no alternative. As far as sport titles go though, there are alternatives.

Unless you enjoy American football, for which there are no alternatives :-/