Ronald Diemicke (1181) on 4/13/2006 1:20 AM · Permalink · Report
Today, The Game Initiative held the second annual Advertising in Games Forum in New York City. I never went to the first, but jumped at the chance to go chat it up about the state of advertising in the game industry and who was doing what about it. When I arrived though, I quickly realized that I'd grossly underestimated the power that was being wielded here. Many companies are positioning themselves with technologies that, if used properly will serve a duel purpose in enriching virtual worlds with realistic product placement AND help to provide publishers and developers with much needed additional funds to offset the ever rising costs of game development. At its best, it’s a great idea and will bear much fruit for developers and publishers and will make your realistic games more realistic. At its worst, The Elder Scrolls 5 will feature Nike, Coca-cola, and Jet Blue as its primary sponsors and will feature jets flying along side dragons, +3 shoes of Michael Jordon, and a coke machine in your favorite local dungeon.
Many industry leaders turned out including representatives from three of the largest players in the push for in game advertising, Massive Inc, Double Fusion, and Adscape Media. Also in attendance were the other parts of the equation, representatives from publishers like Vivendi Universal and Midway and from developers like Bioware. Talks ranged from the discussion of the latest in-game advertisement technology, to case studies about certain marketing campaigns to other ways for advertises to penetrate the gamer market. This thing goes deep. VERY deep. In a way, it’s scary. Today was a meeting of the minds to get the ball rolling even further on what advertising content you might see in and around games in the next couple years – and you had no say in it. Like most things, you’ll end up voting with your money. And the industry will correct itself.
Lets just hope it won’t take a Ford Focus being featured in Tam’ riel to get people in the industry to learn to be careful.
Aaron A. (39) on 4/13/2006 1:11 PM · Permalink · Report
1 and foremost worry on my political agenda. Fascism, Capitalists, and Stupid People. Advertising in-games will fall into this category... if you were broke, and you wanted to build a house, would you whore yourself out to everyone you could find to make a few bucks? (I hope not :P), Capitalist, this couldn't be more capitalist, unless you start seeing Commercial Oil barrels in FPS games, I hate the thought of looking at a Haliburton oil barrel in a game, its almost replacing the game's virginity with one of the most evil symbol you could think of. Fascist will fall all over this idea, so will stupid people. Do you actually laugh at the coke commercials, or visa card commercials on television? If you do, chances are you may be brainwashed by modernist fads, doesn't mean you are, but the chances are good. I mean, one used to have an illegal substance in it, the other is a loan shark - how can this be at all good for games? Are we going to also add fake audiance laughter in the background at every single punchline in a game to brainwash people into thinking that its funny like every single sitcom on television (not saying they aren't funny, but the fake audiance gets to me). I'm falling back to old games, when it didn't take much to make it, and it was cheap, letting you focus on gameplay, not graphics or seeing how much you can load into the system memory at once. I'm not going to turn this into a new vs. old generation rant though.
Zovni (10504) on 4/14/2006 7:36 AM · Permalink · Report
I used to think that in-game advertising would be a good idea as long as it didn't intrude so much on the gaming experience and helped lower development costs (thus resulting in lower priced games). But so far we are getting more expensive games that force us to sit through 30 minutes or so of corporate logos before they even start up...
Communism sounds like a better idea everyday...
Riamus (8480) on 4/18/2006 7:29 PM · Permalink · Report
I don't mind the stuff at the beginning of games as long as you can skip it (ESC, Enter, Space, Mouse Click, depending on the game). Most games allow that, so it doesn't bother me. The games that don't allow skipping annoy me... even when I'm only seeing the publisher and developer logos. I'm one who will watch the entire intro to a game one time from start to finish and enjoy doing so (if it's well done). After that, I don't want to waste time looking at it all again; I want to play the game. So, as far as intro logos and such, they're fine if they can be skipped.
As for the ads in games... we've seen various games already selling space for companies like Visa. Just look at Need for Speed and other EA games. Personally, I laugh at these companies that put advertisements into games. I'm certainly not more likely to care about them just because they are in my game. Games are a diversion from reality (even realistic games) and therefore anything in a game doesn't leave the game for me... including advertising.
In my opinion, games can have all the in-game advertising they want, as long as it's not in-your-face advertising that takes away from the game or doesn't fit. If I see modern advertising in a D&D style RPG, then I'll get annoyed. But, if I see a ton of bulletin boards in a racing game for various products, so what? I mean, games that do not have the real advertising on bulletin boards just have fake advertising on them instead. What's the difference?