In-Game Advertising Comes of Age

TotallyUseless writes: "Yahoo News is running a story about how in-game advertising is becoming more and more popular, and could become the norm soon. It is an interesting article and explains the reasons why game publishers and advertisers both see great potential in this." Bleh.

Comments

"bleh", says michael who has never had to pay rent

[hatless]

First of all, as others here have noted, there have been ads in games for years now. The Red Bull ads in the second Wipeout game were among the more clever, but look at sports titles too. When you see Coke, Panasoinc, Valvoline and Reebok logos in racing games, those are paid ads. There has also been product placement in RPG games for a while.

Michael, Michael, Michael. Do you have any idea how much it costs to create a new game these days? It's millions of dollars, often tens of millions. You want RPGs with giant worlds with realistic streets and buildings full of furniture,and knickknacks, and dozens of voice actors saying lines for a hundred or more animated characters? You want sports games where hundreds of motion-captured athletes are simulated down to physical tics, and cars are simulated from their oversteer and gear ratios to the pitch of their exhaust noise? Fine.

Now bear in mind that the publisher is selling the game to retailers for less than half the suggested retail price--often much less, because they're also paying for shelf space and local advertising even beyond their own national ads. And that's the publisher. The developer, unless they're a one-stop shop like EA or Sega, gets a small fraction of that.

You whine whine whine every time a game development shop you like gets bought out or goes out of business, and you whine whine whine when they try to sell ads to offset those insane development costs.

Verisimilitude; Neocron

[Robotech_Master]

I rather think it's a neat idea, myself. I still remember back in Spy Hunter for the 8-bit NES, that there were billboards for Bally and Sunsoft and the like placed along the roads every so often. It sort of added to the verisimilitude of the thing--you know, you see billboards when you're in the real world, why not billboards in a game world, too? There's no reason you have to pay any more attention to them there than you do in real life.

What I find interesting is the idea of using that to make virtual worlds more lifelike. Sure, you wouldn't see an ad for Coca-Cola in Everquest or Asheron's Call without suffering a bit of disbelief--but imagine a futuristic cyberpunk virtual world project like Neocron, whose screenshots already reveal advertisements for fictitious in-game products like "Tyrell Bionic Implants". In fact, in the Miscellaneous section of their FAQ, they note:

Are there any plans on how to keep the cost of the game down?
There may be billboards around the city advertising "real" products, which will help to keep the cost down and give the game a more realistic touch. The billboard advertisements will fit in with the theme of Neocron.

You see that? Not only will it reduce costs, and make the advertisers happy, it'll enhance the verisimilitude, the realism, of the game by making it seem more and more like you really are in such a city. I think that's all to the good.
--

and of course...

[Muggins the Mad]

the income from ads will be used to reduce
the price to the consumer...

yeah.

sure.

It's kinda hard to know what to do about this -
with TV when the ads become too annoying I just turn the TV off and go read a book or something.

But a computer game - where I've already paid for it...

I find this idea as offensive as the compulsory
(no fast forward) advertising they put in DVDs.

The only place I'd find it acceptable is in real-world simulations. Racing games, maybe flight sims, possibly some of the FPS's. Other games I play to *escape* the shit that's in RL, not immerse myself in more of it.

- Muggins

what if...

[humungusfungus]

You are in an open field west of a big white house with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.

>open mailbox

The mailbox is overflowing with all sorts of gaudy mail with pictures of various commodities and colourful logos.
You feel slightly uneasy...

>run away

You can't do that right now.

>west

You are standing in front of a McDonalds(tm) restaurant.
There is a can of Coke(tm) here.

>drink Coke

It's very refreshing...

>west

It is dark here. You might be eaten by a grue(tm).

New news - for 1990.

[sprayNwipe]

This isn't anything new. Wipeout (96?) had Red Bull ads in it, some of WildTangent's games have had banner ads in the loading screens, and online games like Trivial Pursuit Online and Flipside.com games have had mid-game full screen ads in them.

There have even been full-length console games for which the sole purpose of them was to advertise - I think mainly of the "Cool Spot" and "Fido Dido" games for 7-up.

Bleh, indeed. Whenever I see a game related topic on /., I always cringe, since it means either a whole bunch of misinformed posts are going to be created, or I'm going to have to read an article about something that happened ten years ago...

Corporate-sponsored world

[legLess]

The most frightening aspect of this is what's going to happen in 10 years when game developers are dependent upon corporate advertising. What happens now when a major sponsor pulls ads from a TV show? The show dies (c.f. Dr. Laura's show, recently cancelled). It's often happened that a network has pulled or altered a show to suit major sponsors.

Could this happen to a game? hard to say. TV is very advertising-dependent, and game development seems more like movie-making. But check this out (from the story):

"Our expectation is, we'll cover the cost of the games where we do the in-game advertising, partly because of the large audience we're able to realize." (John Riccitiello, EA president)

Here's EA straight-up planning to use advertising as a prime source of game funding. Will this be reflected in better contracts with content producers? Yeah ... hold your breath.

question: is control controlled by its need to control?
answer: yes

Re:Does this mean we can stop paying for games?

[AntiNorm]

I mean, we're forced to have ads in the games, why should we have to pay to get ads??

Same reason you pay for newspapers/magazines/etc. The advertising subsidizes it. IOW, if the ads weren't there, it'd cost a lot more. For example, without advertising, your average newspaper would cost around $5 (rough estimate). But add in ads and you get a 90% discount.

---
The AOL-Time Warner-Microsoft-Intel-CBS-ABC-NBC-Fox corporation:

Re:next thing you'll see...

[bonzoesc]

Maybe music. Wesley Willis is a pioneer in this field, even though he probably doesn't get paid for it. Every song of his ends with "Rock over London/Rock on Chicago/Wal-Mart/It's always the low prices." (The ad depends on the song, of course.)

Tell me what makes you so afraid
Of all those people you say you hate

Oh great...

[Kasreyn]

Adds Heather Berry, editor at Happypuppy.com, a gaming fan site, ''If gamers like the game, they don't care about the product placement.''
So I guess I'm in the minority there, too. Wow, do I ever have the market cornered on THAT one! But, seriously, what I'm wondering is, will Gamespy and the other mass information and preview "outlets" start warning us about ad-riddled games before we buy? If not, there will soon be a need for a game ad warning site, where they list the newer titles and how invasive the advertising is. With that on our side, it will be possible to boycott the companies doing this. If not, then you wouldn't know until you played it that a game pauses every 5 minutes to show you an ad for a fscking burger.

-Kasreyn

Mario 128!

[byronbussey]

Me a Mario!! I shop at the GAP, and jump a super high in my Nikes. I have to save Princess Britney Spears from the clutches of the evil coke can, but need to collect all the Pepsi Products before I have enough energy to take on the darkest evil in the universe.

next thing you'll see...

[DragonPup]

"Smith And Wesson shotguns! As seen in Quake IV!"

-Henry