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Product Placement in Video Games
klaun writes: "Yahoo has a Reuters article about product placement in games. Seems that paid placements are no longer that popular because they don't work. The audience is to sensitive to advertisement being 'crammed down their throat.' Wonder what slashdot thinks of product placement." I actually like ads in games, whether they're spoofs or real, so long as they fit the context of the game.
I was playing Super Monkey Ball (extremely fun) for the GameCube the other day...
and I got this strange desire for a Dole Banana. Wonder if it was something subliminal thrown in...
It's a very unintrusive form of advertising. I don't see anything wrong with it. It doesn't take away from the game, or perhaps make it more real. I'd rather that than interrupt the game with ads like is becoming the trend on the internet to interrupt viewing of a webpage to show an ad. In a world where ads are being made more and more intrusive and more annoying, this is a refreshing way to advertise a product.
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It does help to make movies and games more realistic, since they will be using brands that you recognize, but that's about all it has ever done for me.
Besides, unless there is something that limits someone from using a certain product in a movie, it's pretty much going to happen anyway, why pay for it? (I might be wrong here, but you don't have pay Pepsi if you want to film a movie and there is a guy in a scene drinking Pepsi, do you?)
What?
THPS2 (not sure about 3) has product placement in just about every category possible - branded skateboards, ramps, ads on walls (some real, some spoof), and the PSX version even had a demo for a different game on-disc. Most of it's fine, unlike the Pizza Hut ad in the second Ninja Turtles game on NES, which just seemed out of place.
did taco just say that he liked ads? what is the world coming to?
seriously, who cares? as long as your peons in warcraft aren't drinking pepsi and flying around in their Delta Airlines Zeppelin of Death (tm) does it really matter? just like any other form of media companies will try to squeeze advertising in to cover the development costs. sounds like a good trade to me.
I think the only product placement that every made me want to buy the product in question was in Wipeout (Red something?); too bad they don't sell the product on my continent...
Keeping someone hooked on something you're doing artistically requires suspended disbelief. This is precious and needs to be managed delicately.
Anything that snaps someone back to the real world from a fantasy runs the risk of breaking suspended disbelief.
Anything that does this to me using the word "Coke" is likely to make me want to buy Pepsi out of spite. And I hate Pepsi.
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Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
those ads in syndicate were fun. they really worked to the alltogether dark mood of the game. in such strategy or better tactic games ads could work good enough because the player waits time for thinking his turns out properly. in fast shooters though ads would be surely overseen.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
It's about time that ad companies start realizing that they are forcing so much at us, that it doesn't work anymore. (Redundant, I know).
Still though, maybe they'll start finding better ways. First of all, the product really does have to appeal to the target audience. It has to make sense. I don't even notice ads anymore, they are just automatically blocked out of my vision.
Occasionally, one that appeals to me in some way will surface. Like one I saw on slashdot a while back that asked what the smallest positive integer you could make with 9 9s and + - / * ( ) was. That grabbed my attention right there, but hey, I'm a programmer.
On the other hand, most ads (read: X10) are totally ignored by me, and I don't even give it a second thought when my mouse automatically moves over and closes the window.
Someone made a Unreal Tournament capture the flag map titled cola wars. Coke for red flag. Pepsi for blue flag. One of the best maps I have played! Lots of fun (p.s. I play that map as blue)
dw
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
geez, it's finally good to see coporate american not winning for once.....
ahh, the egg in the basket..
Just tried out this mod for Q3A, and in the urban settings they've taken ads that you see in real life and slightly changed them: Coca Pola, 8dfx video cards, etc. Personally I'd prefer that they used the real thing for a greater sense of reality, but perhaps they feared legal repercussions.
and Pizza Hut. I still have the instruction book with the coupon on it. I challenge anyone to find a video game with advertisements in it older than that. I'm not sure if the ads worked then or not, but it was a wildly popular game.
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I was a little peeved at the presence of blatant promotions for Soap shoes in the game Sonic Adventure 2. Sonicteam kind of represented an independent spirit, despite the often shameless marketing of their mascot, and it kind of saddened me to see them tie the little blue guy to yet another way for preteens to injure themselves.
It's fun looking for the ads-- real and fake-- in SA2, though. "Got Ring?"
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
hi :)
it can be fine. Super Monkey Ball (on NGC, by Sega) for example, is all about the monkeys-collecting-bananas theme, for which the Dole (iirc) branded bananas everywhere make sense. the game, however, is utterly fun and brain crunchingly devious.
for the most part, I hate and completely ignore ads. I'm the kid that mutes every commercial and reads a book while watching tv (and regularly gets voted off his neighbor's TiVo, for overuse). any overt attempt at sticking ads in my face is going to get on my blacklist very fast.
movie theaters are among the current top offenders, imho. games are mostly ok.
That's the plain and simple fact of it. As a culture, we are so used to ignoring any form of advertising, that it just doesn't register anymore.
Advertising is in a state of diminishing returns, and they need to go about it a different way.
I thought that Hateful Chris 3d trailer was funny...
"The earth is running critically low on ad space!"
Since the ad placements don't work, they're now going to enemies sporting apparel and mugs with merchandise advertisements on them, and random popup ads that you have to shoot thrice to get rid of.
Better hope one doesn't pop up during the boss level...
It's something I haven't actually seen in a while, luckily because companies finally realized that people hate advertisments.
Unfortunately, now that they are unable to show off pepsi products successfully in the movie, they just bombard us with ads before the movie.
I hope I never see that little pepsi whore every time i start up Doom 4...
I've noticed on two XBox games, Project Gotham Racing and NFL Fever 2002 have fairly visible Taco Bell "ads". NFL Fever having the end of game Taco Bell highlight reel, and PGR having a few signs in NYC that say Taco Bell. I don't have any problem with it. Its a detail that if completely absent would draw some attention too... I mean think of the BCS for college football. I remember when each bowl didn't have a sponsor like the Tostito's Fiesta Bowl... Fed Ex... etc. Sponsorship is a part of our everyday lives... Does it mean I've gone to Taco Bell since their XBox media blitz started... Nope. Although a soft taco supreme sounds kinda good right now...
BTW... This post sponsored by JohnChapin.NET
Ever since playing Max Payne, I've had the urge to buy a .50 caliber armalite automatic rifle and shoot
the people who cross me...I guess this product placement
stuff works.
Oh well...time to go buy some doritos, because i AM bold and daring enough!
I like the ad/product spoofs in games like max payne. throughout the game, little things are scattered around, like copies of the "New York Time" and fake television shows, that add to the feeling that the game world is a real place, but also have a parody element to them.
Remember, there were no nuclear weapons before women were allowed to vote.
Did any of you play games on 15 years ago? Going to Pizza Hut instead of "the pizza place" does help you relate to the game more. It makes it easier to relate to the character.
My partner found the article at work the other day, it was interesting. Before he even mentioned the part about promotions my first thought was promotional deals.
Sure Dole isn't paying for the US rights, but why should Sega spend money removing it. The Dole stuff was amusing and SO over-the-top it didn't even seem like a game, it was funny. I couldn't stop laughing about the Dole stuff everywhere.
I don't buy bananas on brand, so it's irrelevant, but if they were launching a luxury version, it makes sense to do promotional deals.
Alex
I don't see a problem with this practice at all, and in my opinion I think that software companies should be accepting revenue for product placement, as $20,000 here and there could help to lower the price of the product.
...is the worst abuser of this. Every other damn place you have to go is branded...Levi's, KFC, Pizza Hut...boo.
Overusing the ellipsis mark since 1998. Damn right I have a low uid!
I think ad's in games would add to the realism of the game.. if you think about it, in live you see ad's on the streets, products in houses... why have a cola can sitting on the table when the develpers could have a real coke can, or case.. and get paid to have it there too. Granted there is a line, it must be apart of the game.. and not interfearing with the game, and not all games woulf fit to have ads.. such as Black&White.. no room for ad's in that game. But a game like MaxPayne, it would fit GREAT.
Call it corporate irony at its finest, but I really really really loved the way that Pizza Hut promoted a movie where the script tie in was actually to the Domino's promotion at the time. (Domino's had a thirty minute delivery guarantee - but a multimilion dollar lawsuit because of a traffic accident involving a pizza delivery guy ended it)
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
The second kind of advertisements is product placement that does not fit stylistically into the game. An example would be if the cut scenes in Final Fantasy showed the characters wearing Fubu clothing and swilling Cherry Coke. This sort of product placement makes one feel that advertising is being 'crammed down one\'s throat', and is thus not acceptable to many gamers. As long as companies can differentiate between the two types-- and avoid the latter-- everything will be okay.
I also have a related question: What's the deal with the car brands in Gran Turismo? Do the car companies pay to have their products "featured" in the game, does the game company pay for the rights to use real cars, or does no money change hands?
Thanks for your time.
I'd rather be lucky than good.
I like ads that are well placed in games (i.e. goodyear in a racing game; billboards in an urban setting, etc.) but useless product placent where it really doesn't belong is something that I find really dumb. If the Coca-Cola logo was just thrown in because they paid for it, that looks bloody retarded - but if it's thrown in "seamlessly" so that you barely even notice it's there, as in reality, I think it's rather smart from a development point of view. Everyone wins if it's done well - it's painful to play if not.
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I was thinking about this just the other day when I got the DVD of 2001 for my birthday.
....Entertainment industry experts say the days of searching the screen for sotto voce references to a brand name are over.
Looking online I found this interesting essay on the movie in which it discusses briefly product placement at a time when it wasn't as rampant a phenomenon. Also, this article from Reuters, Product Placement Blatant Not Subtle in Films was interesting; it covers both movies and video games, and how the entertainment industry moved from simple product placement to strategic marketing. Quoting from this:
The new world in entertainment marketing leaps out of the screen into the world the audience inhabits, traveling under intriguing titles such as viral marketing, street marketing and wild posting.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Product placement is usually accepted where it doesn't interfere with the product in which it is placed. James Bond driving a BMW is fine, and might even boost BMW's image. The camera focusing on the BMW logo on James' car is not.
So, for example, if there were going to be cans of soda int he game anyway, like in Deus Ex, there shouldn't be any objection to putting a real-world brand name on them.
Ahh, I remember the first time I saw an advertisement in a game - it was the Sprint banner that popped up for a second or so whenever you made a subspace comm connection with another ship or a base in Space Quest V ("Roger Wilco and the Next Mutation", by Sierra On-line).
However, I live in New Zealand, and had no idea what Sprint was, let alone how I could give it any money.
As such, for me at least, that was a pretty pointless ad. It was a novelty to see advertising in a game though...
I heard this same story on NPR over a year ago.
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> Name brands enhance the realism of a game
Hmm. I'm not sure what to make of this statement. Part of me agrees, considering that the point of many games is role playing, whether explicitly as in RPGs or lessobviously like Quake or GTA, so realism is desirable.
Another part of me thinks that the computer screen is just another medium, albeit a swiss knife of a medium, or a herd of cats of a medium if ou will. Did advertisement make telly more realistic way back when?
And besides, what is shareware? It is simply content delivered with advertisement within (the nag screens, etc.). The only major difference occurring ot me here is that the advertising on shareware is usually almost exclusively for the people producing this content/program/service.
How long is it going to be before we get GTA5 for free with a 30 second Dell ad every 15 minutes?
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
Besides funding, product placement can add realism to a game. We're immersed in product placement in real life, so it seems strange to not see it in a supposedly reality-based game.
Of course, in real life we see competing brands advertised all the time, but that wouldn't happen in a game. You won't see both Coke and Pepsi billboards in one game any time soon. Furthermore, games usually have just a handful of sponsors - sometimes even just one. The Illusion is somewhat broken if all you see in a game are Nike ads and nothing else.
But the most common offense I see is when they put in ads for their own company or development team. Sure it was funny maybe a few years ago, but I don't want to see giant ads for Interplay, Inc. or "Team Blue" in every game I play. (Note to developers: this also goes for pictures of your family and obscure in-jokes that only Bob will find hilarous.)
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
I think ads in games... if they fit... are fine. If you're walking by a guy drinking a soda, why have it be for "super duper fake cola" instead of Pepsi(R)? It might not actually help the company, but really... product placement never does so... oh well. If they're going to throw money away on such a silly advertising method they might as well make my video games better.
i have to say i've been really rather impressed recently by the adverts in gta3... they really do help to build up that living city feel. and the radio ads blatently rock.
though i think the best use of product placement in a game has to go to wipeout 2097 and its use of red bull... that just fitted so perfectly to me... am i right in saying that was done with no cash changing hands too?
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www.markwheeler.net
The oldest video game I know of with advertisements in it has to be the classicly horrible "Kool-Aid Man" for the Atari 2600. The game itself was technically just an ad for Kool-Aid, and it was generally unplayable. I'm glad they don't make games like this anymore.
Well, when you talk about NASCAR and F-1 racing games, bear in mind that the publishers usually pay to license the cars from the racing organizations. As a result, they have to include all of the car sponsors all over the place, and can't remove them except in cases of legal dispute (i.e. tobacco ads). I doubt that the car sponsors get any additional money out of these deals, since they must sign contracts that say "this car will be in x races, y video games, z publicity stunts, etc" when they fork over the cash.
If there's a NASCAR or F-1 car out there with a Sony PlayStation logo on it, publishers can't remove or obscure the logo even if they're publishing the game for Xbox or GameCube.
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i think the Red Bull advertisement in Wipeout XL was very appropriate. The extra caffeine was very helpful playing the game.
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
The radio stations in Grand Theft Auto III really help make the game and the ads really help make the radio stations work. They add to the "texture" of the game and give the game makers the ability to make subtle (and funny) commentaries on society.
The wierd thing is that MOST of the ads are fake... but some of the personal promotions stuff (Game Radio) are real or are they... the bleed over between the fake ads and reality adds another dimension to the game.
This article also shows that if you ignore ads THEY WILL STOP. If you don't like ads complain and specifically do not buy those products.
=tkk
Bill Gates - Creationist?!?
I sit in front of my webcam drinking Dr. Pepper all day. Thousands of visitors see me drinking Dr. Pepper every month. But do you think Dr. Pepper has ever even ONCE offered to sponsor me??? NO! Of course not.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
The worst and most blatent product placement in recent memory was in the movie The Fast and the Furious. Guy goes to other guys house, "You want a beer? You can drink whatever you want, as long as its a Corona!" Proceeds to go to guys fridge, EVERY beer is a Corona (and this is a houseparty with like 30 people). Everyone's drinking Corona and having a jolly good time. Wonder how much they paid for that 20 min scene.
I just sit around all day. I suppose it would be trivial to write a perl script to refresh slashdot's rss file for me, and, if it's been updated go and jam some post vars at em, but that would be taking the whole thing way to far. Some of these trolls have actually gone so far as to write programs designed for crapflooding and whatnot. While I do think it's cool as hell that even the feeble minded can write programs to suit their idiotic needs, I can't help but wonder who the hell has that much free time on their hands.
In the end, I'm worse than them, I suppose. See, it's not like sitting around reading slashdot is taking away time from more amusing activities. I have nothing else to do. There is no need for me to take timesaving measures, since there is no reason for me to save time.
Thank you for your inquiry.
Your lord, saviour and pal,
Jesus
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
advertising is so pervasive now that it borders on intrusive. i got w/ my gf to see LOTR the other night and guess what i have to endure for 30 minutes before the movie.. Pepsi ads! All shapes and sizes of them!
ads are crammed down our throats constantly. i for one am sick of paying people to throw ads at me. television (being 'free') is of course the worst.. 22 minutes of every hour is advertising. if it's renting a movie for $3.79 it's bad enough that they put 20 minutes of 'trailers' in front of the movie. it's worse if i'm paying $7 a crack to see something on the big screen and i have to endure MORE ads than i would if i'd waited for the video!
now i pay $50 for THPS3 and get to see ads constantly every time i fire it up?
i pointedly avoid products with ads that are forced on me..
/me just shoots himself
how about the game avoid the noid where you were the dominos pizza guy and you had to out run the noid
Look at it this way; I think that TV advertisements work because if you happen to be watching commercials what are you thinking about? The commercials. Even in movies the product placement is mostly in the boring scenes that is comprised of "chit-chat" that no one really pays much attention to anyway, so they may notice the product. In video games however you are only concentrating on the game. How many times have you been playing an intense racing game only to notice a banner so amazing that you slam into a wall? Never.
It might work if it cut costs for the consumer or done in a different manner. If RTCW was $30 the day it came out because it was sponsored by Brand X, I might be more open to product placement inside the game. In certain games its just not appropriate due to the genre or settings. Could it be they just aren't doing it right?
thirsty*i^2
"Ya I finished that last week, it just doesn't work"
I do agree, that in game ads do help to add to the realism of the game, as long as they're integrated to the background. Ulitmately, I think this is where advertisements are going, because while we do get to see a product, at the same time, its not as invasive as say pop-up ads or commercials on tv. I still remember the Tommy Hilfiger (farely new) ads from 1080, and the old Pizza hut ad from ninja turtles.
13 year old white supremacists are shitty web designers.
If Red Bull pays a lot of money to have theur adds in WipeOut and other games i would expect that the developers could reduce the price. But no they ofcourse increse the price and calls the adds a "feature" that increases the gameplay
There isn't much like the scent of a fresh harddisk
propstoalldedhomiez: It's a very unintrusive form of advertising. I don't see anything wrong with it. It doesn't take away from the game, or perhaps make it more real.
... i really dont like paying for something then having to view advertisements.
gimpboy:
I'm with gimpboy on this one. If I paid for it, I expect to be able to put my entire attention into the experience I paid for. If an ad enhances that experience, i.e. by creating a more realistic environment or being parodied as part of a plot line, it's acceptable. But if it's intrusive, it's just stolen my time and vandalized my property, just as if someone had spraypainted it on the side of my house.
As near as I can tell, if it's intrusive enough to actually sell the product, it's also gone over the line into degrading the experience, whether movie or video game. So that ruins product placement as a legitimate advertising technique, with the possible exception of joke-as-plot-element.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
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As long as it's natural, advertising is fine my me. Take Shemue and Crazy Taxi for Example.Two examples of product placement used in two completely different fashions. In Shenmue I found the products to be unobtrusive and added to the realism of the game. In Crazy Taxi (which i loved btw) I found the fact that most customers cited thier destinations in terms of products (rather than streets or landmarks as would seem to be the natural case) annoying.
There are two considerations to make:
1.) What is the subject of the game?
2.) What is the audience of the game?
These two questions identify the possibility of placing ads within a given game. I think as placement is a great idea because it offloads development costs associated with development. However, if ads persist in games where there is no context to the subject then of course the audience is going to be 'turned off'.
Sports games are great examples of good adverstising potential. In real-world broadcasting, there are ads specific to each sport and viewers not only expect to see billboards and commercials, but actually enjoy in some cases. Games geared toward extreme sports like skateboarding / snowboarding have shown smaller indpepndant companies promote their gear, clothing, and equipment. In those cases it adds realism cause athletes are concerned about the quality of their equipement, even how they look. Gran Turismo is another good example of this, real cars, real accessories, good advertising.
The problem begins when you have to watch a PlaySchool advertisment "before" you get to play Elmo's Great Adventure. Thats just sick.
Harder.. Better.. Faster.. Stronger
I liked the subtle realism of having a brand name laptop recognizable in the game. Walking in to one of the rooms and seeing a ThinkPad X series laptop was pretty cool.
I also have a related question: What's the deal with the car brands in Gran Turismo? Do the car companies pay to have their products "featured" in the game, does the game company pay for the rights to use real cars, or does no money change hands?
i really don't know, but i'm going to venture a guess here. i'd say that for a game like that, where content is dependant on using brand names, there is probably no money changing hands for the cars. as long as nothing bad is said about their products during the course of the game the car companies are getting free advertising and the game makers are getting realism.
everything else in Gran Turismo is paid by the companies with the ads. the ads for Shell gas, Perelli tires, and Brand-X upgrade components scattered around the various tracks are secondary to gameplay. as such, with the only real benefit going to the purveyor of the product, the companies must surely be paying for it. i mean it adds to the realism, but they could be ads for anything.. whereas, you couldn't really drive a Pizza Hut brand car.
just my thoughts..
Without product placement I never would have known about petsovernight.com.
Rush Rush to me Yao!
another thing i probably should have mentioned is racing games like gt - everyone wants to drive they're favourite car so getting 'em licensed properly is great for everybody.
though this was never gonna work in gta im afraid - car companies dont seem to like the idea of their latest model being pictured with a grannie bouncing off the windscreen for some reason...
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like a slice of toast gaffer taped to a cat
www.markwheeler.net
At that time, I wrote a letter to each member of the committee reviewing the bill. Chris Crawford actually attended the hearing in Sacramento, and apparently he was a hit because at least one of the legislators was familiar with one of his games.
In the end, the bill was amended so that the enacted law only prohibited PAID placements in video games by alcohol and tobacco companies, mirroring the prohibitions of such paid advertising on TV.
Product placements are still going strong in movies and TV (ever since the success of the placement of Reese's Pieces in E.T.). If you see a logo'd product in a movie or on TV, you can almost guarantee that it's a paid placement, though some movies (especially) do include Coke cans and Marlboro cigarettes and so on, without payment, for realism.
As noted, the successful placements are in context. When there is a product placement that is out of context, it detracts from the movie and it probably also provides no benefit for the advertiser.
I will be interested to see if paid product placements WITH LINKS may emerge in some online or internet-enabled games. Imagine being able to click on that corporate logo! Golly!
-- http://www.MarkWelch.com/ Pleasanton California
I kind of liked the advertisements in the GT games. It added a sort of authentic feel to the game. They weren't shoved in front of your face, either, they were tucked nicely out of the way on passing billboards.
The only serious problem with this is when the marketing execs find that people start shooting up the ads that they don't like, they'll try and force the game companies to make thier ads invulnerable to enemy fire. That's cheating!
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Why in the world would Dr. Pepper offer to pay you for a sponsorship, if you are already promoting their product for free? Currently, your endorsement is unpaid and that makes it worth MORE than a paid endorsement. (I dunno what it is worth, whether a nickel a year or $5 million, but unless you announce a plan to switch to Mr. Pibb, don't expect Dr. Pepper to offer a penny.) ;-)
-- http://www.MarkWelch.com/ Pleasanton California
Like in FIFA 2001 or 2002, it fits the game, same with an NBA, Baseball or NFL game.
Otherwise it's distracting.
Is this serious, lol?
But for some reason, all of a sudden, after reading this article, I wanna go home and fire up my Atari 2600 emulator.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Damn... Extortion! Why didn't I think of that.
I've been approching this all wrong. Yes. A month long campaign to threaten to switch brands if I'm not offered a sponsorship.
I'll get started on that right away!
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
agreed.. it ads to the realism. while i'm still opposed to planted ads on a very basic level, i can tolerate the GT ads.
i saw another user mention crazy taxi.. fun game, but the ads there are just waaay too in-your-face. it's not yet as bad as paying $7 to watch 30 minutes of previews and other ads before a movie though.
"so long as they fit the context of the game"
The product should fit the context of the game - and not the advertisement... I can just imagine it, walking through some Half-Life clone, collecting a red key, pulling a lever on the wall of a darkened corridor, wading through demon-hordes to get the blue key, and finally opening that last door to reveal a message saying:
"Trouble shifting those nasty bloodstains on your Quake armour? Tired of cleaning the guts off your marine uniform? Then try NEW WonderClene*TM spray on your clothes! Just two squirts and you're back in the action! *contains bleach"
That would be the wrong kinda realism for me.
insignificant sig
btw... here are some articles regarding the subject that you should read:
Product placement in games
Placing Product Before Art
"Product placement" is extremely common in movies, music recording, television and anywhere else an audience will see the product or company names.
Big tobacco is the leader in the field. Almost every movie or television program recently made *actively and heavily* promotes tobacco use. It is even promoted during so-called anti-tobacco spots on the evening news. The usual scheme involves showing video of attractive young people joyously smoking away while the newsidiot reads aloud the problems of teen smoking from the teleprompter.
"Product Placement" is *almost always* done for cash payments, often delivered under the table, which is why the publishing industry fights so hard to persuade the public that it does not occur. Frequently, payments will be made in the form of drugs or sex.
I care not what the pro product-placement posts here say, because they are more likely than not simply paid placements from whatever advertising company asked that this thread be started. It is obviously a troll to see the level and kind of protests. If few are made, then there will be increased subliminal advertising on slashdot disguised as legitimate posts. That is the plan, isn't it Slashdot? Or will the sham posting increase anyway?
So far people have noted paying for games and going to the theatre and having to endure ads. Ya it sucks but your all missing something. Even those annoying ads you see on tv, you are paying for, it just gets added into the cost of the advertiser's product. The consumer just picks up the tab as usual.
:/
2 cents from an anonymous coward
"You don't pick up a facial tissue, you pick up a Kleenex."
Like in the movie "Go"...
(a great film, gets better every single time you watch it...available from a P2P service near you (I've heard))
when they are in the appartment of the big time drug dealer...and Bose has prominently displayed a box, featuring large logo, along one of the walls.
I'm sure all those upper class people who buy Bose because of the "if it's the most expensive, it must be the best" mentality would love to be associated with a guy selling Ecstasy to minors.
I got this for my PS/2. IMHO I should have been paid to take the game, it is nothing but advertising from start to finish. I was actually pretty sickened that I was paying alot of cash to have this rammed down my gullet.
It's nothing to do with "realism", it's just corporates getting more fingers in more pies in the never ending "advertise everything everywhere" game that the world seems involved in ATM.
... as long as it doesn't say:
You have been fragged.
This frag has been brought to you by the people at Heckler & Koch. Next time, when you really need protection, think H&K.
Paid placement works at least as well as other forms of advertisement. What they're paying for is brand recognition. The more times you see Pepsi Cola, the more you're going to think about Pepsi Cola, and the more you think about Pepsi Cola the more your going to buy Pepsi cola. Most people don't think advertising affects them, but those are the people that usually get affected the most. The truth is that most people don't think a whole lot, especially about what soft drinks they buy.
Advertising is huge bussiness. I'm not sure on the exact numbers but in the US alone it's in the high billions and it's been growing exponentially. It's hard to estimate just how effective ads are but it seems like it must be working for someone. So given that traditional advertising works my guess is paid placement works even better.
Think about it, what changes your perception of a brand more? Seeing the brand's logo in traditional advertising that you probably would rather not see and have trained your self to tune out to a certain degree. Versus seeing the brand used in your favorite movie/tv show/video game that you have chosen to watch and most likely enjoy.
On your second point, I don't think Pepsi would let you use their product in a movie unless you get permission. I doubt they would make you pay for the privelege of using their brand but if they don't want you to use it, they will instantly sick their lawyers on you.
That's why you always see generic products in older movies. These days they use real products because it's a chance to make more money through product placement. You will notice a lot of new movies have these awkward product beauty shots. Personally they drive me crazy.
Now for an interesting story:
In the days before Hollywood discovered the wonders of Product Placement the makers of the movie ET wanted to use M&M's in their movie. The candy had a fairly important role in the movie, but Mars candy wouldn't allow the use of their brand. Reluctantly, Steven Spielburg and company decided on a lesser known candy Reese's pieces. With in months of the release of the movie, Reese's Pieces sales began to sky rocket. And that is how Paid Product Placement was born.
-ishmael
Of course watching James Bond in a BMW detracts from the movie. At least for the next movie they ;)
have gone back to a _real_ car. Aston Martin. Learn some Respect!
[Please type your sig here.]
I used to work for a compay called Cricinfo, and in the database of registered users, there was a field about how those users came to the site. There were a significant number that specified they'd heard about the site from playing one of the cricket games on computer.. It seemed to work very nicely for them. :)
Advertisers flirt with loss of Trademark protection.
Sorry, my WordStar fingers (using CTL key combos to cursor around) caused me to post before I got started.
The quote, "You don't pick up a facial tissue, you pick up a Kleenex." in the article caught my eye. People also often ask for a Band-Aid(tm) when they mean bandage. I don't know how hard Kimberly-Clark works to protect the Kleenex(tm) brand, but I'm sure they're quite close to losing it (not loosing it, damn it, loosing is not a word) all the time. There's a fine line between making your product name known in every household and making it a household word (or whatever the requirement is to lose your trademark protection).
I thought [Mike Fischer, vice president of entertainment marketing for Sega], a guy who oughta know better, was a bit irresponsible in making that statement.
Another potential type of product placement that I don't think would be so bad would be user activated stuff. It would be kind of cool if after whacking the coke machine with a crowbar, you heard the sound of a can opening and your character saying, "ah, crisp refreshing coke." Or if your character hovered in front of a "gap" store for more than a few seconds, he might say, "I wish I had a dress like that." It would have to be comedic and the action would have to be deliberately triggered. ... sort of like Easter egg ads.
" so long as they fit the context of the game."
You mean like the milk commercials in the Zelda games?
BlackGriffen
"I actually like ads in games, whether they're spoofs or real, so long as they fit the context of the game."
Hear, hear, timothy. There was a time when commercials were an art form, and they were great. I think it's cool to see proper ads in games, as long as it's not Britney gyrating on a Pepsi can or something.
Didn't advertisements used to also include something funny or witty to make you remember it? It's like commercials now just try to associate stuff with when you're horny.
"Man, I'd love to boink Britney. I think I'll have a Pepsi, because that's nearly the same thing."
If I remember correctly, my friend was telling me that there was once a game made for the Famicom that you had to eat cups of Ramen Noodles for strenght. He was also telling me of a game made for the NES that was made for McDonalds.
SQ4..I think. Can't remember. Anywho, gets my vote for best real PP, and best fake. The real one was Sprint; all of the transporters in the game used Sprint as a carrier. It was funny. The fake one was for Soylent Clear. Nice jingle. Look for it on google.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
You see them using "Generics" because sometimes they don't want to make it look like they are endorsing a particular product.
If it was for legal reasons, you wouldn't see them driving, talking on the phone, using cel phones, using a computer, using paper, wearing clothes, etc... They would be in an empty white room. Err wait, you wouldn't want to offend the sherwin-williams folks... You would see a black screen... Er wait, Eastman Kodak may get mad... Heck, there would be no movie...
There is such a thing called fair-use...
How hollywood always shows a fake computer screen as passes it off as a real computer program... Like how the OS was structured in Jurassic Park, or how there is never a cursor on the screen, or how the GUI is on the screen, or how email works, or how usenet works, etc etc etc. In a "hacker" type movie, that always ruins it for me.
How about a (really good) pinball game made to advertise a brand of beer. It's available for Linux and Windows here: http://www.medialab.lostboys.nl/projects/madewith/ pinball/pinballgame.html
And yes, it's worth your while to download. It's very good!
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
I actually like ads in games, whether they're spoofs or real, so long as they fit the context of the game.
I thought it was cool that, in Metal Gear Solid 2, you could pick up copies of FHM magazine and leave them in strategic places to distract guards.
What I wish they had done is to leave some White Castle hamburgers laying around. If Snake eats them, he loses some health and gets bad gas, which naturally alerts the guards to his presence.
Oh well, there's always MGS3 to look forward to.
Steve
I find that product placement in games is terrific. To play off of another post I saw here, a gentleman was commenting on how he didn't enjoy seeing advertisements for the company that produces the game, or family photos, etc. Ten times out of ten, I'll want to see "Pepsi" on the side of a can in the game than I would "SUPERCOLA." Intelligent product placement makes the game much more believable, and doesn't launch me out of the otherwise serious nature of the game with "Supercola? wtf?"
Take Max Payne for instance; a game that I find fairly realistic. If the painkillers were all "Advil" or "Tylenol" or something, I would find that tasteful and I would prefer it over "Painkillers."
I'd say that everybody wins in that situation. The advertising company gets some cheap (and probably well-noticed) advertising, the software company gets some extra cash in their pockets, and the end player gets some added realism.
I think tastefulness is the key issue here, and I think it's important not to lose sight of the fact that "SUPERCOLA" takes me way out of the illusion that the game publishers are trying to embed me in.
that was funny.
"Delicious, refreshing sobe! mm! product placement at it's finest!"
....However, i've never bought one outside of that video game. The hell with product placement.
I do remember running to those little vending machines, desperate for a health sobe.
Robort knows all.
Has anyone seen Evolution? Where they kill the invading aliens with Head and Shoulders(tm)?
Well, the original version of the script had them using beer to kill the aliens. Think how funny that would have been-a fire truck full of beer hosing down aliens and destroying them. But Head and Shoulders paid advertising, so they made up some stupid explanation at the last minute why dandruff shampoo would kill aliens. (Watch the "Oh-so-dandruff-shampoo-kills-them" scene. The fat guys walks in with a case of BEER. It's so obvious.)
At the end of the movie, Duchovny and Orlando Jones do a mock-up advertisement for Head and Shoulders, "parodizing" the fact that they just got paid several million dollars to hock dandruff shampoo. This is one example of product placement getting totally fucking out of hand.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
If there's a NASCAR or F-1 car out there with a Sony PlayStation logo on it, publishers can't remove or obscure the logo even if they're publishing the game for Xbox or GameCube.
..although the Sony Playstation version of FIFA 2001 did blank out Arsenal's Dreamcast logo...
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
I remember playing the first Wipeout for PS One back in 1995 or '96 and seeing ads for Red Bull. And that was before it was widely available out here in the States.
Dust 2 has an ad in it I believe - kinda tacky.
:^)
Actually i'll tout a map of my own that had a few ads and digs at a former company I used to work for. In "de_waterworks", there is a large billboard for Rogue Wave Software. Also, there's some graffiti on a wall which says "RIP Scalley" - a tribute to the not very liked CEO that got sacked by the board. Oh no, excuse me. He resigned
(nt)
It's a nice idea I think but the fact that there was a GAP store or Coke machine in the game would be advertising of the type described elsewhere here.
WhyTF do I need a Yahoo flavored regurgitation of the original Reuters piece? But wait, it is so much more "fun" this way, let's see where it ends.
I quote Slashdot that quotes Yahoo that quotes Reuters....
Luke, use the source!!!
Disappointed AC
I believe the first paid product placement in a a game Was Zool for the Amiga. The Product was Chuypa Chup (sp?) lollies.
Anyone care to refute or deny this?
Alex
Commercials just make me sick.
I'm writing this I watch the Super Bowl. I do love the Super Bowl because they have the best commercials!
If it wasn't for the 'Red Bull' advertising in WipOut 2097, i never would have been introduced to the wonderful world of insomnia!
Does this make my brain look big?
I cannot say that I am completely immune to advertisement. Yes I consciously balck-list teh compnaies that seem to insidious, and yes until yesterday I thought it had no effect on me. Then I bought a pack of trojan condoms. And I thought why trojan? Advertising! I switched to lifestyles thenand there, but they have had a few dollars from me before I noticed.
Then how is advertising over two pages in a magazine (and filling it up with crappy brochures), posters or even neon light installations the size of buildings, TV-advertising, telemarketing, and, the latest fashion, pop up ads, not? If it's worth advertising on some poster on a wall, why isn't it worth advertising on a Wall in virtual reality? You know the audience that will come by, nobody will mess up the poster, or alter it in creative ways, and you even get to choose the place and surroundings of that advert.
If it were no good idea to advertise there, where you at least know the audience, then maybe the whole concept of advertising should be reconsidered. I think brand recognition is greatly underestimated, if those corporations are concerned about how, and in which context their products are displayed. Did anyone ever notice how many of those rich evil movie drug-dealer types cruise around in those big black Mercedes or BMW? And that gave those cars a bad rap? Not that i'd notice.
--
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
Its historically pretty messed up. You'd think they'd be paying us to place their logos -- but in practice we (game developers) have had to pay for the right to use the logo. Thats slowly changing, though. Its harder in things like stadiums. Usually the agreement states something along the lines of we can't go placing random things. We have to approach the real owner of each logo -- and if they disagree, we can't place a competitors logo in its place.
itself, rather than the advertisements. However, it
is possible to put ads in games without making them
annoying.
The first thing that should never, ever, ever be done
is to make the whole game an ad for something.
In the old days of the NES, there were TONS of crappy
games produced that were basically ads. There was
a game featuring the "Noid" mascot for Dominoes Pizza. There was also a game centered around McDonalds, Seven Up, and plenty of other stuff,
IIRC.
I guess the next worse thing is to make a game that
is crappy, but with a popular theme, in order to
stick ads in it. Examples of this are the games
that starred Shaq and Jordan which were not basketball games. Not surprisingly, Pepsi ads were crammed into Shaq-Fu.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
"I actually like ads in games, whether they're spoofs or real, so long as they fit the context of the game."
GranTurismo is about the Grand Touring racing industry. The advertising is how they keep the sport alive. The game is filled with advertisements, even the cars are modeled after real cars and have the stickers from the real advertisers. I've always thought it gave the game a hightened sense of reality and wondered if the original spooncer had something to do with game funding. Apparently not (after a little research) but it still makes you wonder how much money they (Sony) could make if they had chosen to charge some nominal fee for advertisements in the game.
~LoudMusic
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
Like the headline says, there shouldn't be anything particularly wrong with inserting well-placed and relevant ads into games. To me, personally, it would add that missing element or realism, and help keep some of these quality, but financially-strapped game developers in business.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Being an Australian, I played Wipeout way before Red Bull was promoted here. So it looked like a made up sponsor for the game, and I wondered why the game promoted a pretend product so heavily. I thought that maybe it was some kind of in joke. Of course, it made sense once I knew what Red Bull was :)
http://pcblues.com - Digits and Wood
Real advertisements in games that are attempting to simulate reality, seems like a boon to me. And if helps pay the bills for the game maker, more power to them.
:-); in games, where the viewpoints are less well defined, and user controlled, I think it's a lot harder to compromise the game's value.
:-)
And dynamically changing ads would actually ad more interest to the game. I think it'd be cool to be distracted momentarily by a new interesting ad, and become someone else's frag due to the distraction. Hah!
I find it hard to see the down side. In movies, I think there's a far greater likelihood of compromising the creator's artistic integrity (when each shot starts with a well-framed shot of a Pepsi can
Whenver the ads rolover, I'd be just like Homer when all the new billboard's come out. Might even end up joining a clown college because of it. "Dooo doo doo do do do do doooo doo dooo dooo"...
-me
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Have you ever wanted the cell phone from the Matrix. I bet you have. I bet you where disappointed when you found out you couldn't get one.
Product placement fails if its in your face. But if it truly is part of the movie you will want to own it.
Ever wanted a pair of Terminator glasses?
Video games aren't realistic enough for you to want to be like the characters (But they are getting close).
It wont be long until video game characters can wear clothes that look just like the real thing, and use things that also look real. When this happens you will see effective product placement in video games.
Want a Max Payne Leather Jacket?
CB
Well I for one am an example of successful product placement in a videogame. Back when WipeoutXL for the original PlayStation first came out, on several of the tracks (and I think on the intro movies) I kept seeing "billboard" ads for something called Red Bull. (By then, of course, Red Bull was well established in Europe, and WipeoutXL was produced by Sony's U.K. unit, Psygnosis). So when I saw it in the store, I bought one just to see what it was. And I still drink the occassional bottle. So it can work.
People expect ads. This bugs me. But you can have fun with it.
There's someone who takes photographs of cities and removes all the ads in Photoshop, then prints them up as artworks. The effect is striking.
There's a set of anti-commercialism games at Global Arcade:
I have a financial web site that has a banner ad on it, just to make it look more "commercial". It just didn't look right without ads. It's a fake banner ad for Adbusters. Few people have ever noticed.
I also have a fake site for last years's "AI" game, full of fake ads. (About time to pull the plug on that one; the game sites themselves just went down, now that worldwide release of the movie is complete.) It looks more realistic that way.
"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in dark rooms munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music." - Anonymous
Liberate your mind in two clicks or less.
Tracking the effectiveness of advertising in normal media (print, outdoor, broadcast, etc.) is a well-established science. For novel media like video games and the like I don't see how they can collect enough measurable data to reliably dismiss the media as a profitable advertising venue.
As an example, in 1986 electronic punk band Sigue Sigue Sputnik decided to sell advertising on their album 'Flaunt It'. Yes, there are actually commercials between some of the songs!
It was a bold and brash move, but well executed. The ads and products (Studio Line hair gel, i-D Magazine, etc.) fit in well with the overall style of the album, and there were some fake ads as well that were humorous and flowed well with the album.
It's easy to measure how many copies were sold (bootlegging aside), but how do you measure the actual number of effective exposures per album, or the time frame? Personally, to this day I still use exclusively Studio Line, and I'm not ashamed to admit that it's because they had the balls to advertise on one of my favorite albums. No doubt I'm an outlier, but how do you quantify the success of a single advertisement that's still moving product >16 years after it ran?
As another example, my first exposure to Red Bull was while playing Wipeout XL on the Playstation, almost 2 years before I ever saw the product on store shelves. I freaked when I realized that it was a real drink, and immediately picked some up (good stuff!). Again, it's hard to measure the longevity of new advertising forms.
-Cybrex
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
...after the franchise wars of the last decade, all restaurants have been Taco Bell....
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Ad placement is a good thing. *munches on some McDonald's(tm) fries* It can add to realism *sips his Coca-Cola(r)* and make for a more compelling experience. Now if you'll excuse me, it's time for me to go for a drive in my Subaru Outback(tm), with its smooth handling and rugged durability.
Mozilla's a nice operating system, but it needs a better browser.
Actually, there is a company Isher Artifacts which makes some really *fine* looking energy weapons.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
It would be nice if more people did "fake" product placements to crowd out real brands, like Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith making up Red Apple and Nails brand cigarettes, respectively. Or most of the brands in the Simpsons universe.
Quick: Name a sniper rifle.
If you play a lot of Counter-Strike, you probably named the Arctic Warfare Magnum, and think it's really good, even if you've never shot it.
Let's say that gamer walks into a gun shop. He sees two guns on the rack, a Barrett M82A1 (never heard of it), and the Arctic Warfare Magnum (feels like he's used it for years).
I'm willing to bet Accuracy International gets the buy, a $5,000 score.
Product placement is there, and it works. The games just don't get the money yet, money that would improve the game. I say bring it on.
-twb
http://www.simonsays.com/book/default_book.cfm?isb n=0671317865&areaid=33
Can somebody fill me in on what exactly qualifies as a Luxury Banana?
"Grand Theft Auto" brought to you by Ford!
Survey says, "BZZZZZZZZZZZZT"!
;)
=tkk
Bill Gates - Creationist?!?
A guy at my girlfriend's art school was making a "Trailer Trash Barbie" doll and selling them in local stores. Definitely a parody and well with in "Fair Use" law, right? I agree but that didn't stop Matel from sueing the pants off of him. Sure he might have won if he had years and thousands of dollars to spend in court.
The same thing happened to a friend who had a Peanuts parody in his Zine and another friend of a friend who was making and selling McVegan t-shirts. I'm sure this goes on all the time.
I don't know where the lines between "fair use" and infringement fall. But it has been my experience that most corporations are quite skilled at bending the laws through the use of agressive lawyers and exessive amounts of money.
I don't think it's right that we can't use common trademarks in films and video games with out permission. I don't even know if it's illegal. I just know that it's common practice not too. Of course, If you feel you have a right to use Pepsi's trademark no matter what they sat, I tend to agree and fully support you. Just don't be suprised when they take legal action against you.
-ishmael
It's about freekin' time that the advertisers of the world have started realizing that ads in games (or in general) just don't work.
Ummm, H E L L O! But I'm playing the game to escape reality for a while. Stay the hell out of my fantasy. If I want a coke, or a pepsi, or a KFC, or whatever, then I'll go get it.
People who get in my face with their messages are summarially and prejudically ignored. People who keep pushing it, get punched... In the case of internet ads, I just filter EVERYTHING. My surfing experience is much nicer w/o some piece of crap flash downloading...
in UK pubs. I've never seen it on draft.
In the south people tend to drink lager rather than bitter or ale anyway, for example Heinekin.
and they mention the name "Microsoft" instead of showing a weird and badly thought out operating system on screen...
GG was sponsored by McDonalds, Cool Spot by Pepsi. Apparently both of those were characters in US advertising campaigns, and they got converted to SNES and Genesis. I think they were both written by Dave Perry (Shiny/Infogrames).
I've said for years that ads have a place in games. Games are very costly (with good reason, costly to develop, you know). I think that publishing companies and dev houses are loosing some of their target audience to piracy, due to the prohibitive costs of the latest and greatest games. Boys aged 12 to 25 usually have limited funds to spend on games. When those kids get older, whether they have the cash or not, they are so used to not paying and so used to ignoring ip laws that they might continue a life of crime (in casual piracy).
/., and sometimes I turn off the tv altogether. I don't know anyone who actually watches ads on any other day except the Super Bowl. My mother only watches recorded tv, so she never sees commercials. I see a lot more ads on the web than on tv, which brings me to another point entirely.
Now, ads have their time and place in video games. It wouldn't be right to see an "Enjoy Coke" sign just before you confront the Butcher in Diablo. In games like Deus Ex, Max Payne, and Grand Theft Auto, however, it's natural to include billboards and other types of adverts. Such endeavors add (no pun intended) atmosphere to games that already strive to become more realistic and involving.
We've seen ads in some games, but they are usually for other games by the same companies. (Sega seemed to be pretty keen on this idea a few years ago with their racing games, but I believe that it has kind of fizzled out.) Sports games are very good candidates for advertising. What two things go together better than professional sports and blatent commercialism? EA, for example, strives to make the play its sports titles more like sports produced for television. If I could get a free (or cheap) legal copy of NHL 2002, I could put up with commercials between periods. This is a game that has tv camera angles, color (annoying) commentary, realistic breaks between faceoffs, and puck highlighting extremely similar to network television. Why not go to the next step? Some of those ads could have spokespeople of the digital versions of actual Hockey players. Games are a niche market, you have a young male demographic to target. This makes advertising easy. Knowing the gender and age of 97 percent of your audience can enable more specialized ads and ultimately reach a larger percentage of them. (Ads starring Britney Spears could reach millions.)
There are a few problems with this. People will get very tired of the ads that come with the game by default. Users could be prompted every so often to download the new ads from the web site. Still, there's a problem. Advertisers who may have pulled their advertising for one reason or another will still be running on unpatched software, and new advertisers won't get the ads displayed which they have payed for. I suppose that this could be measured in downloads, and the advertisers could pay when a month is over and the usage statistics were in. Downloads could also determine payment for the original advertisers, which would be good for them, but not so good for the gaming company. When advertisers pay for television ads, they can never be sure how many viewers there will be, so they could spend a million dollars on an ad that will never be seen. Developers need to be paid, though, and the odds are that there won't be 2 million downloads (or orders or whatever) in the first 3 weeks. Another problem would be that this would keep the developers pretty darn busy in the months following a game release. This is time that could be better spent on new titles. Fortunately, if this proved popular, advertising agencies and/or the companies they represent would begin to hire professionals that could produce the commercials and sent to the game's publishing company to be inserted where they are needed. These ads would be much less costly than tv ads to write and develop (unless they used conventional tools, such as cameras and video). This brings up another problem. With the thousands of 3d engines out there, these directors and developers would have to develop in the same engine that the game is in (again, unless it's video). Moreover, they would have to learn new level designers and programs for mostly every game out there. Publishers, however, could provide them with the tools necessary (the ones the dev houses are using) early in production so that the ads could be ready by the time the game goes gold. As this becomes more common, a better plan might be to write 3d engines that support models and animations from animation programs, such as Lightwave, Maya, 3dsmax, SoftImage, or even Blender (yay for free!). Most engines support these one way or another, since there has to be a way to model for the game in the first place. Also, of course, you could do animations and put them as video in the game, but that's a wussy solution. (I think that should've been more than one paragraph.)
Gamers decidedly opposed to ads in games could still pay their 50 bucks for non-ad versions. This would not be hard for commercials or billboard ads. For commercials, just remove them. Just take them out altogether (or if you want to be weird, give the users an option to disable them and to skip ones they don't want to see with the spacebar). For billboard and neon signs and the like, just replace the ad textures within the game packages with "Eat at Joe's" and other fake ads. (Note: In the cheap or free versions of these games, you would have to put some sort of protection on these files to prevent people from creating mods that disable the ads. You'd have to tell the engine to always take these ads over any others. You also might have to put some sort of protection on the actual packages to prevent people from getting in there and actually changing those files. You might put those in a separate, protected package, but that could easily be deleted or replaced. You could put them within the actual executables or something, but then they would be really hard to replace if you wanted or needed to. The best solution I can come up with right now (5AM) is to put them in their own protected package within the main game package. Passwords might work, but some sort of encryption would be much better. Neither of those would be foolproof, but they would keep out the casual cracker and people like me who would try for 2 1/2 minutes and then forget what they were doing. You might think of something better that would keep out almost everyone, but I am certainly not the person to ask about anti-piracy measures, unless of course you want to bypass them.)
In regards to ads and product placement not working, fuck that. They work as well as any ad does. When commercials come on tv, I don't pay attention. Sometimes I leave the room, sometimes I talk to people, sometimes I just get on
I see so many ad-supported sites going down because of revenues being down. I think that advertisers have it all wrong. Web ads are measured in clicks. That's all wrong, Cat. On the rare occasions that I do see tv ads, even if I like the ad, I don't immediately want to turn to the all-Charmin Network (or whatever product is being sold). The same goes for web sites. Just because I see an ad, doesn't mean that I immediately want to cease my current task and go to the web site for the product they are selling. Maybe if there was a checkmark beside every ad that said, "I see this ad and acknowledge it's existence." That way, bastard companies would know that I saw their ad, but it wasn't interesting enough to click on.
kill $(pidof -x Rant); *
At any rate, I see ads in video games because that's where I am most of the time. Nobody pays attention to ads anymore, no matter where they are. I don't even see pop-up ads anymore. Ctrl-Q (or Alt-F4) helps me with that. Advertising is a part of capitalism. I hope to see it progress into the video game market. Advertisers just need to learn how to use video games to their advantage. It'll keep costs down, but not punish the developers who (usually)deserve every penny of the money they do get.
P.S. I want to say that keeping the costs down of some genres and not others seems a bit wrong. It would be a shame for the FPS players to pay a lot less money for games than MMORPG fans do. This is the major hole in my arguement. I don't know how to knock it down, other than saying, "Well, they'll just have to figure out how to advertise or lower their prices." Please post or send me any suggestions about how to make this go away. You can also do it if you disagree with everything I say. Please do.
*My linux install totally fucked itself the other day, so I can't check my syntax. Don't yell if it's wrong.
procinfo | grep Rant | awk '(print $13)' | kill
pidof Rant | kill
I thought about using those, too, but they may not be right, either.
No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness. --Aristotle
That's the game where you get rewarded with pictures of scantily-clad women near the end, yes?
http://www.strategyfirst.com/en/games/
Strategy First is coming out with Nexagon:the Pit which is kind of Warcraft-meets-Rollerball where it's a 3d RTS game in an arena, but you get extra points for doing stuff that appeals to the crowd. You get extra $$ when you can manage to get your creature pounding another to a pulp in front of the camera, and even more if you can do it and get one of the surrounding billboards in the same camera shot. AFAIK at this point they're not sure if they can/will get any real advertisers in the mix, or if all the ads will be fake.
IMO that will be a blast.
-Styopa
I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I see every single teenager walking down one street branded as a slave of the Nike corporation.
The Who did it first, with 1967's "The Who Sell Out." The album featured ads (performed by the group) inbetween most of the songs for products like Heinz Baked Beans, Rotosound guitar strings, Odorono, etc.
I actually like ads in games...
1. "I actually like ads in games, whether they're spoofs or real, so long as they fit the context of the game."
/verbally/ recommend the product, or /consciously/ think of it at the relevant time (or even at a somewhat-related not-relevant time; because you can never quite tell where brainwaves will cross). But what happens to an advertisement you don't notice--or more accurately, what happens to the BILLIONS of advertisements you don't notice? Do they just "go away"? Did they never sink in? Wrong, muchcha. Everything sinks in, and how it does so has much more to do with the medium that the ad is delivered in than the ad itself. A TV ad that you're not paying attention to dives straight to your hypothalamus, the part of the brain concerned with instinct and involuntary reaction--this is the part of your brain that TV speaks to. It has nothing to do with your conscious thoughts and it does not get filtered by your cerebrum, which is the part of your brain that distinguishes reality from fantasy. This is exactly why, when you see a scary movie on TV, you get physically scared; why porn gives ya'll erections. Ignoring an ad that's in front of your face on a television (game, movie, news program) is like having the border-guard turn his head and letting the info mainline right into your subconscious.
/huge/ budgets set aside for hiring top psychologists and neurologists to study the effects of advertising for the industry. It's just not common knowledge how actually pervasive, and how mentally abusive, the constant glut of billboards, signs, songs, symbols, sponsorships and sell-outs really is.
2. "I don't even notice ads anymore, they are just automatically blocked out of my vision."
Keep a close eye on those two quotes, because they have a lot to do with each other. They are unwilling proof of the fact that ads work just fine, if not better, when you ignore them.
Let me explain...Most advertisers do try to "get your attention", because if they can get you to consciously devote your actual thinking to their brand, even for a second--say you see an "interesting" ad (another way to say "cleverly presented inaccurate drivel") and you let it bounce around your head for a moment--then there's a nice big fat chance that that brand / name / ad will come floating back to the surface as soon as a situation triggers that part of your thoughts. (To summarize: Interesting Coke ad = more mental energy/time devoted to thinking about Coke = stronger mental attraction to the idea of Coke = more likely that when you think "drink" you will think "Coke".)
But my point is that that's not all an advertisement does, psychologically. In fact, it's just the tip of the iceberg. Active-thinking energy is nice because it worms its way into your conscious thoughts--only an "interesting" advertisement will likely make you
Now, "ignoring" a billboard or a print or a radio or a little-tag-on-your-shoe ad isn't quite as effective for the advertiser as ignoring a television ad--tv ads actually statistically work better when you ignore them. Other ads don't, but they still work, because--let me repeat--*you* may choose to ignore some things, but YOUR BRAIN DOES NOT. To assume so is synonymous with assuming that, because you don't see the handshakes your computer is doing to log in somewhere, they aren't happening or don't matter. The brain works much more like a computer than anything else, and even simple stuff like hypnosis proves conclusively that the BRAIN IGNORES NOTHING. Every single tag and sign and jingle and sex-signal that you receive from an advertiser GETS IN THERE. The fact that you see them all day, every day, without a break (unless you, like me, tend to stare at a blank wall for a moment every day and go aaaahhh) only makes it easier for you to consciously ignore them--that is, it becomes easy to choose not to pay attention to the effect they are having on you.
Sorry to ramble, but this is one of the biggest dangers I see confronting people, psychologically speaking, in this here New Era. We don't realize the science behind what these advertisers are doing, but THEY DO--they have
Please, Slashdot. Help make it common knowlege!
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...
...
1 = (-(-((9)*9)-9-9)-9+9-9)/9-9
2 = ((-((((((-(9+9))/9)/9)/9)*9)*9))/9)*9
snip snip
39 = (-((-(9+9)-9-9)*9-9-9-9))/9
40 = -((-(9+9)-9-9)/9-9)+9+9+9
41 not found in the set.
I'd post the Perl program, but Slashdot doesn't like code for some reason. It basically used a huge hash, using the result as a key and the formula that generated that result as the value, selectively overwriting existing key/value pairs.
I imagine the Lisp solution is more elegant, but I haven't got around to learning Lisp.
When your in a game, your usually to busy firing your weapon, or running for the next health, to view advertising, unles sits done in such a creative way the everybody stops playing the game to view the ad.
In a movie, there is time when the character are just talking, so people may actually notice the product placement ad.
Perhpas a pop up ad during everquest combat would work, for about a month.
Now a TV ad, that makes use of cross genra advertising might work, like "Drink Coke, frag more!" or the got milk an trix ads, those where genious.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
A guy at my girlfriend's art school was making a "Trailer Trash Barbie" doll and selling them in local stores. Definitely a parody and well with in "Fair Use" law, right? I agree but that didn't stop Matel from sueing the pants off of him. Sure he might have won if he had years and thousands of dollars to spend in court.
:)
This is a little different. Matel could argue that you are piggybacking the Barbie name in order to sell your product. In which case, you would be selling your product based on the good name that Matel has spent $$$ on. A parody usually means you are not trying to commercially gain in the same field. ie, Aqua's song, called "Barbie Girl". That is a parody. You are making fun of it. But if you sell a doll called "Trailer Trash Barbie", it will be interpreted differently... But like you said, I'm sure given enough $$$, even that can change...
Your friend's peanuts paraody in a zine... That should definately fall under fair use. Just look at "In Living Color"'s many parodies of almost everything you can think of.
Fixing Gel, Strong Hold, Behold!
Love that album, love the ads...
the problem with ad placement is this:
you can't place an ad for a product that doesn't exist in the universe of the game. if you do, the experience becomes less real. video games are an opportunity to escape reality, not a chance for stupid game companies to take advantage of a large demographic group. i don't want to see ads for the latest n-sync cd while playing wolfenstein because they(thank god) didn't exist during ww2, and i don't want to see ads for irish spring coyly slipped into the latest final fantasy. on the other hand, if it adds to the game to know that lara croft shops at tiffany's, then by all means, advertise! just don't disrupt the entertainment of geeks. we need sanctuary from the fuckery of the modern world.
I have no desire to reach nirvana.
Ahh, but does anyone remember Spot for the sega genesis? That's an example of an entire game based on product placement that failed due to the product's (7up) lack of caffene.
Chief Booya Executive