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Product Placement in Online Gaming
ceejayoz writes "MSNBC/Reuters has an article about product placement in 'The Sims Online'. EA has made a multimillion dollar deal with Intel and McDonalds to include 'Intel's familiar jingle, its product logo, and computers using its Pentium 4 processor' and 'a McDonald's kiosk and ... the company's branded food' in the game."
Not bring down the price of the games.
One thing I've always wondered about this wonderful set of games is exactly how much wheeling and dealing did they have to do to get as many "real" cars and products into the game.
In any event it is the perfect touch: a race track without product billboards isn't very realistic. Cars that you can say "Hey I know someone with that car" are playable. You can walk into a tire store and look at the same tires offered in the game.
Software companies promote themselves all of the time in their own games but should they now seek ad revenue for games? Hungry companies could see this is a new boon. Players could start to see this as a new bother.
However the GT series does this correctly because it is subtile. The car designs and products are the ads themselves...you don't need to be intrusive with load screens shouting "Parts of this game were funded by Soandso". If players start seeing intrusive ads they'll start to turn away from it.
So, if your Sims eat a ton of Big Macs, do they fatten up, get hardened arteries, and have heart attacks? I hope EA is sticking with the "reality" theme.
So, in a game that's [potentially] going to be the very worst for abusive play, do you really want your brand getting associated with it? Imagine the joy of having "A Mac Attack" becoming the most hated concept on the net. Or maybe the next "A rape in cyberspace" story beginning, "It was under the pixelated golden arches of a virtual McDonalds..."
Money can't buy that kind of advertising. Probably for a very good reason.
The Maxis (or are they EA now?) spokesperson in the article stated that there would likely be more product placement deals announced before the launch of The Sims Online. They also made the point that the nature of the game allows for easy "upgrading" of clients to handle additional advertiser/sponsor insertions into the simworld after it launches.
I really don't have much of a problem with product placement on this level, as long as there are other options (ie, not every restaurant is a MacDonalds, and not every computer has Intel Inside). It will be equally troublesome, however, if they are signing exclusive contracts with these companies.
Just as in RealLife, I would want my Sim to have the option of eschewing certain brands. S/he shouldn't have to starve I choose not to endorse the MacEntity. Similarly, I would hope that Intel's inclusion doesn't mean that Apple can't buy some simspace as well, or Red Hat for that matter (maybe IBM would foot the bill and go for a co-branded sim-machine). Not only would it completely suck for there to be only one (real) brand of food, computer, car, etc (and make one wonder about the legal ramifications of monopoly positions in a simverse), but it would be either grossly unrealistic or virtually post-apocolyptic.
Damn, this makes me wonder whether any degree of entrepreneurialism is coded into The Sims Online. Can I have my character open a falafel and carrot juice stand, corner the market on vegetarian health food, and go on to sell franchises across the simverse? Hmmm.