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."

Comments

If it lowers the cost, sure, why not...

[Anonymous Coward]

And, hey, maybe your Sim can sue McDonalds for making them fat and get rich. That'd sure beat the hassle of that job thing.

What to do with the extra ad money?

[billnapier]

Not bring down the price of the games.

Re:What to do with the extra ad money?

[dattaway]

Pop ups in games add value to the product. You are lucky the price isn't going up for these features.

Re:What to do with the extra ad money?

[tunabomber]

If it[inserting advertisements into the product] adds value to the consumer, I'd like to hear about it.

I can think of plenty of cases where this is apparently the case. How else can you explain the fact that tee-shirts which turn people into walking ads for Gap, Abercrombie & Fitch, etc. sell for so much more than a blank tee-shirt?

Re:What to do with the extra ad money?

[Alan]

Actually according to an article I read the reasons they are walking billboards is due to copywrite issues. Basically it used to go like this:

gap designs cool clothing
some people buy it, and are cool
clone vendors copy it almost exactly
everyone else buys it and they are cool

This didn't jive nicely with gap etc, so they went with the route of putting their logos/names/whatever on the clothing, as the clone companies couldn't copy them then, as if the "coolness" of the design was due to something that they weren't legally allowed to copy, they wouldn't / couldn't copy it.

That said I have no idea where this article was, but the reasoning is solid IMHO.

Re:What to do with the extra ad money?

[demaria]

That requires a followup question - Is the price of producing video games increasing or decreasing?

This is a good thing...

[thelinuxking]

If we're lucky, we might find The Sims Online in a Happy Meal :-)!

Good for EA!

[toupsie]

EA is in the business of making a profit. If product placement within a video game will fatten their bottom line, good for them and great for their investors. It doesn't seem to hurt one of the most popular spectator sports in the US, NASCAR. No one even seems to find the irony of cars flying around a circle at 200mph with beer ads emblazoned on the sides of the cars.

EA will quickly learn if this business move is bad. Their sales will drop from "The Sims". Frankly, I have never figured out why so many people are afraid of advertising. If you don't like it, don't buy their products. The only question I have is if the Mac OS X version will drop the Intel ads?

Grand Turismo Series Does It Right

[EXTomar]

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.

Re:Grand Turismo Series Does It Right

[Night Goat]

I read somewhere that car manufacturers actually ask to get their cars in Gran Turismo. The only stipulation they have is that the cars can't be damaged, because that reflects poorly on them. "What a piece of crap car! I just barely touched that wall!" So it works out great for Polyphony as well as for the car manufacturers. I don't know about the billboards, though.

Re:Grand Turismo Series Does It Right

[DennyK]

No, actually, it was a licensing issue. There was also a Lamborghini Diablo in the Japanese version of the game that was removed for the U.S. release because of licensing.

There are actually quasi-Porsches in the game...they couldn't get a license agreement with Porsche, but they slipped them into the game under the RUF emblem, by stretching the definition of a "automobile manufacturer" a wee bit. RUF is a company which sells heavily modified Porsches.

In any case, the focus is not really on "import racing" so much as it is on street and road racing in general. Yes, there are a lot of Japanese cars...which is to be expected, since the game was designed in Japan. ;) There are several American cars in the game, as well as European cars, and also many true race cars, including several Formula One lookalikes.

DennyK

Re:Grand Turismo Series Does It Right

[tmark]

If players start seeing intrusive ads they'll start to turn away from it.

And if players start turning away from it, companies will stop doing it. So what's the problem ? If it's really a bother to anyone, that person should voice his opinion in the only way that really matters - by not buying it. Methinks, however, that ovewhelming success of the new Sims product will show that LOTS of people don't mind that much.

Re:Grand Turismo Series Does It Right

[poot_rootbeer]

And if players start turning away from it, companies will stop doing it.

And this is why you never get spam email or see popup ads on the Internet anymore...!

Perfect revenue model for TV shows

[Powercntrl]

While I'm sitting here drinking my cold, refreshing Coke, I looked on my KDS LCD flatscreen monitor that I bought from ThinkGeek and realized that they should apply this to TV shows as well. Why interrupt a show with a commercial break when product placement could work just as good? In the movie "The Truman Show", which I watched the other day on my DirectTV satellite system, the "show" that the movie was about had no commercials, just product placements. While that was just a movie, if The Sims proves this can work for other mediums, maybe we'll soon see a future where Tivos can no longer skip over commercials because there AREN'T any to skip over.

Re:Perfect revenue model for TV shows

[tunabomber]

Oh boy! Who needs content when you can have wall-to-wall advertisements?

There was a recent article tthat suggested that product placement could be a means of getting the content cabal to give up their hard stance on PVR's, or conversely, cause a degradation in content quality.

Oh well, at least it will be better than putting ads in music.

Mmmmm, McDonald's

[Logic Bomb]

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.

Great....

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

So while you slurp down 100 grams of fat in one meal, your on-line representation can also plump up, too.

I would agree to this kind of advertising under three conditions.

1) The price of the game should be reduced by a percentage of the advertising revenue, since it's our eyeballs doing the work of watching the add.

2) NPC's should get fatter, sue because they don't want to be responsible for anything, including what they shove in their mouths, and then they clog up your court building and you loose 1000 points.

3) You should be able to rob the drive-through, just like in real life.

Re:Great....

[Safety Cap]

I want to buy a cup of sim-McCoffee, spill it all over my sim-lap, get sim-3d degree burns, then get sim-denied for medical bill compensation.

Then, I'll sim-sue!

A double simulation.

[MongooseCN]

But Mc Donalds meat is already simulated meat. So when it gets used in a simulation, does it become real meat? What a philisophical pondering...

This will definitely work....

[the_other_one]

for weapons manufacturers.

Re:Why not? movies do it...

[TMB]

Now, how do we get people to add these 'upgrades'? Oh, simple... charge them $39.95 for the next 'version'.

Since this is in the online version, these will presumably be part of a world which is downloaded from the game server... and therefore easily changable. Quoting from the article (you did read it, right? oops):

[EA spokesman Jeff Brown] also said more product placement deals were likely to be announced before the game's launch, and that its online nature makes it easy for further products to be inserted later.

I can imagine this being like stadium names, where companies sign contracts for their product to be part of the online Sim universe for N months. That would make it a nice continual stream of income for EA, and the products that are in the universe are always contemperary. No extra money from the user necessary - which is probably a selling point for the companies paying for the advertising.

[TMB]

I'd say the McDonald's will be great...

[afflatus_com]

and a fine addition to the game.

On of the big events The Sims is watching them respond to events, like when there is a fire on their stove.

The fires get a bit boring after a while. A nice event instead will be watching your Sim collapse in the McDonald's kiosk from a cholesterol-induced heart-attack.

Makes a nice tie in too for genuine Intel(R) products: crack open the nearby computer equipment and use the live wires to see if you can shock your Sim's heart into restarting again.

Guns.

[DarkHelmet]

In the middle of fragging your friends in Doom3, a message appears in the console:

This small show of violence was brought to you by the NRA. Without us, your dreams of actually owning your own mini-gun will never be realized.

I love you Charlton Heston, you damn filthy ape!

If They Use It Right

[MBCook]

I don't see a probelm as long as they use it correctly. I was in the Earth and Beyond beta and I love the game, but I'm not going to buy it. There are quite a few games that look fun that I won't buy. Why is that you ask? I refuse to shell out $60 for a game, only to have to pay $15 a month for the 'privilage' of playing the game that I bought with my hard earned money. If it cost me $10, I could understand a $15 monthly fee. If the game was the same price, but the monthly cost was $3, I could take that too. But I refuse to be extorted

But back to my origional point from before I got on a rant. If they use this money to do something like elimenate the monthly fee, I'd see no problem. They could even make it an option: pay us $10 a month (or whatever) or see branded items. I don't see a problem with this. As long as they ads aren't obtrusive, it's fine with me. What do I mean? If your sim's computer play the intel song and shows a P4 logo when you turn it on, that's fine. If your sim can buy McDonalds when they're hungy, that's fine too. What I DON'T want to see is my house wallpapered with the golden arches, or finding NPC that always steer the conversation towards "Have you heard about Intel's great new powerful processor? And it's only costs... you should buy one now! Infact you can buy one from me!". THAT would clearly drive people away.

It's like my opinion of product placement in movies. If it seems natural or is unobtrusive (Tom Hanks working for FedEx in "Cast Away") then I see no problem with it. But if it gets like that ad in "The Truman Show" or like Wendy's in "Mr. Deeds", that I don't want to see.

Oh no!

[beej]

But ads get in the way! When I'm playing DOOM III the last thing I need is to be bombarded by bright flashing graphics and loud sounds!

Intel's product placement

[Mihg]

If they really wanted to sell more PCs, Intel would pay EA to include Macs as well. They'd cost twice as much as the P4 PCs, and they would generate less happiness points (or whatever the hell they're called...).

Wait...

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

Because "If you don't want to look at ads, don't buy the game." won't soon apply since adds will be everywhere, and unless you want a Ted K. type shack to live in, you'll have BigMac's floating around your head as you walk through the mall.

Why should I pay for entertainment, then be forced to watch advertisements? Once this makes its way into every game (every movie is getting polluted, and TV shows are soon to be) it's going to be an ugly world. Until then we call all use Mozilla and BannerBlind. That is, if Mozilla is still legal to use post Palladium.

McDonnell's (sic) Career path?

[Dahamma]

"I started out just like you guys - on trash. Now, I'm washing lettuce. Pretty soon I'll be on fries. In a year or two, I'll make assistant manager....and that's when the big bucks start rolling in!"

Re:I wondered...

[treat]

Perhaps we are so used to ads everywhere (next stop: schools)

Channel One?

This is nowhere NEAR the first time

[Matey-O]

Last year Sobe had a 'vendo' in Munch's oddysee...gave you back your health. (What about truth in advertising?)

I'm 90% certain the Atari 2600 E.T. game had Reeses Pieces in it. (E.T. was supposed to be caught with M&M's, but Speilberg couldn't get the rights. Boy was THAT a bonehead move!)

but why do people fall for this?

[Trepidity]

How exactly does wearing a shirt whose front consists entirely of a gigantic "Tommy Hilfiger" logo ever get to the point where it is considered "cool"? Whoever managed to pull that off is a genius.

Associating Your Brand

[nick_davison]

One of the big concerns about The Sims Online has been the way it seems designed, from the ground up, for griefers. Even the designers admit that they don't know how that aspect will play out on line. The one play journal that was on the website for quite a while was almost purely about how much fun it was to grief other players in imaginative ways - and that's just the design team.

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.

I can just see (and hear) it now...

[E-Rock-23]

How long before they strike a deal worth millions and, as the Sims are about to "get it on," that old familiar "Trojan Maaaaaaan" jingle is heard. To make matters worse (just because they simply _can_) Trojan Man himself makes an appearance, horse and all. In his tone of voice, we hear the Sim's patented mumble, obviously giving them advice on why to use his rubbers. Finally, he hands the couple a Magnum Size and rides off into the sunset.

Will Microsoft fight back and offer more money to, instead of the Intel jingle, have their Microsoft Sound play when a Sim sits at a computer? Could the Linux Community lobby in favor of Tux on the screen? Wouldn't it be just the shit if a Sim sits down, boots up Linux, starts WINE and plays The Sims?

I'd say I have too much free time on my hands, wouldn't you all?

Re:I can just see (and hear) it now...

[antisocial77]

Better yet, the Linux machines would cost less and have more up-time, thus giving an increased benefit. Unfortunatly, you could only get it to work if your Geek trait was up past 5 bars.

Heh

[zapfie]

Yeah.. this is a first for McDonalds.. they have never paid for product placement in games.. no siree..

Will there be competition?

[mumkin]

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.

1985 - C64's Action Biker

[mccalli]

A long long time ago, on the Commodore 64, was a game called Action Biker. A good game for its time, it was produced by Mastertronic for £1.99.

That game was sponsored by KP Skips crisps. Follow the link above and you can see a screenshot clearly showing the Skips logo. Now - I can't remember if there were any Skips logos actually during gameplay, but that's the first piece of advertising within games that I'm aware of.

1985. Can anyone point to anything older?

Cheers,
Ian