Slashdot Mirror
A Place For Product Placement In Games?
Thanks to GameSpy for its CES 2004 report, which includes coverage of a roundtable regarding product advertising in videogames. The writer points out: "The Super Monkey Ball simians gobble Dole bananas. Jet Moto features a giant Mountain Dew billboard. The alien-fighters in RLH drank Bawls", and goes on to cite research that "30% of in-game ads are recalled in the short-term, which is impressive. Even more amazing is the fact that 15% are recalled after five months - unheard of in advertising." But, of course, "if a placement ticks off the gamer, there's not much a company can do to negate that negative." What are the most appropriate and least appropriate advertising placements you've seen in games?
I don't let pixels on a screen determine my emotional state. Unless it's porn.
I have been pwned because my
Besides the buggy gameplay (which determined my emotions more than anything else) I hated the plugs for NVidia and Intel. The Powerade placement was slightly less noticeable but not by much.
They went waaay overboard there.
To date I haven't seen any good product placements (well, mebby Super Monkey Ball's Dole Bananas.)
Never pet a burning dog.
Rush 2, a car racing game on the N64 had billboards, and even cans of Mountain Dew you could collect to unlock cars. The billboards were for gaming magazines, mountain dew, the game producers, and an upcoming game by the same studio.
I play video games to escape day to day crap.
The last thing I want is ANY advertising *IN-GAME*. To me, this would be as bad as escaping in a wonderful book, only have have a giant pepsi, MTV or Meryl Lynch advertisement on every fifth page.
This really only applies to the uk, but I am fairly sure other countries have similar laws.
If an ad is wrong/offensive they can be forced to stop distributing it, this could be really expensive if you have already printed a million cd's.
I'd also like to know if they ads in games evan fall under regulatory controls.
I also don't like the idea of playing a differnt game to eevryone else, cause I assume any paid advertising will probably be localised to specific countries.
Well, there's that annoying Honda Element in SSX3. That's gratuitous if you ask me. But, hey, I remember it so I guess it's effective. Not as if I'd ever buy one of those dork boxes.
Oh! And let's not forget all the Duff beer ads in Simpsons Hit & Run. Mmmmm... Duff beeeeer.
... Has an ad for "Club" the infamous hardcore porno mag. The writing on some of the billboards match the symbol for the mag...
I know that it is definitely in the Tokyo level, not sure about any of the others, though.
Best form : Subliminal.
Best advertising campaign in a video game: Pogo the Monkey in GTA.
Ever since I heard those radio ads, I've been looking for the game everywhere. I want to swing from blue dot to blue dot with my red square monkey!!!!
A) Isn't this a really old dupe? Or am I just remembering the future again?
B) Advertisements in video games are little different from advertisements in movies. Either way, you've paid for entertainment which has superflous elements.
On a personal note, I dislike product placement a lot, but no more than I dislike gratuitous sex or violence.
But then again, I only account for less than 10% of the bell curve.
Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
If they intended to sell more cars, it didn't work for me. I swear I didn't buy any car since I ran GTA. However, I just drive the fanciest Jaguars, Mercedes and Ferraris.
-
Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF, find / -name '*base*' |xargs chown -R us && mv zig greatjustice
I have the latest version of Microsoft Fury. It's called Microsoft Windows XP. It comes with MSN product placement in one if it's bigger levels called "the shell." wierd...
Heil Sig! -Rob
I must have missed something. I've been playing the Cossacks games since they started coming out, and I've not seen a single advertisement...
Ack! It must all be subliminal!
Way back in like the early 90s there was some 10 year old kid who asked in a magazine article about advertisement (if memory serves me correct it was electronic gaming monthly).
He said something like why don't video game companies like EA use real advertisement in the sport stadium banners and such. Not too long later I remember getting NBA live basketball with real advertisement inside. To this day I really wonder if the industry owe this kid something.
If I remember correctly Monkey Ball sold for the same price as every other game when it came out. Movies cost the same amount to go see whether it's just one gigantic advertisement for Preperation H or an actual movie with plot.
Perhaps if the games cost less then I'd be okay with a few little things hidden in the game but as it is they are just annoying and don't do me any good.
"Armed forces abroad are of little value unless there is prudent counsel at home" - Cicero
In Gran Turismo 2 there were ads all around the race tracks, just like real life. Even the gigantic tire of Laguna Seca was there. I think the game would've been less real without them.
It's not bad in all instances
Game developers and publishers should be aware that if the advertising is annoying the sales of their product and future products will be negatively affected. There are TV programs I've given up on because they weren't worth sitting through the ads for -- games are not immune to this effect. Sure, I've already bought the game, but I probably won't buy the sequel or anything I recognise to be from the same development house.
Tie Fighter (old game): Had an ad for the Dodge Neon in it. Yeesh.
Pre-Alpha Half-Life: Has Coke and Fruitopia machines in it.
Chocobo Racing: Advertises Chocobo's Dungeon 2 in the game script.
Tron 2.0, UT2003: Advertises nVidia.
Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield: Advertises ATI ingame, advertises Alienware in the box.
Frink: Nice try floyd, but you were designed for scrubbing, and scrubbing is what you shall do.
I still believe the best one was the "Nine Inch Nails" ammo for the Nailgun in the first Quake (boxes of nails with the NIN logo on them).
There was one good game, though, that springs to my mind and had just awful product placement: Beach Spikers (Sega volleyball game for Gamecube). Now, there was product placement all through the game (each event had a sponsor) and most of it was fine. However, one of the events was sponsored by Pringles, where there were huge Pringles cans that just about made me retch. The area surrounding the court was so over-the-top gaudy that it really worked on my nerves.
I think it's kind of fun when there's a real product put into a game here and there, and even a little product interaction is acceptable. I just hope game developers and marketing people try to keep it as tasteful as they possibly can. I don't have any specific guidelines as to what keeps the placement in the tasteful range, but, like obscenity, I know offensive, annoying and intrusive advertising when I see it.
On that note, I'll give a shout-out to Acclaim!
However, this effect can only decline - once in-game advertising becomes standard, people will probably train themselves to bypass it; the same thing happened with Web advertisments: I remember thinking the first banners I saw were kind of weird, but now they're pervasive, I hardly notice them. Studies have even shown that users have trained themselves to bypass ads of common dimension and placement (like a banner at the top of a page). I doubt you could even tell me (without looking) what the current advertisment on your Slashdot page is for.
While product placement in games can be appropriate and add to the "realism factor," like having stadium ads in a sports game, the actual effect of these ads will diminish as they're added to more and more games.
That's it. I'm no longer part of Team Sanity.
The most appropriate would have to be the Pizza Hut posters in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II. The media marriage between the Turtles and Pizza Hut was sheer genius. Everyone ate so much damn pizza during that era.
The absolute worst would be Darkened Skye, where you use Skittles to create spells. In fact, the whole game is based around Skittles. I'm not just talking a web game, this game was released for PC and Gamecube.
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
... Of the halfway decent (or better) advertising games.
Cool Spot (7-Up), Pepsiman (Pepsi, a-doy), and the recent Darkened Skye (Skittles) spring to mind.
Sure, they weren't revolutionary, or genre defining, but they were better than average, and certainly better than a purely ad-based game is expected to be.
Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
I seem to recall playing a game about 15 years ago (?) on the Collecovision(?) where you were the Kool-Aid Guy. You know, his body is a pitcher and he dispenses his psychadelic bug-juice to all the neighborhood kids after smashing through their wall? "Ohhhhhhh, yeahhhhhh!"
UT2003 is probably the worst, with a quick nVidia "The way it's meant to be played" splash screen before the game loads. Not even in-game, this is blatant advertising.
:)
An interesting quirk of this is that the splash screen is actually a UT map file, so with a little creative editing, you can change the nVidia logo to anything you wish. Least to say, my machine now proudly displays that ATI is the way it's meant to be played
I actually like product placement in games. Outright advertisements I tend to dislike. But a mountain dew billboard or a getting a golf sponsership from Nike (rather than a nonexistant company) increases the feel of immersion into the game and helps the game feel more realistic. Having fake companies is sort of like if CS had fake gun names. But that's my 2 cents.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Rainbow Six 3 has the best product placement. Ever since I played that game I can't stop visiting Interracialporno.
Best. Advertisement. Ever.
It was available for the SNES, Genesis and GB. A couple of screens available here. It even had sequels.
The worst product placement I can think of right now is "Eat at Joe's." lol
"Remember, you were a n00b once." - Me!
What are the most appropriate and least appropriate advertising placements you've seen in games?
Isn't there something fundamentally wrong with the idea of product placement being "appropriate"?
Every computer terminal in Postal 2 shows Old Man Murray. Genius.
.cig - what you do after winning a good flame war
Reases Peices in ET: The Extra terrestrial for Atari 2600
-------
Support Indy Music. Buy
Clearly your blindingly witty placement of a dollar sign for the "S" in Microsoft highlights your superior mental ability. Likewise, your logic is flawless: Microsoft puts a THEIR OWN LOGO in THEIR OWN GAME (according to you it's not even an ad, but just their logo) and you refuse to purchase any more Microsoft games. It's not as if they sold huge ad-space in the game but, gosh darnit, if their logo is visible for a single second the game has to go! One of the things I always hated about Age of Empires was the Microsoft product placement that plagued the game.
Oh wait...it didn't.
And I take it you still use other Microsoft products? You said you only haven't purchased _games_ from Microsoft. Or maybe you take the moral high road by downloading them from Kazaa? Surely you can justify THAT position!
If you were attempting to be funny, you failed. If you're honestly serious, then you're a prime example of why people who dislike Microsoft are called extremist zealot idiots.
-Trillian
I remember back in 1984, cramming the tasty breakfast cereal "Weetabix" down my throat in large amounts so i could cash the tokens in for the "Weetabix Vs The Titchies" Game.
Basically a crummy space invaders clone using animated versions of the cereal to shoot down "titchies" (i think they were lesser cereals)
Quite a disappointing game really, but lo and behold... I still have it, sat in the box with my 48k rubbber keyed Sinclair ZX
bah!*@%!
The problem is not that they are branded. As you say, it might be better in a realistic game to have SOME brands about that are inescapable. Say, Pepsi or Coke cans.... not a day goes by that I don't see one of those.
The problem is when the product placement has put me in some strange otherworld where every can of pop is a Mountain Dew. It's distracting. And it usually is these fine products which are less ubiquitous that do the insane product placement trick.
I wouldn't mind, though, if the Pepsi company paid to have its entire range stocked... I'm used to stepping between the Coke universe and the Pepsi universe as I browse the stalls in the food court.
Product placement in a realistic game should be realistic.
I would LOVE to see the developers of WWIIOL put up some time period advertisements. Say, Coca-Cola, for example. But, any company would be okay in my opinion. They're a very small company (20 employees) and for a MMOG, that is very small. So, every little bit of money they can get to help hire more programmers and speed up the developement of the game is a big improvement IMO.
In the tutorial of Ultima IX, , if you turned on the television in the Avatar's house, you would be treated to a looping sound clip of the EA Sports slogan, much to your delight. "E - A - Sports, it's in the game!". Also, if you booted the Avatar's PC, you would see a "coming soon" screen for Ultima Online 2 (which, of course never saw the light of day). Although, after seeing what a fine, fine product Ultima IX turned out to be, the plugs didn't really matter.
In Gran Turismo, the ads complement the game. The billboards are for automotive and racing products, just like you would see at any racetrack. It adds to the realism, which is why as a simulator, Gran Turismo is the best there is.
...we are from the government - we are here to help...
I can still remember Red Bull from Wipeout XL from a long time ago and I still think of that game everytime I see a can of Red Bull. When it finally came to America the only reason I even tried Red Bull was because it was in the game. Enter the Matrix had Powerade all over it but I think I just remember that one because the game was so bad.
Your comment got me thinking, imagine if all the little unit flags were the Windows logo.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
There's no ads per se, but at every finish line off to the side there is a raised platform with an Element on it. Look left or right when you finish, they're there (and spread throughout the game in other places, if memmory serves).
Idiot, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant
With all the references to take passengers to various places like KFC, Pizza Hut, Tower Records, the Levi's Store... And does anyone remember the uproar that SEGA ran into when they placed Marlboro ads in some of their early track-based racing games to make the game appear more realistic?
In the back of the manual for the NES cart of TMNT 2: The Arcade Game came with a coupon for a free personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut. The best advertising is the one with free and tasty merchandise.
While not an ad outright, they did mimic the Marboro logo too closely on billboards along the race course, and ended up losing a law suite.
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
Based on your user name, I would venture that we're seeing product placement in Slashdot user names now [as well as product placement in your subsequent post, but many have done that before you].
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
Boy, Acidic Diarrhea, I sure hope your user name isn't product placement...
Okay, so it isn't really an add for any particular product, but I can't imagine any better advertising for a car. Not only do you get to see it and read specs on it, but then you get to drive it faster than you normally would dare around courses you'd never have access too, and all without red lights or cops.
And, when it was time for me to buy my first new car, I picked my favorite from the game and called my local dealers. Took a test drive, and am fairly sure I at least made the dealer's hair stand on end - nothing like years of practice to know your car. Sure, it's not for everyone, but I know I'm not the only one who can say "I bought my ____ because of a video game".
That's really the way to go - natural product placement. That way the gamer doesn't feel like it's product placement. The same way the industry figured out that you don't have to gratutiously show the logo of the beverage a star is drinking. Most people are smart enough to see through the paid celebrity endorsement, you want to believe that the celebrities *actually* use these products. Hey, if you saw a pic of CowboyNeal drinking Sprite, wouldn't you want some?
Kurdt
I'm not anti-social. Just pro-technology.
I'm suprised no one has mentioned the new Tony Hawk Underground game. This game has the most advertising I've ever seen, anywhere. All the skate companies are represented, element, Adio, and Billabong to name a few. Nokia billboards are relatively pervasive on the Tampa course as are complete McDonalds restaruants in Manhattan. The great thing though is that the skate companies are used as potential sponsors for your character so their impact is part of the depth of the game. The Nokia and McDonalds are a little less relevant but while I'm doing a darkslide down a concrete barrier in Manhattan it adds to the idea that I'm in the real world when I can pass by the Mickey D's and knock some poor shlub's super size sugar water out of his hands.
"If you're honestly serious, then you're a prime example of why people who dislike Microsoft are called extremist zealot idiots."
This is offtopic, but, not _all_ people who dislike microsoft are extremist idiot zealots. Some are not even idiots.
In fact, you zealotous (is that a word) attack against the person who made the original post was rather... odd. Going off on the whole Kazaa thing, for example.
I mean, come on, we all understand that the original post was (intentionaly or not) stupid and (intentionaly or not) kind of funny - akin to saying 'pepsi put a pepsi ad on the side of it's cans!'.
But attacking the user in such a manner is just... well, it implies an imbalance of some kind. Have you ever encountered someone who went Off with very little provocation in an irrational way, sometimes at the mention of a specific subject? That is being a zealot.
Seriously, calm down and quit attacking people for things like A) making jokes and B) expressing thier own views (correctly or wrongly) by using mispellings and namecalling. Instead, try to engage in intelligent conversation and/or debate. Having an intelligent debate is not only more entertaining (for the rest of us) - but it will give Your viewpoint an oppourtunity to shine. Namecalling, using all caps, and calling people zealots - like you have done - instead paints You as a zealot. This in turn can be viewed as a negative reflection on others who might share your basic viewpoint (in this case, that Microsoft is good). Ie, "geeze, look at this guy - This is why I hate microsoft so much - even the users are rude and asinine!" Ask yourself, is that really the impression you want to give?
man is machine
A couple of things. First, I said "why people who dislike Microsoft are CALLED extremist zealot idiots," and not "all people who dislike microsoft ARE extremist zealot idiots." My basic viewpoint wasn't that Microsoft was good (or bad, for that matter). I happen to dislike Microsoft a great deal, but can back it up with opinions based on their behavior as a company and choices put into their software.
But I'm tired of seeeing the people who create the idea of the 'extremist zealot' continue to act assinine. Spelling Microsoft with a dollar sign might have been creative wit, once upon a time. Now it just looks silly and childish.
And in direct responses to your post, I used namecalling and all caps as a sarcastic imitation of said 'zealots,' and not as an honest expression of my opinion. And I don't think the origonal post was funny. As I said, if it was trying to be funny it failed, and if it wasn't then it was just foolish. But it was unclear what the intent was, so I responded as if it were serrious. Another perfectly valid response would have simply been: That's not funny. But I used this oportunity to vent my general frustration at those who dislike Microsoft and display it in a childish manner, making the rest of us look foolish by ascociation.
And what type of zealot would I be, exactly? An anti-zealot zealot? Fine. I think zealots are almost always stupid and foolish-looking, express themselves poorly, and over-react. Of those qualifications, I think I met one: Over-reacting. So I'm not too much of a zealot, I guess.
But my response was a calm (albiet sarcastic) reply to the origonal post, and while I let my general dislike for anti-microsoft zealots cloud my opinions, I don't think it negated my message.
Trillian
Warning label: It's 3:45 AM and I'm tired. I'm sorry for any incoherency in the above post. It was a bit of a free ascociation...
There's a poster in Jak 2 along the walls of the city for Ratchet and Clank. It's not a box shot, more like a portrait, but I think it's just more of an acknowledgement than anything.
As far as I know, Jak is made by Naughty Dog and Ratchet by Insomniac, which are different totally different companies, but I could be wrong.
Either way, I thought it was a nice touch.
Doesn't anyone remember this game for SNES? ( maybe NES not sure ). The whole game was built around a character for a pizza company. Or what about the 7 up dots game. I mean it doesn't get any worse then that.
Hold up, wait a minute, let me put some pimpin in it
I can understand your need to vent - but unfortunatly your tone and caps usage did not come off as sarcasm, and instead promoted the idea that you were very angry; it seemed too angry from my view, hence my response.
Whether you meant for it to or not, the implied anger (caps) and off-topic ranting (kazaa) made you look like a rather upset and over-the-top microsoft defender: a zealot fo the opposite stripe from that which you were pointing out. I'm not saying you are any such thing, as your reply mentions, I'm just saying you gave that impression. Or at least, I got that impression - which is a different issue.
It all comes down to writing style and the limitations of plain text. Without some way for others to know that your caps usage and such were sarcastic mimicing of the original poster and his type (as we now have from your reply), the reader can be get the wrong impression. Sublties of communication are difficult without body language, volumn and tone manipulation to provide context. Some users tend to use rather silly-looking psuedo html tags such as <sarcasm></sarcasm> - but despite their sillyness, they do work.
Perhaps I'm in the minority - perhaps most readers read your post as you intended. But I will say that for me, your message was _not_ clear, and the idea that you were a pro-ms defender of some zealotry was.
man is machine
I am surprised no one still haven't mentioned the blatand plug for Loom in The Secret of Monkey Island.
Or the plug for The Lost Vikings in Rock 'n' Roll Racing (you can unlock Olaf).
(Let's not even start on Nintendo referencing every game everywhere basicly).
Sure, it looks like humor or "easter eggs", but in all honesty, it's advertising.
"GNU's not Unix....it's Linux" / Kami "kokamomi" Petersen