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Videogames And Car Marketing Intersect
Thanks to the Detroit News for their article discussing how videogames have become a great selling tool for automobiles. The piece discusses the willingness of car manufacturers to see their models used in games, with a few exceptions: "Sony Computer Entertainment America spokesman Ryan Bowling says Ferrari, Porsche and Lamborghini demanded exorbitant licensing fees - but that's why they aren't in Gran Turismo." It also mentions the thorny issue of car damage, with Alex St. John of WildTangent, developer of a Chrysler 'advergaming' title, noting: "In the past, advertisers could never imagine a commercial where you dent a car... But half the fun of a game is driving recklessly." A Chrysler spokesperson explains this change of heart for their new game, saying "...corporate attorneys determined that gaming is enough of a 'fantasy' to make it permissible to damage vehicles."
Using Carmageddon to sell SUV's is a little too far perhaps? but you gotta love the feeling!
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"we live in a post-ideological world..." - Billy Bragg.
With my brand new video game featuring my mom's Ford station Wagon! All the kids will want to hang with me!
I understand the premise behind namebrand familiarity... but I have a hard time believing anyone is going to spend thousands of dollars on a car simply because they got to wreck it in a video game like this article suggests.
Sure, maybe just continually seeing one of these cars on the screen will make you turn your head once or twice and chuckle when it passes on the street, but to drop 10, 20, 30 grand on a car because you played it in a video game? Come on, this guy is going to drop 50k on a car just because it's on PS2?
It's not like these are even niche companies looking for a market. Who hasn't heard of Chevy, Ford, Toyota, Nissan? I'm not saying marketing doesn't work... sure, get the name out there as much as possible--but how can you say someone is going to buy a car just because they got to play it in a game?
On top of that, he calls video gaming REALISTIC conditions? Okay, maybe game physics or what have you are accurate... but how in the crazy hell is pushing a button the same as pressing a pedal and feeling your entire body shift? To call video game driving realistic conditions is wishful thinking.
A certain small percentage of people are on the edge of buying a car at any given point, so the comercials are aimed primarily at them, but at all the rest of us in a long term campaign of indoctrination.
As for whether marketing even works at all, there have been some cases where very well done or very lucky marketing campaigns have had a significant impact. (For example, to reference a recent slashdot thread, the DeBeers attempt to convince americans to buy diamonds for engagement rings and other romantic jewelry.) However i believe that in most cases the evidence shows that marketing is effective, but only if it's not facing any counter marketning. Which makes it a Prisoners' Dilema type problem. If neither Coke nor Pepsi advertised they could both save a lot of money and probably not affect their market share much. However if one of them decided to stop advertising and the other didn't, the one without advertising would see a loss of sales, so both companies are "forced" to spend millions (billions?) on advertising.
This may extend to different kinds of marketing as well. If Chrysler has it's product features in a fun game they may see a rise in sales from people who were thinking about buying a car, played the game, and were slightly influenced. (It doesn't have to be a _big_ influence, there are a lot of people out there buying cars, and for some percentage of them a small amount of influence can tip the decision.) However if and when other manufacturers start using games as marketing that edge may very well disapear. At that point all of them will be commited to producing these advertising games without actually gaining any real advantage from them, but will be unable to stop as long as their competitors continue.
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I've always found that that the lack of damage and the atrocious AI meant that you could always corner past the pack by slamming into them sideways on. You could almost take a corner at full speed AND take out an opponent in one movement. If that's gone, I'll be a little disappointed.
It's all about putting something associated with your brand in front of eyeballs. Retailers are even paying to put their 'ads' in the virtual landscape of these sort of video games.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Given the steadily building controversy with GTA, I doubt any car manufacturer would want to associate with them.
Back with Need for Speed 3: Hot Pursuit (and High Stakes), unless you downloaded a hack, you couldn't race the Ferrari and... Mercedes? (Ferrari for sure) in the mode where you escape from the police because they didn't want the car associated with illegal acts.
I can only imagine their reaction to Rockstar saying "Say, can we put out your car in Grand Theft Auto?"
Then some guy mows down a bunch of pedestrians in his car, and not only do Rockstar get sued, but the car maker as well since they're now linked to it... In the lawsuit happy US, I can't see any car makers legal department saying "This is a good idea!"
It'll be a cold day in hell before licensed cars are in GTA.
I worked on a recent racing game (that used hotted up average cars rather than Porche or Ferraris probably due to the high licencing costs). The car manufacturers wanted more money if the cars were going to have damage so they decided to cut that feature.
They also become upset if their car under-performed another (even if that was the case in real life) so the cars all seemed to handle the same.
The other thing to realize is that people who are car enthusiasts/hobbyists always carry around a top-ten list in their minds. "If I had $30K I would buy a (foo) and add a (bar) and then modify the (wompus)." Having a car in a game will not change somebody's mind, but it lets them live out part of that fantasy and increase the hype.
This isn't about creating demand, it's just another part of the hype machine. Let's say Jim Sixpack has meticulously researched and test driven two comparable cars, but can afford neither right now. He's constantly wishing he had either of them: he has posters of them in his office, he can rattle off the engine specs, he can list the common modifications. Now he buys the next "realistic" car sim, and one of them is in there, and one isn't. He spends the next 8 months racing one of those cars, adding custom touches to it, modifying it, winning race after race in it.
Do you think that might influence his decision of which car to put a downpayment on when his tax refund comes in?
Not representing or approved by my company or anybody else.
I believe the most appropriate vehicle would be the Chevrolet Trantrum.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
This is basically a branded interactive commercial practice, called advergaming, applied to the automobile sector. There are games out promoting all kinds of products and industries and they're pretty successful. Forrester Research predicts advertising revenues from online gaming will reach $1 billion by 2005.
YAYA, a company that creates such games has a Chrysler case study on their site that reads:
Results: The game went online Aug. 13 and in its first week attracted 40,000 players, with an average age of 45. Some 42 percent were women. What's turned the head of DaimlerChrysler marketers is the high percentage of users who expressed interest in learning more about Chrysler products. Of the 40,000 Get Up and Go users, 68 percent requested more information. They've also created games for Ford and GM with similar successes.
What I found interesting was a survey (by Harris Interactive and PERT Survey Research) that found 40 percent of the Web sites of the companies they surveyed offered games but that only 12 percent of the consumers surveyed said they wanted games.
Massive by Design
I can't think of another game that markets cars better than Gran Turismo. Come on now, I consider myself a car fanatic and I have never heard of Nissan Skyline until the game came out.
I've wondered why the car companies were so anal about this.
Taking PR advice from your lawyer is like taking financial advice from your bookie.
However i believe that in most cases the evidence shows that marketing is effective, but only if it's not facing any counter marketning. Which makes it a Prisoners' Dilema type problem. If neither Coke nor Pepsi advertised they could both save a lot of money and probably not affect their market share much. However if one of them decided to stop advertising and the other didn't, the one without advertising would see a loss of sales, so both companies are "forced" to spend millions (billions?) on advertising.
Or, (and I'm not sure if either of us has much solid backing for their opinion,) maybe the Pepsi/Coke "war" isn't quite such a zero-sum game, and that while they're struggling against each other for a larger slice of the pie of all softdrink drinkers, by generating media exposure and getting people to think about drinking refreshment, they're increasing the size of the pie, and more people are drinking soda than would otherwise.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
"Sony Computer Entertainment America spokesman Ryan Bowling says Ferrari, Porsche and Lamborghini demanded exorbitant licensing fees - but that's why they aren't in Gran Turismo."
Curiously, not only are the first two in PGR2, but can be damaged as well. I guess its all in the priorities, and GT seems more interested in making sure there is yet another variation of the Evo 7 than anything that might handle differently. The third game's overemphasis on boring box saloons that happen to have very large rally engines in them completely ruined it for me.
Bitter? Never.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
I have to say that all the cars I dream about buying are ones that I've had a lot of fun driving in the various GT games. The Subaru Impreza, Jaguar XJ220 and even the new Mini Cooper are cars that I loved in GT for racing in their respective classes, and consequently are the cars I love.
Equally, cars that I hated driving in GT are cars that I no longer like (such as the new Beetle).
For a lot of people, their only experience of driving expensive cars is games like GT (I've never driven a Jaguar or Subaru in real life). Some of those people will eventually become well off and having aspired to own one of those cars, will buy one.
It's the greatest form of car advertising. Rather than showing pretty pictures of them on TV or in magazines, you let millions of people get behind the wheel and have a test drive.
In some games, when Porsche has not granted permission, the game company will go after Ruf - a small company in Germany that takes normal Porsches and builds Rufs from them. As of now they are the smallest car manufacturer in the world - a product of the low volume and the fact that the cars they fashion get their own VINs.
However, sometimes Porsche grants permission (PGR2) but in the past they made their own game - 2000's Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed (website has since closed, and still one of the most realistic car sims). All in all, an interesting topic.
i'm still looking forward to the day some gaming company makes a games that has cars which you can actually wrap around a telephone pole, for example, and have the character driving it ejected through the windshield and fragged upon hitting pavement.
that an other realistic accident car-damage and fatalities.
if you have in-game car accidents linked to driver-character mortality, then maybe players could drive more carefully? just a thought.