Slashdot Mirror
In-Game Advertising Breaks Out
UID1000000 writes "MSNBC reports that companies like Nielsen are implementing tracked advertising in video games. Viacom is also considering in-game advertising. I can't wait until your first person shooter stops and drinks a nice cold refreshing soda."
Can anyone remember an old Amiga games called Pushover? Sponsored by Quavers?
Or Zool not only being covered with advertising but even came with its own Lolipop
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
EA's Fifa series has been doing this for sometime now. The commercial billboards on the soccer fields do advertise real products.
This is my sig. There are thousands more, but this one is mine.
A lot of cities and towns ban billboards entirely.
Well Playboy magazine is already one step a head of you. Their next issue will be an interesting crossover of video game advertising and girlie photos. See here for more info.
Given one hour to live, the student replied: "I'd spend it with professor FP who can make an hour seem like a lifetime."
Anarchy Online already has billboards advertising Alienware computers :)
(This is a tie-in to a marketing campaing related to the launch of AO expansion titled 'Alien Invasion')
I doubt any gamer would mind much for (paid) advertising in the form of (animated) billboards or 'holograms' in first person shooter levels, but the stuff should *fit the theme*. Futuristic shooter such as Unreal Tournament would be easy - just stick in some billboards to suitable levels, but if someone would start selling McDonalds stuff by planting ingame ads into something like Everquest, gamers would go berserk over it...
It all depends how it's done. I think Sims Online and The Sims 2 also have somekinda marketing/product placement deals already set up.
I think he's referring to the latest edition, Worms 3D. I'm not sure if that's out in the US yet.
10 PRINT "LOOK AROUND YOU ";
20 GOTO 10
I'll bet you believed the clerk at the store when he told you that it was against the law to take back underwear too.
It isn't. It's against the law to resell returned underwear not in the original package. It is simply company policy to not accept the return.
Notice that you too used the word "policy"? If there were such a law as you suggest that word would not appear on the sign. The word "law" would replace it. When the sign says "policy" that's exactly what it means.
They are perfectly free to give you a refund, they just don't want to. Same as the underwear.
Only in the case of computer/video games the store is also free to resell the title.
KFG
As I recall, Red Bull was even advertised in WipeOut (the first PSX game) not only on in-game billboards, but also during the opening cut scenes. Only, you couldn't buy those energy drinks here in the U.S. back in 95(?) because they weren't sold here. We (at least, I) didn't know who or what Red Bull was.
Though, as soon as RB hit our market, the brand was instantly recognizable by me, and possibly by others who've played this game to death. Hmm, maybe advertising in video games does work?
I can't stand ads in the movies,
Tell me about it. Have you seen "The Twenty" or "The 2wenty" or whatever they call it? It's a digitally projected "show" (cough cough) in place of the old slideshow ads. It's a thinly veiled series of ads along the lines of an entertainment show. What really gets me is at the end they always summarize what they've shown you and say "if you didn't see all of the twenty, come to the theater earlier!" ?!?! Yeah, thanks for the advice. I'll come early to see more ads. At least the slideshows were easy to ignore.
And by the way, that digital projector sucks. I can see the pixels on the edges. It'll be a sad day when theater movies go digital.
In response to peer poster Diabolical: "All restarants are Taco Bell."
I seem to remember Crazy Taxi 2 being nothing but advertising. "Take me to Kentucky Fried Chicken" they would say. Or "I need to go to the Levi's Store." The first game was great and the second one was all right, but there was still a lot of advertising in both games.
"Damn TV, you've ruined my imagination, just like you've ruined my ability to -- to, um...uh...oh well."
The Japanese version of Shenmue had Coca-Cola, Fanta, and Sprite in its drinks machines but they were removed from the US version in favour of fictional generic brands. I actually found that far more distracting because I rarely see machines in real life selling generic drinks - they're invariably Coca-Cola or Pepsi.
That's why there's a place for product placement in games, just as long as it's not too invasive and I don't get offered cheap viagra on the loading screens.
Degenatron was from Vice City. The Dormatron was a weight-loss product advertised in GTA III.
We had a pretty good money offer to put a sponsored add in the Quake 1 entry level. We decided not to just on the basis of it being tacky, which was for the best, considering the company (some random early internet company) dissapeared into obscurity.
I don't have any fundamental problem with product placement in games, but it isn't something we pursue. I would just as soon have real brands in realistic settings instead of made up ones.
John Carmack
According to the Arcade History Database Pole Position came out in 1982, so you win!
-If
Run a pencil-and-paper RPG campaign with your far-off friends: Gametable!