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In-Game Advertising Moves Towards Testing
Thanks to HomeLAN for the news that Activision and Nielsen will be testing in-game adverts starting at the end of the year. Though we've mentioned this previously, the press release would seem to indicate things are moving into their final stages. "The two companies announced that they are launching a groundbreaking test using the newly-released Activision video game, Tony Hawk's Underground 2 to determine how long and how often players interact with brands. The test will feature Nielsen's watermarking technology that uses audio encoding to uniquely identify when players are exposed to product placements within the game."
I picked up the PC version the other day and 99% of the time the camera has been facing the front of my character making the game completely unplayable. Now that I read this article, I finally understand this was simply a feature added so that I can continuously view the jeep logo on his t-shirt.
The parts of the level I have seen are pretty heavily covered in advertising. Even the instruction booklet is half ads.
(In case anyone is wondering, I have tried various configurations of keyboard and gamepad with settings for camera control set to [none] or configured properly. Another bug I have is that I can barely hear the skateboard noise, but all other noises in the vicinity are blaringly loud. The game does seem fun--throwing tomatoes at phil in his underwear, whee--so I hope to get this fixed.)
This trend is not only frustrating but it's becoming absurd. I'm perfectly willing to accept advertisements for free services (i.e. network television, GMail), but I find it infuriating that my purchases are increasingly subverted into a branding vector.
Perhaps I'm a bit extreme, but I make it a point to not buy products that advertise the brand and if that's impossible I try to purchase products where I can remove the branding as soon as I go home (this can be difficult for things like cars, but surprisingly easy for many clothing items).
I realize I'm a bizarre specimin of an american consumer, but I don't CARE if people know what kind of car I drive as long as it gets me from A to B. I do not find satisfaction and community through my choice of pepsi over coke or vice versa. I am not my Operating System.
Am I the only one that's sick of paying to see a movie and then suffering through "the 20?" I've almost entirely stopped seeing first-run movies just to avoid this advertising, but thanks to product placement they get me anyway.
I bought the product! I've paid your development bills! Shouldn't I be allowed to use it in peace?
Heh, GTA actually changed the name of the guns in the name to be less like real gun brands:
.45 = Pistol .357 .308 Sniper
Colt
Python =
Spaz Shotgun = S.P.A.S. 12
Ingram Mac 10 = Mac
Uzi 9mm = Uz-I
MP5 = MP
Ruger = Kruger
PSG-1 =
(Ripped from RARusk's FAQ about version differences between GTA3/GTA3 Double Pack)
Gun companies would do pretty much anything to avoid advertising to kids. Kids don't have money, jobs, and can't buy guns anyway.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
This means the games are going to be free now, right? Since I'm sure as hell not going to pay money to have ads shoved in my face, thank you very much.
I Nielsen is involved it means the games will be phoning home!
They may be placing in-game ads already but there is no live tracking going on as yet. This appears to be a test of the online ad interaction TRACKING service. Which brands get the most attention, what sort of interactivity gets the most attention... how do competing brands fare in-game? Will coke and pepsi see brand loyalty even without a physical product? How about giving out special offers to people who interact with the ads... free music downloads.. or unlocking bonus levels, the possibilities for engaging people and especially kids is 'virtually unlimited'.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
I have noticed that many online servers for CS have in-game ads for server renting and a popular memory brand. They add 3D models of billboards into classic maps (eg. cs_italy, de_dust and de_dust2) via some kind of plugin that integrates with map info already in your game folder. The billboard models are small in filesize so you can download a fresh set of ads if the sponsorship changes. They are non-invasive play-wise but IMAO are rather an eyesore. I won't complain if the ads increase the number of servers already available though....
"Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest." - Denis Diderot
Well you hinted at the difference - at least, the difference (for me) between acceptable/tolerable and "a deal breaker".
"Spots" in racing games - the decals on the cars, and signs on the tracks in particular - are literally part of the real sport, and thus no big deal to me. In fact, seeing authentic sponsors is kinda cool (or even some of the pretty blantant parodies like in Burnout 3).
Similar things are ok up to a point - like branding on the scoreboards or menu UI that *act* like scoreboards, the distance meter in Links2004, stuff like that. Basically, anything *passive* is fine - most of us learn how to ignore that stuff anyway (like banner ads), and the advertisers know how to play along, they try to make the ads register but not *Bother* you.
It's this interactive/intrusive stuff like the Pontiac Drive thing someone mentioned for an EA game that, to me, is unacceptable. Stuff like that should either be configurable (as in, I can turn it off completely), skippable (you can hit "A" at any point to skip the damn thing), or had better have an overt effect on the price of the game. If Pontiac wants to subsidize 5 dollars off the price of a game, I *might* be willing to consider it. Of course, that's NOT what's happening. Maybe they're helping the development company maintain a cash flow while the game's being developed, but there's no public sign that they're actually reducing the end-user's cost.
Certain games (not just racing games) can certainly gain an air of authenticity/immersion/realism/whatever from authentic product placement. I agree that situations where it's the guns in an FPS or the cars in GTA can be awkward for the maker of said products, but I hope that doesn't spawn another round of public hysteria ("Gee, you can use a Colt or a Buick to kill someone? Better sue!" Just more evidence that stupidity is one of the few genuine crimes).
But I don't think you'll see that happen anyway. I doubt the gun manufacturers were *paying* Rockstar to put authentic weapons in GTA; more likely they asked them to STOP putting them in there without permission (or maybe they had permission but lost it). They probably don't have authentic cars in GTA because those car companies like to get paid for the spots and/or don't like to see their cars damaged/burning/destroyed.
Unfortunately, this seems to me like another example of where video game makers have the potential to irk the shit out of buyers and get away with it. If you buy Madden 2006 and find out it has a totally obnoxious advertising subsystem, what can you do? You probably won't be able to return it. All you can do is raise a public stink and hope the company bows to the outrage and patches the game (And even that might not be possible if it was a console release). There are enough people who will pay for the game anyway, whether they find out about the ads before or after, that some companies - especially ones that seem more bottom-line-driven than others, like EA, to do it anyway.
Maybe complaining to the advertising companies would work better? I don't know. As long as the consumer memory is short-term enough that these gimmicks pay off (or even seem to pay off) for the companies behind them, they'll keep using them. Movie product placement is as bad as ever, but has it really bitten into movie sales (or rentals, or dvd purchases) for anything out there? No. A lousy review seems to be the best chance at that; maybe none have actually "Gone too far" yet. Maybe there is a line they can't cross, but it's entirely too obnoxious for most of us (where "us" might well be a minority of the target consumers) to be happy about.
Xentax
You shouldn't verb words.
When I pay for cable TV, I expect advertising...
Didn't cable TV originally not contain advertising because it was being paid-for in the first place?
I am noticing lately (only got cable a couple of years ago) that more and more channels are featuring more and more infomercials in place of real programming. If you notice carefully, the corporations that are pushing the 1000+ channel cable/satellite concept seem to be shuffling popular programs around in order to get existing subscribers to add more channels to their line-up.
Putting forced-to-view ads into games is ridiculous, as there's already enough product placement in most titles.
This reminds me of recent TV shows that blur out brand names on the surrounding stage decoration because (presumeably) the displayed advertising icons' owners refused to pay some kind of presentation fee. Am I going overboard with this observation, or is it some form of subtle "extortion" on the part of some producers?
I have seen quite a few people unhappy about the idea of ads in videogames (and especially the monitoring of how these ads are viewed). Now obviously low sales are going to send a message, but it is MUCH better to let them know EXPLICITLY that the reason you are not buying or are not satisfied with a game is because of the ads. Let them know it damages your opinion of the brand (Tony Hawk games), and also your opinion of the publisher. It says in the article that Lionhead's next game "The Movies" will be a continuation of Chrysler's ads in Activision games, and Activision apparently did a study that told them that gamers had a positive opinion of ads in games. Go to Activision's and/or Chrysler's website and fire off an e-mail, or if you can manage to find a mailing address, send them a dead tree complaint or two and let them know different.
"But I trust in the people's capacity for reflection, rage and rebellion." -Oscar Olivera
I dread the day when there is no more "content", and all entertainment is advertising. It can't be too far off now.
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