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'Misleading' COD2 Ads Pulled From UK
GamesIndustry.biz reports that Activision has been ordered not to air Call of Duty 2 ads in the U.K. that use pre-rendered imagery to sell the game. Three Television viewers apparently complained to that country's Advertising Standards Authority that the imagery constituted misleading advertising. From the article: "The adjudication is likely to send shockwaves through the industry as it focuses on the question of whether pre-rendered footage is an acceptable representation of a computer game - in its defence, Activision didn't argue that it was, but rather that using pre-rendered footage was "common practice"."
Who hasn't played a game that features photos or footage that is not representative of actual gameplay? I feel like only the most inexperienced of people could be so easily fooled by such "deceptive" advertising. There are playable demos for just about every game, as well as images and/or disclaimers on the box.
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Those ads ran in the states with the words "Actual Game Footage" on the screen.
:/
Well, it was an "actual" cut-scene from the game.
It would be nice to see the end of this practice.... not only because it will make the ads more honest, but it will mean game devs might finally stop filling up disks with little video clips in lieu of playable content.
Personally, I thought the little cut-scenes in Ms. Pac-Man were too long. If I ever gotta sit through the opening scenes of GTA:SA again, I'm going to pop a gasket.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I was one of the people responsible for the UK's PCWorld having to remove their advert for a Centrino laptop that promised "the internet wherever you are"
http://www.proweb.co.uk/~matt/asa_pcworld_haha.ti
It is in our hands as knowledgable people to notice such rip-offs and report them :
http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Bloody right an' all. For ages I've been cursing ad's for not showing what the game actually looks like. Even the use of in-game cutscenes is misleading to the uninitiated as they might believe that all the game was that pretty. What's to stop me producing a game that's text-only and then including a 20-minute MPEG cutscene halfway through it which was made by some major CGI studio? The cutscenes are NOT representative of the game as a whole and therefore should not be allowed to be used in a 30-second advert.
I actually noticed the initial adverts for Call of Duty 2 and had this exact concern. I don't buy games any more (nothing worth buying, nothing decent enough to play them on, no way I'm paying that amount just for a game) but it was obvious to me that there was no way the game could be anything like the adverts showed, even though they looked like they *could* be to the average parent/new gamer.
I'm glad this has been upheld and hopefully this will make companies spend more time making the entire game look and play better rather than just spending the money on pre-rendered cutscenes.
So wait... When McDonalds shoots photos of their giant delicious burgers, they don't just grab the next big mac off the line and snap a shot? They grill a prime patty to perfection with delicately sliced tomatos and onions and put it together like it was "staged" or something!? BOO!
Pre-rending/simulated screens are everywhere in ads shown in the US. Take a look at the text at the bottom of the next TV/game/cell phone ad (which you will probably need a 32" tv to read). It is very rare anymore to see actual screen images.
Any non-solid in food advertising (hamburger ketchup, cereal milk) is actually glue.
We're fast reaching a point in gaming where real-time rendering can feasably match the quality of pre-rendered graphics. It's not like the days of the Playstation, where characters in FFVII have a few polygons in-game, but are smooth and (somewhat) realistic in the FMV's.
I'm sure most people here have seen trailers for Killzone 2 on the PS3. Even knowledgable people could be led to believe that this can be replicated on a PC game, and it's quite possible on the current-gen XBox 360.
Surly this was dealt with eons ago (in computer terms). All the old CPC tape covers had a very tiny disclaimer on the bottom saying that the screen shots were taken form a C64 or some other computer with better graphics.
The box cover was a picture that claimed to be an actual screen shot from the game. They made a big deal about it, as few games had graphics worth sticking on a box at the time. Buit it wasn't actual game graphics. There were weapons and ships on the HUD that didn't exist in the game. There were also asteroids featured prominently in the shot, and they were much more detailed than the asteroids in the game. It's about time the ad monkeys got called on their BS.
Reminds me of when I was a kid buying C64 games, they ALL had screen shots from the Amiga version. I fell for it once with some car game.. I remember my buddy and I taking turns playing it to the end thinking we were going to be rewarded with the "better graphics". I was sorely dissapointed. At least back then you could return opened software to EB.
-Guns kill people like spoons made Rosie O'Donnell fat-
It appears as though the journalist is not exactly clear on the meaning of "pre-rendered footage" and, as such, it is difficult to discern the actual implications of the article. Is the issue here the pre-rendered footage or the fact that it was pre-rendered footage not present in the game?
From the article:
"The ASA noted that the ads did not include any indication that the images shown did not reflect the quality of graphics of the games. While the scenes used communicated the themes of the game, they were not accurate representations of the graphics in the games themselves. We considered that this was misleading."
It has been common practice to use FMV footage as cut scenes for years now and, more often than not, the ads contain a disproportionate amount of such. Despite being annoying, it was never really much of an issue before. I somehow doubt that these particular ads are being pulled now for something that has been going on for years.
It seems to me that the actual issue here is using new scenes created separately from the game for the sole purpose of advertising. If so, this is an entirely different animal than the article would lead you to believe.
Any non-solid in food advertising (hamburger ketchup, cereal milk) is actually glue.
Advertisers are much more creative than that actually. Cereal milk is often glue but there are far more diverse and creative techniques out there for food ads. Ice cream is usually a concoction derived from potato flakes (though not quite made into the same mashed potatoes tha the manufacturer intended). Bread is rarely if ever real fresh bread--it is usually shellacked with a "tasty" varnish and has the consistency of croutons (except more durable--artsy-crafty folks are probably familiar with that sort of modelling dough used to make those ornaments that look like real pastries...). Actual use of real food is pretty commonplace however it is generally room temperature and sometimes horribly altered. As a rule, anything that LOOKS good and can stand up to studio lighting and sit for extended periods is what goes. That is why most "fragile" food is totally fake.
Other industries are "extra flattering" as well...show me an automobile ad that showcases the base model during normal use--it is always the one equipped with the handsome upgraded appearance package and driven by a "professional driver on a closed course". Clothing companies use fashion models that are far from the average physique, and you are kidding yourselves if you think that every one of them is wearing a regular size right off the rack in a store--in a lot of cases the clothes are tailored to fit the specific model. I'd say that the more expensive the clothing label, the more likely clothes have been specially altered to fit the model for the ads.
The video game industry has operated this way since the beginning and I remember in the early 80s that there was a fracas about the use of "artist's renditions" in print ads. Some companies relented and pit in very fine print somewhere in the ad "artist's rendition - actual appearance may vary". One company (Parker Brothers? The publisher of the Popeye and Frogger games for home systems) took out a series of full page ads that showed the same screenshot for ALL the systems (so you'd see variances bewteen the Atari 2600, 5200, Colecovision, Commodore, Apple, etc)--implicitly boasting that they weren't ashamed of their graphics and suggesting that they made an honest effort in developing for ALL platforms while some other game makers did not.
I think the practice was somewhat dishonest but understandable back in the day, since the hardware wasn't capable of making very exciting visuals on its own, and the market was fragmented amongst more platforms with a greater range of capabilities (bigger titles that were published for many platforms would have to resort to full page ads as described above to be completely truthful in their marketing). Today, however, such practice is inexcusable--it is plain dishonesty. Video displays do not melt like ice cream under studio lights, consoles are powerful enough to render great graphics, and the differences in contemporary platforms are pretty much NEVER evident in screenshots or quick flashes of action in ads. By relying on pre-rendered footage and artist renditions modern game publishers are just playing a crooked game of bait and switch. Old habits die hard though--much harder than the justifications for those habits.
If companies were required to show actual in-game footage, we wouldn't have to ask if the PS3 footage was real or not. Remember the next-gen Madden footage versus what actually came out? THAT was misleading.