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The Next Step For The FPS - Advergames?
simoniker writes "The CEO of Vancouver company Threewave, famous for creating Capture The Flag, has been explaining their current project — multiple versions of a free, ad-supported FPS: 'We'd like to provide sponsored content that also supports the brand of the FPS, allowing it to have a whole stream of maps that are available month after month, featuring different product placement each time. Maybe in a Jeep-Chrysler level you'll be able to drive their vehicles. Maybe a Pepsi branded level where you jump through a Pepsi logo to materialise somewhere else.' He also noted: 'For example, one of the projects that we completed recently... features terrorists taking over the Alienware computer factory.'"
I had no idea that Threewave invented Capture the Flag. I could have sworn I was playing it years before Quake even existed.
It's like sex, except I'm having it!
As I read the article.... the embedded ad is for "Grand theft auto: Vice city"...
I could go for some hot coffee right about now...
Anyhow on another note, Ads can be placed in games, where appropriate. The first time I jump through a 'pepsi' logo to warp, I'd be on google to find a 'patch' for this distraction in suspending my disbelief.
I would have loved to see a Coke or Pepsi machine in Sin episode 1, but no... the had to be benign and put in 'Hammer cola...Get Hammered!' Great but it's a missed opportunity. The best ad placement I can remember to date is Bawls, in Fallout for the Xbox. not intrusive, it had nice billboards, where billboards should be, and to boot the caps were worth something in-game.
If done correctly this could be a big thing... if done as a spinning pepsi logo i need to jump through, well... there are alot of other developers out there.
THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!!!! eventually.
Not even Quake; it was DOOM with converted graphics. All the weapons ("zorchers") and monsters ("Flemoids") were perfect analogs to Doom. The game was called Chex Quest. I remember a small part of the ad campaign was that it was "non-violent" in that supposedly you didn't actually kill the monsters, you just "zorched" them back to their home dimension, and they didn't kill you, they just made your body armor (composed of dry breakfast cereal) soggy until you could no longer move.
It really wasn't a bad game if you cranked up the difficulty level, and it was amusing to plug the graphics into the standard Doom WADs or vice versa.
I remember the Super Bootspork fondly...