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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.'"
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.
No, you guys aren't cynical enough. They will stuff in ads and raise prices.. and people will pay.
Go to your friendly neighborhood Walmart (or Target, K-Mart, etc) sometime and look around. Especially in the stuff aimed at kids. You almost can't avoid buying co-marketed merchandise. I was commenting on just that last week while in Wallyworld. They still have a few copies of Memory(tm) in the original flavor... but you can see the way the wind blows with the much larger stack of Dora the Explorer and Disney co-branded copies of Memory, selling at $2 more. Yup, people pay more to get the ad for the TV shows. Try to buy a kid a puzzle with a generic picture on it. No can do, all they have is stuff enblazoned with some franchise character or another. Almost half of the toy aisle is stuff co-branded with a TV show or movie. Now go to the clothing dept and find a childrens shirt without a franchise character or an outright product ad on it. If you look you can still find un branded stuff, but that isn't what is selling, just look at the other customers.
The question of advertising in games isn't when is it coming, the only question I have is why hasn't it happened yet? Best guess is because games get played long enough most ads would 'date' the game too much. That and they could get really burned if events hammers em between a game going gold and release. Imagine the PR nightmare if Nike inserts a set of ads with some sports star who gets busted for dope, accused of rape or overdoses yet millions of games are heading to stores too late to recall and repress.
Give em a network connection to update the ads to the current crappy movie being hyped to death or the current ad campaign and watch out.
Democrat delenda est