Slashdot Mirror
Wipeout HD Loading Ads Scrapped After Uproar
RobotsDinner writes "After Monday's story about intrusive, loading-screen ads being retroactively added to the PSN racing title Wipeout HD, the popular uproar has indeed succeeded in getting Sony to pull them. You can put your pitchforks down; your voice has been heard! A Sony spokesman said, 'The ad has been removed from Wipeout HD and we are investigating the situation to ensure that any in-game advertising does not affect gameplay.'"
Anyone remember Jet Moto for the PSX? They had Mountain Dew and Butterfinger ads plastered on billboards through all of the races. Even the teams of racers were sponsored by different products. But hey, back then I thought it was pretty cool.
Worse than that, I don't even understand why. I mean, is it an ego thing? Really? Really truly? What would lead car company executives to be so full of themselves as to believe that their cars never, ever see so much as a scratch? Hello, it's a fucking Toyota, or Chevy, or Subaru, or Nissan. It's not a goddamned Abrams tank, it's going to get scuffed up especially when it's going 150-200MPH. The Abrams tank would get scuffed up going 150-200MPH. I mean, I love my Subie - it's very reliable and has been good to me, but I was careless when transporting a computer once and the corner of the case put a nice scratch in the paint by the rear driver's door. At the end of the day, cars aren't invincible.
How did that idiotic licensing condition ever even originate? And why do all the car companies actually buy into it? I can just see corporate pencilnecks in a boardroom somewhere blathering on about "virtual vandalism" or some equally-insipid bullshit. And it makes me glad I haven't eaten anything in the last hour.
Help protect civil rights from abuse by the TSA - visit TSA News Blog.
http://www.tsanewsblog.com
Not all car manufacturers have this restriction. In fact, only a minority do. Usually it is the brands like Porsche that are know for high performance. They don't want to ruin their image by showing the real consequences of driving like the stuntmen do in their commercials. Therefore, it would be less realistic to have the majority of branded cars show damage while a few didn't, and if the developers just left out the manufacturers who demanded 'no damage,' then they would be leaving out some of the best cars.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
A lot of corporate image is about making sure that the logo is portrayed with just the right shading of colors, just the right dimensions, etc etc. I had worked for a company at one point where we had put the company logo into our signatures. We were told we had to take them out because when the logos were printed or when they were viewed on the screen, they failed to comply with corporate governance over how the logo should be seen.
With a bashed up car, you'll get the Ford/Chevy/Honda/whatever logo all f'd up and then noone would recognize it for the product it is!
[Advertising for other games' in-game items] only increases the players' immersion and doesn't make the company any money!
It gets the player asking: "WTF is a KeroKeroCola?" A couple Bings later, "Super Mario RPG" is firmly planted in the player's mind, and the player heads to the Virtual Console section of the Wii Shop Channel to download the game. (Conversion rates may vary, just as in real life.)
Free publicity nothing. The publisher had to pay licensing to all of those auto manufactures in order to get the cars into the game. This was why they were hamstrung over the damage issue. If it was a case where the auto company was begging for inclusion to the publisher then the publisher would have leverage to approve damage.
What's ridiculous about this is BMW shocked everyone a few years ago when they ran that series of ads where their cars are in chases and get totally trashed and they played it for all it's worth on how much of a beating their cars can take and still kick ass. BMW actually got positive viewer reaction out of those ads for their product proving that this notion that you can't show your car dinged is extra special ridiculous.
[Console-style games for PC] don't exist. Never will.
Care to explain why not, once HDTV reaches 51 percent of U.S. households and eliminates the last major hurdle to connecting PCs to a home theater?
It's got nothing to do with HDTV. Connecting a PC to a TV is a solved problem. I've had a MythTV box connected to my TV via a $50 video card for 4 years (and I've only had an HDTV for less than two).
It's because the market for "Console-style games on a PC" is small. You're just not a profitable demographic.
Hey, I'm genuinely unaware: What did Nintendo do that is akin to Microsoft or Sony's shenanigans? I don't buy Microsoft or Sony anymore, and I'd like to avoid adding Nintendo to that list.