Product placements in games

[cliffski]

I just got told to implement a 'billboard' in the day job that is in the game, showing ads from 'sponsors' of the game.
This makes my stomach turn. People hand over hard earned cash for a game so they acn have fun, not be sold products.
Im strongly 100% against this crap in games. How long is it until your character in Quake wears timberland boots? and drinks coke in between killing monsters?
Anyone who thinks that they arent handing over some creative control to these companies when they sign a sponsorship deal is just dead wrong.
Would you put ads in your games? Would you do ANYTHING if the sponsor paid enough?
how about including spyware? I've been asked (and refused) that one many times. And my replies to the companies asking me werent a pretty sight...
bah.

[tentons]

I don't like the idea of ads all over the place (the movie I, Robot being a prime example failing to make a placement ad part of the movie--ie, the shoes), but I expect that it's inevitable. As more games take place in the "real world" (ie, GTA et al.) it will increase.

I'm not against it if it's subtle, though. I'd put ad placements in a game if I needed the money badly enough and it made sense with the game and therefore added to the experience, but I would never ever ever use spyware of any sort.

[Bluecat]

You know I was wondering if product placement would have been a good alternative way of funding the development of a game. (Especially an indie game that is on a tight budget as well.) Depending on the type of game of course. We see it all the time in movies and tv, and most of the time it isn't noticable (at least to me, I'm just watching the movie not looking at the props.)

The other side of this is it going to have any effect on game sales? Are any people likely to be so p'd off that they don't buy the game or return it? Is having a Coke vending machine in Doom 56 any more obstrusive than having a Martian Cola vending machine?

I can see that if you are vehemently opposed to it as part of the creative direction for your game, then sure, refuse to do it.

As for me, I'm not sure. I definitely wouldn't put spyware or targeted ads in my games, (there was a slashdot article about this the other day btw.) But I might put a coke machine in, or if I was writing a sports game I might see if I could get ads on the stadium billboards. In any case, I don't have to make the decision now. The game I'm working on doesn't have any place where that would make sense.

I also wonder about the 'told' part of things, and the sponsors. Are these sponsors your sponsors or the publishers? Do you get any percentage of the advertising fees?

cheers

John

[Bluecat]

I don't like the idea of ads all over the place (the movie I, Robot being a prime example failing to make a placement ad part of the movie--ie, the shoes), but I expect that it's inevitable.

You know, I didn't even get the product placement of the shoes. To me that part of the movie was just fluff and sortof gave the impression that the character was a retro kind of guy. So, yeah, it didn't work. Not that I'd buy Nike anyway.

cheers

John

[EpicBoy]

To me that part of the movie was just fluff and sortof gave the impression that the character was a retro kind of guy. So, yeah, it didn't work. Not that I'd buy Nike anyway.
Well, actually, I'd say it worked perfectly. You remember the scene and you remember the name of the show brand. Perfectly executed, imo.

[Jim Buck]

We had company name placement on billboards in Twisted Metal 3 and 4. Dada was one of the companies, and we got free pairs of sneakers out of it. :) It didn't affect the games one iota as there were going to be billboards anyway with some otherwise made-up names.

[ggambett]

Same here. If you are going to have brands in the first place, why not get paid for using real brands instead of making up your own fake brands? At the very least, we'll going to advertise our other games in our upcoming game ;)

[alfie]

I just got told to implement a 'billboard' in the day job that is in the game, showing ads from 'sponsors' of the game.


Cliffski,
Which of Lionhead's games is this billboard going into?

If it's in Unity then I could see the logic of an ad for supporting the Sheep of Welsh farmers, not sure if it would blend with Jeff Minter's psychedelic style though :).

Alfie

[Bluecat]

Well, actually, I'd say it worked perfectly. You remember the scene and you remember the name of the show brand. Perfectly executed, imo.
Well, maybe not, this topic came up on slashdot the other day and there was mention of that scene. So there's been some reinforcement. Prior to these conversations, if you'd have asked me where I'd last seen anything to do with Nike I doubt if I'd have remembered the movie.

The interesting thing is the reinforcement aspect. Just by making it somewhat controversial or in the case of the movie, silly, Nike have managed to get people talking about what I consider to be a forgettable scene. Thus the product gets that reinforcement that Nike is after.

You see it all the time. There have been billboards and TV ads on television that have generated a wave of controversy which has resulted in them getting banned or taken down. I doubt if they would have been effective if it wasnt for the controversy. Look at Manhunt. Supposedly crappy game. It's involved in a seriously negative event which generates all sort of 'bad' press, and the game flies off the shelves!

Maybe it's true that there is no such thing as a bad advertisement.

[Coyote]

We had real companies sponsoring the teams in Jet Moto 1 and 2, and billboards advertising their products. It WORKED in that game, as it was a sports competition (of the future), and people expect that. I think it helped make the game more "real" to players.

So if it made sense and doesn't detract from the game, sure. I'm in favor of it (like the TM 3 and 4 example). But I can't see putting Nike shoes in a fantasy RPG.

As for Spyware --- no way, no how, uh-uh, ain't gonna do it. My reputation as a developer is worth much more than anybody could pay me to install spyware in my product. Not to mention my own personal integrity, sense of ethics, and a loathing of spyware.

[Glennyboy]

Well, actually, I'd say it worked perfectly. You remember the scene and you remember the name of the show brand. Perfectly executed, imo.
I don't think it worked so well in this case, actually. The brand was Converse, wasn't it?

I think it's more a case of people remembering they were being sold shoes. I had to ask someone to remind me of the brand, so I didn't remember, either.

I think there comes a point when branding is obtrusive (like the shoes thing, and the giant shot of the audi logo every six seconds). But in general, I think it can help if you want to ground your game/movie in reality. Because people do drink Coca Cola, rather than a made up brand. And people do drive real cars. But when it becomes obvious, and you start to notice that no one's drinking Pepsi or driving anything but an Audi, it breaks it.

I thought it was good in Minority Report when we saw recognisable shops, it wasn't actually so obtrusive. I see those shops a lot of the time in real life too.

As for putting bilboards in games, I don't see a problem, as long as it fits with the game. It's not obtrusive, it doesn't affect the gameplay, and if it's done right the atmosphere of the game won't suffer either. I think everyone here would be anti-spyware, since we've all been on the recieving end of that crap at one time. And it's surely going to affect sales in the future if people find that your software secretly smears crap all over your hard drive.

[BongPig]

The one good thing about having made up adverts in your game, is the fun you can have making them up!

Ild love to have a billboard in a game of mine for 'Toothrot Cola', or for 'McLard burgers'.... '9/10 agree that it almost tastes beefy'.

I suppose if I REALLY needed the cash and had adverts, i might consider selling out to the dark side, but otherwise, I would enjoy myself having a dig at all those industries I hate so much!

[EpicBoy]

I'd rather have the money.

[Greg Squire]

It’s interesting how we (myself included) have a double standard about advertising. As a consumer I hate a lot of ads, especially in things that I’m paying for (i.e. movie theaters, cable TV, magazines, etc.) I also hate spam, and internet popups. I tend to be more lenient on things like radio and regular TV, where I understand that the price of it being free, but still I don’t like them. Then on the other hand, as an indie businessman, I would certainly use some forms of advertising to get my product noticed.

I think having ads in your game would be fine as long as they are subtle enough. I don’t think anyone like them to be a distraction. If someone offered me a million dollars to put some ads in my indie game, I’d say “Sure�. (I’d even write them their own game for that much). But is that going to happen? Heck no! Certainly not for that much, and probably not even for an indie game (not enough exposure for the company wanting the ad). I might look at ways of promoting my own products within the current product, such as an in-game billboard advertising a previous game of mine. I’ve seen that done before, and it's probably the only advertising you’d find in an indie game (other than some fake ads like mentioned earlier).

[gmcbay]

I wouldn't hesitate to put product placements in games I made. As long as they are just a natural part of the game and not popup/nag-screen ads, why not? I would, however, be selective about what was being advertised (eg. no cigarette ads, particularly in a game that kids might play, etc).

I'd never put spyware in any of my games. Firstly because I personally think spyware is horrible and should actually be illegal and secondly because it only takes a couple of users realizing where the spyware came from to alert the rest of the net to avoid your games, and that is a stain that won't wash off later. Your company will forever be known as a spyware installer.

[otaku]

In "Big Wave Surfing 420" (PS2, Acclaim, never published) we had a deal with O'Neil that allowed the company to receive a little incentive to put their surfboards in the game. The team also benefited by being able to purchase surfboards, wetsuits and other paraphernalia through the “pro surfer� discount (something like a 60% or 80% discount over the shop price).

In Transworld Surf many of the in-game surfers wore watches. For that the team received a bundle of divers watches from the company.

I think “branding� in games is justifiable when it adds to the reality of the game.

I agree with the poster who mentioned “when everyone is driving Audi� and “nobody is drinking Pepsi� it can get totally break your suspension of disbelief. Minority Report suffered this when everyone drove Lexus and the cop ends up being chased in to a Lexus factory (which is highly improbable because even if the factory were automated it’s highly unlikely they would construct cars in Washington, D.C.)

My “inappropriate product placement� alarm went off when watching I, Robot (What a god-awful movie) for the sneakers, but it also fit with the character being “retro� (though I wonder which came first, the sneakers that dictated the character be retro or the retro that made him interested in the sneakers).

At E3 I did see one software product that was being pitched. It consisted of developers placing a texture in to the game that was dynamic that pulled targeted advertising from a server. Much like the computer generated in-place adverts you see on the hoarding down the side of a football pitch, people on the East Coast will see Fry’s grocery stores, and on the West Coast they’ll see Ralph’s grocery stores.

So you would be running around in Counter Strike and the advertising for a particular brand of soft drink or other item would appear on a billboard above the city. I am assuming that because it is targeted, each player would see a different advert. You can extend this in a year or so to designating textures as “texture for front of soft drink vending machine�, “texture for advert of car�, “texture for bill poster of music�, “texture for sign outside of coffee shop.�

This I find pretty nauseating.

It’s one thing to have a branded game, another to carry some brands in a particular game (where would we be without properly branded cars in Gran Turismo 4?), and something completely different to having your game, which you paid upwards of $50 (USD) for, asking you probing questions about your financial background, what you like to drink, and how much TV you watch and then monitoring how long you spend looking at a particular advert when playing the game.

The cars in Gran Turismo cannot be flipped over, nor can they take damage, all due to licensing restrictions. In Rallisport 2 you can totally trash your vehicle, but it can never blow up or actually stop running, so how weird is that? How long until some marketing drone whines that you aren't allowed to shoot up the soft drinks machine because it hurts their branding?

[Quest Engine]

I don't want to see blatant advertising, but I do think its distracting when you see product labels that are intentially covered up to avoid having a named product on screen. You see this all the time in sit-coms where they have a pepsi or a coke can, but instead or saying "Pepsi" or "Coke" is just has the generic word "Cola" in that space. The half-second it takes to examining the made up label is just another event to break the illusion of reality.

[cliffski]

the i robot (aint seen it) question about if the character was always retro is my point.
If the designer of my day job decides later on that billboards look wrong, we CANNOT take them out, as we have signed a deal and taken the money.
if the cars going past the movie lot no longer make sense we MUST LEAVE THEM in as they are sponsored.
suddenylt the lead designer isnt designing the game. the marketing people are.
still think its a good idea?
Half life 2 - Designed by Valve (and mcdonalds,nike,coka-cola...)

[EpicBoy]

If you don't want to get trapped like that, don't sign the contract.

[robleong]

Cliffski, I like the idea of putting ads in games! I am not sure that it will work well, but I might be willing to give it a try! Most of this thread talk about games that are sold - why not put the ads in games that are given away free? Your revenue will come from the ads, not from the sale of the game. Much like a free website sponsored by ads. It's a whole new avenue of revenue generation! Has anyone done any research as to whether this will work? :)

[Michael_Le]

Well, maybe not, this topic came up on slashdot the other day and there was mention of that scene. So there's been some reinforcement. Prior to these conversations, if you'd have asked me where I'd last seen anything to do with Nike I doubt if I'd have remembered the movie.

The interesting thing is the reinforcement aspect. Just by making it somewhat controversial or in the case of the movie, silly, Nike have managed to get people talking about what I consider to be a forgettable scene. Thus the product gets that reinforcement that Nike is after.

You see it all the time. There have been billboards and TV ads on television that have generated a wave of controversy which has resulted in them getting banned or taken down. I doubt if they would have been effective if it wasnt for the controversy. Look at Manhunt. Supposedly crappy game. It's involved in a seriously negative event which generates all sort of 'bad' press, and the game flies off the shelves!

Maybe it's true that there is no such thing as a bad advertisement.

Hehe yup =) , exactly the same thing with the Spiderman 2 ads on the MLB base pads. I don't think Sony had any chance on putting spiderman on those bases but to get people talking about the controversy was perfect.

[Jack Norton]

The advertising guys coming to videogames... that's the apocalypse for me :D
Jokes apart, if the annoyance is only putting car branded Ferrari, or have your Max Payne drink Pepsi instead of an anonymous drink I don't really care...


...think instead when they'll try to put the advertising in the games itself :) you may think that this day will never come, but I already see some sites doing that. UGO, Gamespy, etc. "Click here to skip this ad" at least now we can skip... think if they make the ad appear anyway.
I know this may sounds impossible... and I hope it will stay that.

Year 2015 - your son is playing Doom 15, he is at the final level, then he finally is behind the door of the BIG BAD BOSS... he moves slowly to open it and...voilÃ*! before fighting the boss, you see a 15-seconds ad of the great "Supersoap" who clean even the dirtiest ones :D

(that day probably I'll suicide :))

[Cartman]

I don't mind advertising in games and tv as long as they are subtle. For example, I don’t mind seeing the corner of a can of Coke or Pepsi. This is fine. But when the Doritos bag is fully open and the actor is very careful to get the full bag in the shot so you have no question it’s a Doritos bag, then I have a problem. Because they are trying to distract you from the story you are experiencing and that annoys me to death.

I like watching cooking shows where they replace all the labels on the cans with fake ones. That’s the kind of job I want. Fake label maker. 

[Greg Squire]

Cliffski, I like the idea of putting ads in games! I am not sure that it will work well, but I might be willing to give it a try! Most of this thread talk about games that are sold - why not put the ads in games that are given away free? Your revenue will come from the ads, not from the sale of the game. Much like a free website sponsored by ads. It's a whole new avenue of revenue generation! Has anyone done any research as to whether this will work? :)

WildTanget (http://www.wildtangent.com) has done some extensive research into this. They have built numerous “ad-games�, which are games in which the whole game is an ad. They are usually given away free, and sometimes they require you to register and divulge some personal information (like email address, so they can spam you later), in order to play.

Here’s some info from their site on the matter.

http://www.wildtangent.com/default.asp?pageID=solutions_2
http://www.wildtangent.com/default.asp?pageID=showcase (Showcase of games they’ve done for some big name advertisers)

(This one isn’t on ads but some interesting info on game player demographics)
http://www.wildtangent.com/default.asp?pageID=solutions_1

[BantamCityGames]

Hey like ggambett said, there's no reason the ads have to be from other sponsers... why not put a billboard for one of your other games in there!! Might even do that myself now that it was brought up.

With that being said, I wouldn't mind either way... whether it was a funny pot-shot at a big company like BongPig said, or whether it was a real company.

As for spyware... thats a whole different subject... I HATE SPYWARE!

[cliffski]

my objection to it is not one of whether or not it affects the gameplay or sotiry(which is obviously bad) but a general one as to me wanting my life not taken over by constant marketing and ads. There is precious little 'ad-free space' left. even the back of bus tickets have ads on now...
When i pay money for a DVD, movie or game, i have PAID to be entertained, not marketed at. This is why logos screens annoy the hell out of me.
I guess this attitude was best summed up by the writer Naomi Klein in her book "no Logo"

[Chris Evans]

Cliffski, I like the idea of putting ads in games! I am not sure that it will work well, but I might be willing to give it a try! Most of this thread talk about games that are sold - why not put the ads in games that are given away free? Your revenue will come from the ads, not from the sale of the game. Much like a free website sponsored by ads. It's a whole new avenue of revenue generation! Has anyone done any research as to whether this will work? :)

As Greg mentioned, this is already being done. They're called "AdverGames". Right now, most Advergames are small shockwave and flash games. WildTangent does some Advergames as well.

The developers that mostly do Advergames usually create a very generic simple game. Like driving a car around a single track or a quick reflex game. Then they rebrand and license the same game to a bunch of different sponsors. So one month you might brand it "Toyota Truck Rally" and then a few months later it could be "Ford Off-Road Challenge". The sponsors tend to use the online games for promotional purposes.

Very few developers I know do Advergames exclusively, they usually have it supplement their other content. Also the ones who I've seen do Advergames successfully tend to have a large library of generic games, which they can quickly rebrand for a prospective client.

For more info, just type "Advergames" in google. Personally, every Advergame I've played has been extremely shallow.

[tentons]

Well, actually, I'd say it worked perfectly. You remember the scene and you remember the name of the show brand. Perfectly executed, imo.

I was referring to it "working" in terms of the story itself. It felt tacked on and was obviously an ad. It was poor script writing and took me out of the world of the movie. In contrast, Coke machines in Doom 3 may actually make it a more believable environment/story, enhancing the experience.

From a marketing perspective, yeah, it worked. Which is more important is debatable. :)

[tentons]

Prior to these conversations, if you'd have asked me where I'd last seen anything to do with Nike I doubt if I'd have remembered the movie.

Maybe ironically, it's actually Converse "Chucks" that were in the movie, not Nike. :)

Or did Nike buy Converse? (I'm showing my age here, aren't I?)

[Curiosoft]

Hey,

This could be a serious threat (or opportunity) to the indie community.

I notice that a lot of the main sites (like cartoon network, etc.) rely on flash games to get people to their site. I didn't think it was a big deal because they didn't have a strong revenue model.

With this "advergame model", these sites can now make a lot of money. Therefore, we may lose out. As they get more money, they may invest in making the games deeper (more like current indie games). Why would folks find indie sites, when these free sites provide the same value.

So...I say...jump on the bandwagon. Time to make those deep flash games we can sell off our sites. We get two revenue streams -- the player and the advertisers.

I was hesitant about investing in flash tools...but shoot. Now I may have no choice.

Later,
Curiosoft

[robleong]

Thanks for the info, Greg and Chris. AdverGames is certainly a new concept to me! :)

[svero]

Speaking of which if anyone wants the laser puzzle in aargon 3 to spell out the name over your company or draw your company logo please contact adsales@twilight... hehe juuust kiddin.

Actually its funny to note (i read this somewhere) that some game companies before were paying to use logos so their game would appear to be more "real"

If you have any interest in corporate sponsership or the mcdonaldization of society check out the book Fast Food Nation. Pretty interesting stuff.

[Greg Squire]

...Personally, every Advergame I've played has been extremely shallow.

Yep. Every Advergame I've seen has been shallow as well. Despite that, I know that these small games on kids sites like Cartoon Network and Nick Jr seem to be effective in drawing in people. My kids are playing those silly little shockwave games on those sites all the time.

Most are simple 2D flash/shockwave games, like Chris mentioned. Most of the 3D ones I've seen have come from WildTangent, but I just noticed that Skyworks (http://www.skyworks.com/default.htm) seems to have a bunch of canned 3D Advergames as well (shockwave based), so it appears that the 3D Advergame market is growing.

The Advergame with the most depth that I've played is Alias Underground (http://abc.go.com/primetime/alias/underground/missions.html). It was a 3D spy game with 10 missions. Originally the missions were released in an episodic format (about one every one or two months) to keep you coming back. There wasn't a whole lot to each mission and you could tell they didn't spend much time on fine details (stiff character animation, etc.). I think it was a collaboration between ABC and Nokia (the phone is used prominently in the game), and there was some sort of sweepstakes attached to it.

[Nutter2000]

If the advertising is done without it being too intrusive or jarring to the game play then I can't see a problem with this, it seems like another good revenue stream IMHO.

I can see and agree with what Cliffski's afraid of though, if the designers lose control over the product due to restrictive advertising contracts then the whole game and games industry could suffer hugely.
I think it's the difference between (for extreme want of better examples) advertising in Formula 1 Racing (which is extremely high but doesn't interfere with watching it) and forcing advert breaks every 10 mins during sports such as football (I'm talking proper football here not American football :p) where adverts aren't ment to be.

just because previous games that featured advertising have been pretty shallow doesn't mean we should dismiss it as a possibility for better games so long as the designer not the advertiser retains control over the game.

[Glennyboy]

the i robot (aint seen it) question about if the character was always retro is my point.
If the designer of my day job decides later on that billboards look wrong, we CANNOT take them out, as we have signed a deal and taken the money.
if the cars going past the movie lot no longer make sense we MUST LEAVE THEM in as they are sponsored.
suddenylt the lead designer isnt designing the game. the marketing people are.
still think its a good idea?

Yes, because the risk can be minimised. If your game is based in a place where there an advertising bilboard or two might be present (race track, city, etc.) then it's hard to go wrong putting an advert on it. If your game has cars in it (GTA springs to mind) then getting sponsorship from a single car manufacturer wouldn't be a good idea. Unless it's, like, "Ford Racing" or something.

It just depends on the situation. If advertising looks bad in a game/movie, then it's bad judgement on the part of the designers. Yes, okay, in the grand scheme of things you are turning a part of your game over to the advertiser. But if the control of the advertiser is limited to a single bilboard that doesn't look out of place, how bad can it be?

An example of unsubtle advertising from an episode of Friends: (WAV file, 227KB) (http://www.optibrain.co.uk/downloads/STATION.WAV)

[Nutter2000]

An example of unsubtle advertising from an episode of Friends: (WAV file, 227KB) (http://www.optibrain.co.uk/downloads/STATION.WAV)That's awful!
advertising "children" like that in the middle of friends!?!!!
are there no depths to which marketing people won't stoop??

[cliffski]

if anyone here wants to make games to sell hamburgers, then thats fine if you want to do that for a living. But dont kid yourself that you are doing something creative in terms of making great games. Your just part of the mcdonalds marketing department.

[Nutter2000]

So basically what you're saying is that since you've had to put in a billboard showing an actual real life marketing campaign, the game your working on for Lionhead is no longer worthy enough to be called game but is now merely a marketing tool for outside companies?

maybe you should quit your job in protest?

[Bluecat]

if anyone here wants to make games to sell hamburgers, then thats fine if you want to do that for a living. But dont kid yourself that you are doing something creative in terms of making great games. Your just part of the mcdonalds marketing department.

I think you're being a little harsh here Cliffski.

Using a coke texture on a vending machine, or a maccas texture on a billboard in a racing game, doesn't automatically make the rest of the game uncreative. Just like product placement in a movie doesn't automatically render the entire script invalid. I Robot wasn't a bad movie because of the product placement, (in fact I don't think it was all that bad), it suffered because of the cliches, the hollywood demonisation of technology, the ignorance of Asimov's original vision, and because it concentrated on being a vehicle for Will Smith.

I believe that if I make a game that is (first and foremost) fun to play, then a little bit of creative revenue raising in order to fund the game is not going to make the creative vision of the game suffer. In fact with additional funding, it may help acheive a better game in the long run. How much better could you make your game if someone gave you a few thousand dollars?

cheers

John

[Glennyboy]

if anyone here wants to make games to sell hamburgers, then thats fine if you want to do that for a living. But dont kid yourself that you are doing something creative in terms of making great games. Your just part of the mcdonalds marketing department.
This is a gross simplification of the situation.

[Quest Engine]

I think you're being a little harsh here Cliffski.


Who here would expect any less? Every since Yamauchi retired from Nintendo, I've relied on Princec and Cliffski to provide me with a regular dose of 'stubborn businessman ramblings'. Give'm hell Cliffski!

:)

[cliffski]

I stick by what I say.
who is designing your games? the designer or the finance director?
I'm pretty glad we have kept advertising out of art as long as we have. Im glad that the moma lisa wasnt sponsored by colgate and thus smiling more, Im glad the laughing cavalier isnt holding a copy of the latest eddie murphy video (hey we were gonna make the guy laugh anyway right?).


Sure I could make a better game with a few more thousand dolalrs, but thats EXACTLY the same reason people put spyware in their games. whats the difference?

I dont object to adverts, as long as they are in their place and its reasonable to inflict them on the viewer. If i watch free TV channels, I expect to see ads. To a lesser extent I can understand adverts in magazines (which I have paid for...) but when I have expressly paid for a piece of entertainment, it should entertain me, not market to me.
If this forum replaced all the branded words on it with hyperlinks to ad sites (as some have tried) we would all be going mental about it, but this is exactly what you guys are talking about doing with your games.

Any of you who want your latest game sponsore by mcdonalds, go right ahead, it just marks out my games as being even more isolated as one of the few games companies that gives you a product for your $20, rather than just a bunch of adverts.
so there!

[Glennyboy]

I stick by what I say.
who is designing your games? the designer or the finance director?
I'm pretty glad we have kept advertising out of art as long as we have. Im glad that the moma lisa wasnt sponsored by colgate and thus smiling more, Im glad the laughing cavalier isnt holding a copy of the latest eddie murphy video (hey we were gonna make the guy laugh anyway right?).
You're putting modern videogames on the same pedestal as pivotal and historical works of art from a completely different media?


Sure I could make a better game with a few more thousand dolalrs, but thats EXACTLY the same reason people put spyware in their games. whats the difference?
Spyware is intrusive, parasitic and annoying. A coke machine as part of the scenery in a game is not.

If this forum replaced all the branded words on it with hyperlinks to ad sites (as some have tried) we would all be going mental about it, but this is exactly what you guys are talking about doing with your games.
No, that exactly is not. What you suggest has an intrusive effect on the board. It affects readability, with half the words being underlined, and means that people will be less likely to click on an actual helpful link if they're aware that 90% of the links are just adverts. This is a world apart from an advertising hoarding beside a racetrack that says "Firestone".


Any of you who want your latest game sponsore by mcdonalds, go right ahead, it just marks out my games as being even more isolated as one of the few games companies that gives you a product for your $20, rather than just a bunch of adverts.
so there!
If a game costs $20 and features sponsorship, it does not automatically mean the player paid $20 for a bunch of adverts. As always, it's dependant on the situation.

[gmcbay]

I agree that spyware and adverts in games are VERY different things. Worlds of difference. Saying they are essentially the same thing weakens your argument in much the same way someone can ruin their argument by comparing something to nazis (IMO).

I also agree that adverts in games can't be compared to hyperlinking words in this forum. At most it would be like if this forum had some non-popup banner ads or Google adwords as part of the site design, in a non-intrusive way. And I wouldn't mind one bit if this site did have either of those, so...

For adverts to be anywhere near as intrusive for me as cliffski sees them, they'd have to be blinking icons in the GUI of the game or something like that. A coke or powerade machine as part of a level? Sorry, it just isn't a big deal for me.

[gmcbay]

if anyone here wants to make games to sell hamburgers, then thats fine if you want to do that for a living. But dont kid yourself that you are doing something creative in terms of making great games. Your just part of the mcdonalds marketing department.


Just to bring this to a real world example... Super Monkey Ball is loaded with advertisements for Dole. It is also one of the best, most creative games in the past 5 years. So I don't think this point holds up. All IMO, of course.

[Bluecat]

I stick by what I say.
who is designing your games? the designer or the finance director?

Same guy. Me. :)

As stated before. There won't be anywhere in my game that it will be appropriate to advertise, so there won't be any ads. I'd like to clear that up first.


Sure I could make a better game with a few more thousand dolalrs, but thats EXACTLY the same reason people put spyware in their games. whats the difference?


A hell of a lot I'd say. The difference between a coke texture on a vending machine that is going to be there anyway, and a program that installs itself without permission, spys on your computer and web surfing habits and refuses to uninstall? I'd say about ten orders of magnitude difference.


I dont object to adverts, as long as they are in their place and its reasonable to inflict them on the viewer. If i watch free TV channels, I expect to see ads. To a lesser extent I can understand adverts in magazines (which I have paid for...) but when I have expressly paid for a piece of entertainment, it should entertain me, not market to me.


Ok. Let's take the magazine example. You say that you can understand the ads in magazines (and for the purpose of this discussion lets say newspapers as well.) The thing that most people don't understand is the price of a newspaper or magazine comes nowhere close to covering the cost of production. Without advertising most printed media (excluding books) would be unaffordable to the average person. Would you pay thirty dollars for the New York Times?

If it is ok for a newspaper or magazine to offset some of the costs of production with advertising, why is it not ok for a game developer?


If this forum replaced all the branded words on it with hyperlinks to ad sites (as some have tried) we would all be going mental about it, but this is exactly what you guys are talking about doing with your games.


Uh Uh. No it's not. There is no way that I'd try to redirect the players attention from the gameplay elements of my game to an advertising site. There's no way that I would have a popup or ad screen appear between levels. The MOST I might do is replace a few textures of game world businesses with their real world counterparts, and only where appropriate. For instance the Jock Itch Cola vending machine texture might get replaced by a Pepsi vending machine texture, unless I wanted attention on the Jock Itch humour. Then I wouldn't.

Taking the newspaper/magazine analogy above. No newspaper or magazine I have ever read has forced me to look at its advertisements. I've never encountered a situation where the article that I am reading has disappeared to be replaced (or covered) by an article for female sanitary products, plumbing supplies, or toothpaste. That is all I am suggesting for games. No one is forcing the player to focus on the vending machine. It is part of the background, and if the player is having fun then they probably won't notice it anyway. If the game is visually spectacular to the point that the player stops to admire the scenary, well, maybe then.

Mind you, I'm not convinced that these sort of ads will work anyway. I doubt if most players are going to focus their vision on the Pepsi machine and say, "Oh looky here. I think I'll make the choice of a new generation." In fact I am sceptical that most day to day advertising has that big of an impact. Just like spam, I think that the percentage of people who buy something because they saw it in ad (and they weren't looking for the same sort of product anyway) is very very small. I think advertising works when it is targeted at the people who are looking for that product.

[cliffski]

advertising DOES work. thats why companies spend billions on it. it often works in a low level background "brand-awareness" way. thats why kids in villiages in india who have never seen television still know the coke and nike logos.
I know most of you disagree with me strongly, which is fine (hey thats democracy (http://www.democracygame.com) ;)), but there are a cross section of people like me who are fed up with the constant bombardment of advertising, on Tv, radio, cinema, magazines, billboards, other peoples clothes, even the back of bus tickets. When The world winds us up and we escape from it into computer games, the last thing we want is yet more logo-bombardment.
Its a minority view at the moment, but its still a valid view, and one that some gamers (some of YOUR customers) also hold.

[Glennyboy]

When The world winds us up and we escape from it into computer games, the last thing we want is yet more logo-bombardment.

Well, to get really pedantic about it, we get plenty of logos before the game even starts. I still remember firing up Aliens vs Predator 2 and sitting through no less than five animated logos. Now that annoyed me. At least the Escape key's an option there :D

While I appreciate your point of view, and sympathise with it, I honestly don't care what goes on the back of stuff like bus tickets, I don't even look at them. Advertising is growing more prevalent, and more irritating, but I think that's where the distinction lies. There's advertising that's just background noise (billboards, bus stops, etc.) and there's advertising that gets in your way. The background noise is practically invisible to me, and I assume most people, and in the same context can be so in computer games.

As you say, though, there are indeed people who still won't like it.

[EpicBoy]

Mind you, I'm not convinced that these sort of ads will work anyway. I doubt if most players are going to focus their vision on the Pepsi machine and say, "Oh looky here. I think I'll make the choice of a new generation." In fact I am sceptical that most day to day advertising has that big of an impact. Just like spam, I think that the percentage of people who buy something because they saw it in ad (and they weren't looking for the same sort of product anyway) is very very small. I think advertising works when it is targeted at the people who are looking for that product.
Not to be insulting, but that's really showing a lack of knowledge of how marketing works. Marketing isn't meant to get you to buy NOW, it's meant to get you to buy LATER. You go to the store and want a soda ... your subconcious pops up with, "Hey, what about Pepsi?" ... that's what all the advertising is meant to do.

[Jim Buck]

Carmack on advertisements in games (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=119283&cid=10074872):

"We had a pretty good money offer to put a sponsored add in the Quake 1 entry level. We decided not to just on the basis of it being tacky, which was for the best, considering the company (some random early internet company) dissapeared into obscurity.

I don't have any fundamental problem with product placement in games, but it isn't something we pursue. I would just as soon have real brands in realistic settings instead of made up ones.

John Carmack"

[Nutter2000]

Exactly the point!

I think from looking at the replies here , most of us would allow advertising so long as it wasn't tacky or degrading to their product.

If the advertisement was from a large and estabilished company, eg Coca-cola, Pepsi, Nike, et al, AND it was only placed in a unobtrusive, yet obvious location then it will work without damaging the product then it will work.

To be honest, it's all down to the company involved, Peter Molineux quit Bullfrog because he felt he had become yet another pawn in the wheel, without any real control over the marketing driven content that was being plowed into their games. He started Lionhead to get away from all that that and get his hands back in the real world of design and developement.
If you're saying that now Lionhead is now considering a total reversal of that ideal of freedom of expression then perhaps this is a dark day for all of us, there is no hope of freedom of expression, merely adapation to the persevive/pervalent current marketing stratagies.

Not to be insulting, but that's really showing a lack of knowledge of how marketing works. Marketing isn't meant to get you to buy NOW, it's meant to get you to buy LATER. You go to the store and want a soda ... your subconcious pops up with, "Hey, what about Pepsi?" ... that's what all the advertising is meant to do. well I think the problem is that Marketing DOESN'T work, these days it's simply a continuation on a theme.
The only people to benefit from marketing in todays world are those big corporations who have already cornered the market.
An example would be to simply look at the car ads, in most countries you can tell it's one of an extemely finite number of manufacturors without even bothering to pay attention to the actual maker.

You're saying that the marketing strategy is not to get you to think of buying a "Coke" now but later, this is surely more of a sign that the marketing/advertising instustry is saturated by a few huge companies who domonate the entire advertising market.

(to play devils advocate) Therefore by accepting marketing deals with companies do we not degrade our products by making them very much the same in terms of look and feel, purely due to the adverts that are prevelent in them?

Slightly off topic that I know but nevertheless relevent I feel.