Ads ads ads.
You know, you pay for your cable and you still have advertisements. And product placement. You pay huge prices for movies at the theater, and you have lots of advertisments and product placement. Magazines, same. Cable will run at least what, 25 dollars a month? A movie is about 15 (or maybe 10 at Famous Players now). A videogame in Canada is almost always over sixty dollars. So if you ask me, this crosses the fucking line:
I guess this is to make up for all the money that Ubisoft is losing with their budget titles that only sell a few thousand copies. Oh wait…
(And yes I caught the irony of showing that image.)
NegZero said,
April 11, 2005 @ 7:45 am
Thats just creepy, but really if you think about it what difference does it make. If you’re on a manhattan Street in the game, and there are Ad’s all over the place. Some games have fake billboards etc. Why NOT make them real? It’s what you would see anyways which adds to the realism, and the Game publisher makes more $$$. Doesn’t really matter to me.
Luke said,
April 11, 2005 @ 9:01 am
If they were doing something like Anarchy Online (where players can pay to play, or play with advertisements) then I could dig it, but this stuff is just really… gross to me. Maybe I’m just a bitter jerk :-)
Robin said,
April 11, 2005 @ 9:34 am
Advertisements in video games are a touchy subject, but by all means aren’t anything new. They really started in sports games, but then moved on to other things like games that were based around ads (anyone else remember 7-Up’s Spot on the Genesis?)
The big problem I have with it (and movies that are full of ads for that matter) is that the money is NEVER passed on to the consumer. Games aren’t a penny cheaper as a result.
At least Ubisoft’s “extreme” prince doesn’t stop the game to try and sell you rock music or anything.
Luke said,
April 11, 2005 @ 9:35 am
XTREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEME!
Derek Quenneville said,
April 11, 2005 @ 1:07 pm
If I had the asm chops, I’d start a group like AdBusters that would release patches to remove and/or subvert the ads in computer games.
Ron said,
April 11, 2005 @ 1:20 pm
No, Luke, you aren’t just a bitter jerk (well you may or may not be, but that’s another matter entirely :p ).
Seriously though, I also find it disgusting. I’m all for degrees of realism in the game, but blatant product placement has and always will irritate the living crap out of me.
There are other ways to make a realistic setting have advertising that is less, how shall I put this… overt? I think the fake product method is best. You know, where they take a logo or product and change it so that you still know what it’s supposed to be, but it says something different. Like all those “punk rock” t-shirts making fun of products like Aspirin (Assburn) and stuff like that.
That’s my $0.02, anyway.
Luke said,
April 11, 2005 @ 1:25 pm
Actually Robin pointed out to me that Gran Turismo is full of ads. They’re relevant ads though (like Yokohama Tires and what not) - but is that any better?
Ron said,
April 11, 2005 @ 2:50 pm
Well, I’ve thought about that quite a lot. The whole game is *about* the products, so in that case, yes, I think that it’s acceptable. But the scene you showed, while ironically amusing, come on, since when does antiperspirant have anything to do with covert ops?
Luke said,
April 11, 2005 @ 2:58 pm
Ron: True, true. I mean, you do buy those very tires in the game :-)
Ron said,
April 11, 2005 @ 3:05 pm
I could go on and on about autoracing and sponsorship’s role in the sport… but I don’t want to turn this into a huge long ‘thing’ so I’ll leave it at that. Though in all fairness, the tracks in the GT series are modelled after their real life counterparts, where those very ad banners exist. GT is about realism in racing, and so the ads must be there to achieve the desired effect.
If a game or movie were to take place in Times Square or any other place with highly visible ads, I would expect to see them as part of the realism. Though, as I stated, in the case of games, unless the game had something to do with any of the products in the ads, I’d prefer to see fake product ads.