Read the comments sections of many gaming blogs and you'd be inclined to believe that the gamer populace is morally opposed to in-game advertising with the fervent passion of a thousand fornicating chimpanzees. A new study, however, indicates that 82% of gamers actually don't care about in-game marketing, or at least accept it.
"82 percent felt games were just as enjoyable with ads as without," states the study, conducted by the Nielson company and in-game advertisers IGA Worldwide. The study also claims that "there was an average 61 percent increase in consumers' favorable opinions of products advertised in-game post-play."
Of course, these are marketing men telling you that their marketing works, but it's an interesting suggestion nonetheless. The average gamer (not so much the hardline ones as you or I) don't seem to really give a stuff.
Personally, so long as ads aren't detrimental, I have never had a big issue with it either. Product placement is fine by me if it doesn't hamper my enjoyment of a given game or becomes too overbearing. Until Solid Snake tells us that he "can't resist the finger lickin' taste of KFC? ... Can't be," then I'm fine with him and his iPod shenanigans. I know some among us are more vocally against advertising, however, so what do you make of this study?
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
8:30 AM on 06.17.2008
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So tired of that TEETH ad on my dashboard.
Of course, Nintendo probably realized this in Pikmin 2 when most of the loot you were required to find consisted of actual licensed products. But that kind of made the game better in a way - it added a weird sense of realism. You could believe that this was really Earth at one point. Pretty eerie.
Playing through the latest Rainbow Six games and seeing advertisements for real movies that were actually being released made me feel as though the world was that much more realistic and alive. That's perfectly fine by me.
Now, had I seen those same advertisements in a game such as BioShock, well... let's just say it would have totally pissed me off because it would be absurd within that particular world, to say the least.
Besides being overpriced, they're not really that great to begin with. And I hate iPods so of course I didn't bother collecting music.
I like it...
i HIGHLY object to snakes ipod though.
it's entirely uncalled for and unrealistic, shameless even and i cannot believe that you, jim sterling, the angriest of angry game bloggers can abide by it.
god damn apple fanboy.
And don't give me that 'rising cost of development' horseshit, we fucking pay through the nose for gaming and the industry profits go up and up every year.
no shit.
Now get your money grabbing hand out my fucking games.
As for people complaining about Snakes iPod. Do you abhor Apple products so much that you dont want a little product placement in your games? Did you scream in horror at Hal and Meryl's Macbook Pros'?
I mean, if a developer/publisher strikes a deal with a sponsor in order to rake in some extra dough via marketing then more power to them. That's the beauty of the free-market. You can deal with anyone, just about, to get your product advertised via all types of media.
Whether it be games, movies, or TV. Advertisements are, ya know, sorta a good thing.
What people including myself have a problem with concerning in-game advertisements is when the shit gets in the way, or when it makes no sense. For example, ads in loading screens are annoying. Stop it. even though loading screens are boring and could use a minigame (you can thank Namco's patent office for the lack of those), I still don't want to see a fucking commercial. Also, if I'm playing a futuristic hover racer/space shooter/post apocalyptic adventure game set in the year 2542, I don't want to see an ad for fucking Cheetos. No. Fail. This isn't the place for that.
When done right, ads could really add (pun intended, no apologies) something to the game, but when done shittily (which is the cause of much gamer grief), they can really detract from and disturb the setting.
I guess all those 20 years without major advertising backing put Shigeru Miyamoto in the poor house huh? :) I keed.
while you are correct in assuming i abhor apple products, i don't care too much about macbbok pros. i might wince a little when i see em, but at least it makes some sense - the scene calls for a laptop to be present, so if it happens to be branded then so be it.
my problem is that snake shouldn't have a fucking mp3 player in the first place.
Passive ads that are in context are fine; Society is used to being bombarded with them. But the very second that it creeps into the gameplay or story, I'm out.
The iPod in MGS4 sticks out like a sore thumb to me.
I don't like my console advertising at me when I bought the damn thing.
I do agree with hating the advertisements on the 360.
i'd buy that for a dollar!
http://www.destructoid.com/blogs/Brad+Nicholson/mgs-4-and-apple-sitting-in-a-tree-91015.phtml
I don't understand how fighting through an abandoned Phillips factory could make you want to buy a Phillips TV though.
Another example of both is Burnout Paradise, I liked the billboards dotted around the place - it felt very Americanised, and make perfect sense. I didn't like the vans with the logos splattered all over the side though, they didn't sit right as you don't see many, if any, of them going around in real life. If it was a Sky TV van or something then that'd be fine, as it would fit right in. And give me a chance to ram them off the road.
I don't mind ads at, say...A loading screen. Or perhaps on a billboard in a modern-day setting in a city. That's fine.
But if I see Kratos with the Blades of Pepsi or Gordon Freeman with the KFC-gun, I am just going to lose it.
Ads in games cannot be done like ads in other places. They can't be annoying and invasive. They have to be well-done.
And if it'll drop the price of games $10 or something, bring them on.
BUY
PEPSI
Plus, who cares about a Mountain Dew ad when you're shooting the shit out of some 13 year-old.
On the other hand though, when I was in various outdoor places and inside others, there were various ads for movies and the like, and it did make sense(although I laughed at that saw ad that said "it's a trap")
if they took real companies and made bioshock-esc ads and put them in bioshock it still would be cool.
IF THEY MADE IT FIT THE THEME.
all types
=better than any other beverage
except real-beer