In-game Political ads

[NoahsMyBro]

The Obama campaign has placed ads in an online XBox 360 game, Burnout Paradise -
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/posttech/2008/10/obama_campaign_reaches_game_wo.html

Wherever you might stand in the political realm, you can probably agree this is pretty clever and attention-grabbing. I don't have a 360 myself, but I'd probably do a double-take if I was racing along and all of a sudden saw that billboard.

[TonyTheTiger]

I think it helps to bring virtual worlds to life. For the most part, the concept of ads in games were non-existent even when the world you were occupying would logically call for them. And whenever they put in billboards advertising fake products in racing games and the like it always came off as kind of silly. Bringing real life into what's supposed to be simulating real life is a great idea. And the fact that the ads are not only attention grabbing but also temporally relevant makes it all that more effective.

[mnkysuit]

I really admire Obama for doing this. The whole election he's tapped into every trend to get young people excited in politics again.

Still, though, not a huge fan of in-game advertisements.

[The 1 2 P]

The Obama campaign has placed ads in an online XBox 360 game, Burnout Paradise

You're about 10% right. Theres actually Obama ads in 9 different EA games: http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/obama-reaching-out-to-gamers-in-burnout/ And I agree that this was a very smart move in terms of trying to reach this very important segment of voters and potential voters.

[DigitalSpace]

Do the ads say to turn off the TV and stop playing Game Boy (http://www.gamepolitics.com/2007/02/24/barack-obama-stop-playing-game-boy)?

(Couldn't resist.)

[Half Japanese]

In-game ads, political or otherwise, are a horrible idea that will ruin games much in the way they've ruined television. It's to be expected from EA, of course, being the same folks that will nickel and dime you for shit that should have been included on the disc in the first place or as unlockables. I don't want to see advertising when I play games. They're a form of escapist entertainment and ads just take you right out of the experience.

[Neil Koch]

Um, fuck this shit.

I've had more than enough of this election and their useless and empty images and ads barraged upon me. I play games as part of the way to escape that.

Though the way this joke of an election has been going, I fully expect some cheesy McCain attack ad... "Barack Obama endorses reckless driving. Is he right for America?"

Guess I won't be going online with Burnout until after the election.

[TonyTheTiger]

Hold on. So you guys are saying that in a game like Grand Theft Auto, for instance, where you are placed in a city that is supposed to represent something relatively realistic you'd rather there not be billboards for Coca-Cola? What city doesn't have that? I don't think anyone is talking about putting the Reebok logo on Hyrule Castle. But in a game where realism and matching what we'd expect to see in a real city, hockey arena, or racetrack are the goals then I say more power to them. It certainly adds life to the world.

But it's all relative to the world. If I saw a billboard in a Simpsons game I'd expect it to feature Duff Beer, not Budweiser. And in a football simulation, where matching a real life pro football game is the goal, an intentional lack of ads in the stadium when the alternative is feasible is just stupid. It makes it less like real pro football which is counterproductive considering the game's purpose.


In-game ads, political or otherwise, are a horrible idea that will ruin games much in the way they've ruined television.

Was there ever a time when television didn't have ads? How does it ruin something when that's always how it's been?

[SpaceHarrier]

I suppose I don't mind ads that appear in games modeled somewhat after a reality that includes ads or billboards, such as Formula 1, sports games or the above mentioned GTA series.

That said, I don't want Planet Obama as an unlockable on Mario Galaxy.

[TonyTheTiger]

That said, I don't want Planet Obama as an unlockable on Mario Galaxy.

Are you sure? That sounds pretty amazing. LOL

In the long run, I don't think anyone has to worry about ads being poorly placed. We have subtle and not so subtle product placement in movies all the time but you'd never see Dell trying to market computers in a Lord of the Rings or Indiana Jones. I don't think there's much need to worry about in-game advertisement ending up in places it doesn't belong.

[The 1 2 P]

I fully expect some cheesy McCain attack ad... "Barack Obama endorses reckless driving. Is he right for America?"

LolLOL

[dao2]

I have no problem with ingame ads as long as they fit. I dunno wot other games they're in but sure they fit in burnout paradise so everything's gravy. It's not like you HAVE too look at them.

Now only if Obama didn't hate video games :P Dunno if he does or doesn't but :|

[Half Japanese]

Was there ever a time when television didn't have ads? How does it ruin something when that's always how it's been?

Without doing the necessary research to properly answer that, I'll concede to probably not. But I did find this nugget on Wikipedia:


Advertisements take airtime away from programs. In the 1960s a typical hour-long American show would run for 51 minutes excluding advertisements. Today, a similar program would only be 42 minutes long; a typical 30-minute block of time now includes 22 minutes (http://www.gaebler.com/Television-Advertising-Costs.htm) of programming with 6 minutes of national advertising and 2 minutes of local.

In other words, over the course of 10 hours, American viewers will see approximately 3 hours of advertisements, twice what they would have seen in the sixties. Furthermore, if that sixties show is rerun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rerun) today it may be cut by 9 minutes to make room for the extra advertisements (some modern showings of Star Trek (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek) exhibit this).source (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_advertisement#United_States_of_America)


While I don't think ads will be cutting into playtime, I do think they will ultimately distract the consumer from his entertainment medium in much the same way as television ads currently do. Ads already exist in games in a still-annoying but rather unobtrusive way (Dole bananas in Super Monkey Ball, various companies in sports/racing games, etc.). I find it more creative and clever when ads and products are parodied (the Grand Theft Auto series, III in particular, is a great examples of this).

Granted, it's not the cream of the industry interested in bombarding their players with advertisements, but the bloated producers of largely half-assed mainstream money-grabs like EA, Activision, etc., so I personally won't see much of it myself, but it still bothers me that they feel they can justify putting ads in a $60 game, or worse yet, a $60 game with a $15 monthly fee. On the same note, I find it absurd that Microsoft places ads on Xbox Live when they charge a minimum of $50 a year for their service.

In short: fuck ads, I'm not interested in buying shit while I'm playing games and I will actively avoid products advertised in this manner.

[TonyTheTiger]

Without doing the necessary research to properly answer that, I'll concede to probably not. But I did find this nugget on Wikipedia:

source (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_advertisement#United_States_of_America)

'Tis true that ads have grown in number. And some are annoyingly long and obnoxious. But it's always been a necessary evil because without ads networks wouldn't have any money to air those episodes of Star Trek, cut up or otherwise.



While I don't think ads will be cutting into playtime, I do think they will ultimately distract the consumer from his entertainment medium in much the same way as television ads currently do. Ads already exist in games in a still-annoying but rather unobtrusive way (Dole bananas in Super Monkey Ball, various companies in sports/racing games, etc.).

Are you sure they're so distracting though? Would you rather play a racing simulation without Ford, Chrysler, GM, Toyota, Mitsubishi, Honda, etc.? Gran Turismo bases it's entire platform on what amounts to in-game advertising and I doubt the fanbase would appreciate it if the series did a 180 and started making up cars and tracks. I don't see how a Coca-Cola logo on a billboard in what's supposed to be New York City is somehow annoying and obtrusive when you see that exact same thing in the real New York City.


I find it more creative and clever when ads and products are parodied (the Grand Theft Auto series, III in particular, is a great examples of this).

It might be clever but it's not always for the best. Grand Theft Auto has traditionally had a tongue in cheek flavor so a clever parody might fly. But that flavor did subside after Vice City and so a more realistic approach to billboards would make the city feel more "real" to the player which is never a bad thing. And if you're going for uber realism like a sports simulation then a parody of Pepsi would be more jarring to the player than actual Pepsi.


Granted, it's not the cream of the industry interested in bombarding their players with advertisements, but the bloated producers of largely half-assed mainstream money-grabs like EA, Activision, etc., so I personally won't see much of it myself,

I have difficulty responding to this because it's clearly filled with a thick bias. I'm assuming the "cream" of the industry as you put it are companies that don't usually publish games that attempt to simulate reality. So it's no surprise you won't see Nike, Pepsi, or Levi's billboards in those games. But if they did make such a game and chose to not put in the advertising they'd be both foolish for giving up the free revenue and also foolish for stifling the realistic atmosphere of their own game. Suggesting that Coca-Cola has no business advertising in a game set in New York is like suggesting that textures have no business being laid over polygons. From either angle you have a game that's less immersive than it could be.


but it still bothers me that they feel they can justify putting ads in a $60 game, or worse yet, a $60 game with a $15 monthly fee. On the same note, I find it absurd that Microsoft places ads on Xbox Live when they charge a minimum of $50 a year for their service.

There you do have a point. You'd think with the extra revenue there would be an opportunity to pass some of the savings to the consumer. But c'est la vie.


In short: fuck ads, I'm not interested in buying shit while I'm playing games and I will actively avoid products advertised in this manner.

It sounds to me that more realistic environments or simulations aren't your cup of tea and that's why you have an aversion to in-game ads. Because in your mind you're envisioning them in games where they wouldn't fit and in games they would never end up in to begin with. But if a game is meant to make you feel like you're somewhere in the real world then it would be a good thing to make it more realistic by including things you'd see if you were actually there in the real world.

If a video game is supposed to draw you into a world then it should do just that.

[jb143]

It is a bit less subtle than Gore's "If your reading this, then your my kind of peoples" messages 'he' hid in webpages html.

The problem I have with the "it makes it more realistic" argument is that usually this sort of thing only takes 1 side. It's like an episode of a TV show brought to you by Ford where every car, truck, van, and SUV in the episode is a Ford. How is that realistic?

Now if they had Obama and McCain ad's...and you could turn on the car radio and hear nothing but them bashing each other...then I'd say it makes the game more realistic. In the end though, it's not to make the game more real, it's them finding a new stream of revenue, or simply supporing a political candidate.

[kaedesdisciple]

Sure it may be unobtrusive now, but, where do we draw the line? For example, we're mostly used to loading times by now, but whose to say that the companies can't jam in some adverts while the game is loading? We may say, yea sure the game is loading so the time would have been spent looking at a blank screen anyway, but if it can be a revenue-generating model then the game companies will have no reason to further reduce loading times. Marketing will continue to work its way into our lives in every possible way it can, whether we like it or not.

[TonyTheTiger]

It is a bit less subtle than Gore's "If your reading this, then your my kind of peoples" messages 'he' hid in webpages html.

The problem I have with the "it makes it more realistic" argument is that usually this sort of thing only takes 1 side. It's like an episode of a TV show brought to you by Ford where every car, truck, van, and SUV in the episode is a Ford. How is that realistic?

Now if they had Obama and McCain ad's...and you could turn on the car radio and hear nothing but them bashing each other...then I'd say it makes the game more realistic. In the end though, it's not to make the game more real, it's them finding a new stream of revenue, or simply supporing a political candidate.

It's true that product placement can get a little specific. But think of the benefit of having at least something real in a virtual New York even if it's just Coke products and no Pepsi.

Here's something that's interesting. Notice how advertisers pay video game publishers so their products can appear in the game but video game publishers have to pay music artists/labels to use particular songs? Having real music in GTA is a good thing but, oddly enough, Take Two has to pay to use those songs. There's a growing argument in the industry that this is advertising and so it should be reversed. The publishers should be getting paid by artists/labels to have their music in the game.


Sure it may be unobtrusive now, but, where do we draw the line? For example, we're mostly used to loading times by now, but whose to say that the companies can't jam in some adverts while the game is loading? We may say, yea sure the game is loading so the time would have been spent looking at a blank screen anyway, but if it can be a revenue-generating model then the game companies will have no reason to further reduce loading times. Marketing will continue to work its way into our lives in every possible way it can, whether we like it or not.

I don't think that slippery slope is going to happen. Broadway plays have intermissions but you don't see "Coca-Cola" written on the curtain when it comes down. Movies have had product placement for decades but there are certain places in the film that you'll rarely ever see it. The opening/ending credits, for instance. I think the fear that somehow we're going to end up seeing ads everywhere where they absolutely don't belong is unfounded because it hasn't really happened in any other medium. Why would video games be any different? Sure, it probably will happen once in a while. The random Coke on American Idol or all the Sony Vaio's in the recent James Bond. Sometimes it's like "jeez, a little subtlety goes a long way, guys." But that's usually not too common. Sometimes we might see something that makes us roll our eyes but I will put money on Sonic's shoes never sporting a Nike swoosh.

[jb143]

Here's something that's interesting. Notice how advertisers pay video game publishers so their products can appear in the game but video game publishers have to pay music artists/labels to use particular songs? Having real music in GTA is a good thing but, oddly enough, Take Two has to pay to use those songs. There's a growing argument in the industry that this is advertising and so it should be reversed. The publishers should be getting paid by artists/labels to have their music in the game.




The music industry will never see it this way though. To them, anytime someone is listening to a song, then their product is being consumed. So in their mind they should get paid for it. History shows that the music industry resists change like their lives depend on it. If there was a legal battle over this and they lost, then I'm pretty sure they would simply stop providing music for games.

[kaedesdisciple]

Guess what, it's only gonna get worse:

http://biz.yahoo.com/paidcontent/081014/1_328572_id.html?.v=1

"We would partner with anyone who writes a check." Those are the types of ads you can expect to see in games coming out of EA houses, anyone who writes a check. Fabulous.

[Press_Start]

Love how the ads exhausts that cheezy mark of the times feel.



In short: fuck ads, I'm not interested in buying shit while I'm playing games and I will actively avoid products advertised in this manner.

Do what I do: ignore 'em, mute 'em, and block 'em.

[TonyTheTiger]

Guess what, it's only gonna get worse:

http://biz.yahoo.com/paidcontent/081014/1_328572_id.html?.v=1

"We would partner with anyone who writes a check." Those are the types of ads you can expect to see in games coming out of EA houses, anyone who writes a check. Fabulous.

Drive down Canal Street. Look at all the ads. I guarantee they're open to "anyone who writes a check." This isn't new nor is it necessarily a bad thing. Just a few posts above jb143 was complaining that advertising is often too one sided. This is a way of addressing that.

It appears a lot of people don't understand how advertising works. There's a lot of work that goes into product placement beyond just paying money and boom, there's your commercial. Effective advertising is actually often reliant on tasteful and appropriate advertising. Yet everyone who's up in arms about this seems to think that somehow these ads are going to end up in places they don't belong. Do billboards bother people that much?

Hell, for a couple of months an entire building on Canal Street in Manhattan had it's left wall painted with a giant ad for GTA IV. That was just painted over and they're starting to do the same thing for Midnight Club. There's a huge PSP with a busted screen in Midtown on the roof of another building. You watch movies and TV shows where people are playing a game and the camera always shows a couple seconds of what game it is. So it's not like video games don't advertise in everything else.

And those first two instances I mentioned are some of the most imposing ads I've ever seen and that's not even close to the scope of the ads we'd see in games themselves. No medium is "above" advertising and I've yet to see a medium "ruined" because of it.

[Gapporin]

I guess this only means one thing: Look for Viagra and Cialis billboards in future EA games.

[scooterb23]

I can't get worked up over this. It's an ad. In a game. There are ads on tvs, ads on the bus, ads on cars, ads on your clothes, buildings...but ads in the games is one step too far? Come on now. Ads have been in games anyway since Chase the Chuckwagon and Kool Aid Man days. We've managed so far.

*This post brough to you by Logitech. And Lipton Green Tea to Go packs.

[jb143]

Leela: Didn't you have ads in the 21st century?
Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams! Only on TV and radio...and in magazines...and movies. And at ball games, on buses, and milk cartons, and T-shirts, and bananas, and written on the sky. But not in dreams! No sirree.

[XYXZYZ]

Ads for Tang, Dentyne and Marlboro in Pole Position didn't bother me, and nor do most other ads for the most part, but politicians make me angry like no consumer product does. Seeing that lying tool plaster his ugly mug in a game I paid so much money for would piss me off. I also get pissed off seeing him on TV or papers, or anywhere else. (I hate McCain too)

More Tang ads plz.

[Fuyukaze]

I'll always be against advertisments in game that distract from the gameplay by promoting one product over everything else. When you drive down the highway you see plenty of billboards but they have different advertisments for different companies and products. There may be more ads for one type of product over another, but there's generaly a varity. Making the whole "as real as posible" argument is weak though. Many play games to see name recognition, but many still play just to escape. Also, Gran Turismo may use all the big names, but I somehow doubt Ford is making much $$ from their 60's line being featured in it. Doubt Chevy or GM's getting much buisness from their stuff being included either. Doubt any of them see that high of sales from it either.

It's even worse when it comes to poloticians. So, now we buy the games and have to put up with Obama's crap in our games as well? What about McCain's garbage? How about those of us who just want a damn game and dont want to deal with the junk in the first place? I dont know about any of you but I'm not interested in the presidental candidates being in my games. I'll do my responsibilty and vote for whom I coose, but I'll be damned if I pay for a product only to have a political agenda I dont agree with shoved down my throat at my own expense.

[TonyTheTiger]

It's a two way street. Like I said before, video games have no gripes about advertising in everything under the sun. It's pretty egocentric to think that while it's ok for Mortal Kombat Deception to get a 30 second or so bit in 40 Year Old Virgin there is no justification for billboards in a racing game.

And why should it matter how much money a car manufacturer makes because its line is featured in Gran Turismo? Whether they make $10 or $10,000,000 it has the same effect as a Coca-Cola billboard. It's all advertising and product placement.