Product placement in CRPG's?

[Karzak]

Those urinal mints don't taste that good anyway!

[Sargallath Abraxium]

"Run Like Hell" had some product placement with the Ballz caffeine drink, I think.* Interplay got crates of the stuff for months afterward.

 

* It's true, but feel free to let the comments fly.

...hehehe...too bad theys ne'er mail any ta Volourn...he lost his Ballz years ago...

 

 

...WHO LUVS YA, BABY!!...

[Karzak]

...hehehe...too bad theys ne'er mail any ta Volourn...he lost his Ballz years ago...

He didn't lose them, he knows exact which desk drawer in edmunton they are kept in.

[Drakron]

Onlt game I remenber brand placement was PE2.

[Magnum Opus]

If I'm going to be paying for entertainment, I don't want some company telling me which soft drink to buy or which car to drive, simple as that. That's not entertainment to me, and that's not what I want to buy.... whether it's included in the cost of the game or not. One of the reasons I like games over TV is because I can get away from the commercials. I can't even watch a movie on TV anymore because the commercials just destroy it as a valid form of entertainment for me, intruding into the thing ever 15 minutes and lasting just long enough to completely ruin any sense of pacing that might have been generated by the flick. If ads become standard in the games I like to play, it's time for me to consider a different avenue of entertainment.

 

Besides, unless the game revolves around a Coca-Cola plant that just happens to have been taken over by the aliens I've got to annihilate, any sort of recognizable product placement is going to seem mighty out of place. Even there, though, it's going to stick out like a sore thumb and kill a significant chunk of the fun-factor.

 

It should be noted that I tend not to draw a line between real brand names and fake ones, or ones that I don't recognize. If it feels like advertising, it's going to make me start thinking "what the devil is this doing here?"

[Atreides]

^Product placement is rampant in movies yet we still continue to pay for tickets for them when we go to cinemas, buy or rent the movies etc. It's not going to go away anytime soon and it's arguable we've gotten so used to it that we hardly notice it.

 

Eventually I don't see why games would be any different.

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Just because its rampant doesn't mean it should be acceptable.

[Magnum Opus]

^Product placement is rampant in movies yet we still continue to pay for tickets for them when we go to cinemas, buy or rent the movies etc. It's not going to go away anytime soon and it's arguable we've gotten so used to it that we hardly notice it.

 

Eventually I don't see why games would be any different.

Actually, I don't see movies in the theatres very much either anymore, and I'd be lying if I said the media blitz I'm subjected to every time I set foot in the theatre didn't factor into it. It's not the main reason I don't watch a lot of movies, but it does factor into it. Prior to Return of the King it was The Two Towers. Prior to that it was The Fellowship of the Ring. Pior to that it was... Seven? ('94? 1995?). For those last three, I just read a book through the ads, and napped until the 15 minutes of trailers were over.

 

I'm not talking about the truly subtle product placements in movies, though. Most movies deal with scenes and situations straight out of contemporary society, so seeing an ad on the side of a bus going by in the background of a movie is no different than seeing an ad on the side of a bus when you're walking down the street: it's just meant to be ignored as useless information. It'd be odd if you didn't see an ad somewhere in the movie, if it was being shot at a Rangers' NHL hockey game in New York, for instance. It's when they start lingering on that bottle of Windex, glistening in the sunlight by the spotless window, as the camera pans over a crime scene that it starts feeling contrived.

 

But, most of the games I play are played for their escapist qualities. Fantastic monsters, epic quests, superhuman characters with the power to destroy a small island with the twitch of a finger, politicians that actually try to do what's best for their people, that sort of thing. Recognizable products have no place in scenarios like that and just draw you away from the fantastic and into the mundane. Beyond that, though, I'd just like there to be one entertainment medium that didn't feel like it was trying to sell me something. Just one.

 

The day that I see a can of Coke sitting on a table in a CRPG is the day I give up CRPGs. :D

 

And Coke, for that matter.

 

@Zantetsuken: exactly. Rampant != acceptable.

[Karzak]

I would be all for ads in games if it added to the development effort instead of going into the publishers pocket.

[mkreku]

There are lots of racing games with real product placement. Microsoft Rallisport Challenge had lots and lots and lots of commercials on the cars, around the tracks and I think even in between races. Same with a whole lot of other racing games, like Need For Speed, Colin McRae, Rally Trophy and so on.

 

In those kind of games it really doesn't disturb you, it actually makes the game feel more realistic, especially if you recognize some of the brands that flies past you

[Karzak]

You expect advertising in racing games, that is what racing is all about!

[Oerwinde]

I say no to product placement in certain games. Contemporary games it would make sense, because Coke and such is everywhere, and to not see it, would make it a less realistic world.

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Racing is about racing, not about advertisement <_<

[Karzak]

Racing is about racing, not about advertisement <_<

LOL, tell it to the rolling billboards and the walking billboards that drive them.

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Racing is a sport; its not about advertisement. Advertisement is a byproduct of it, tacked onto it. If advertisement was the core of it, every car in the world could do advertisement. By your logic, a bus is not about being a form of transportation, its about advertisemnt as well.

[Volourn]

Yes, but without advertisisng, racing would ceasse to be the non sport it is 'cause who'd pay the drivers?

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Ok. Lets say i'm a painter. As a painter, i conjure this artistic ideology and claim that art is the expression of the self, and whatever. End result, i end up painting. However, if i only have one job - that of being a painter - i'm also dependant of people's money to survive. That may mean having to swallow my pride and paint what people like more. However, that doesn't make me less of a painter, and the whole point of me being a painter (and of art itself) doesn't stop existing because i need money to keep painting does it? No. Without money or advertisement, many people would find themselves in dire straits. Racing uses advertisment to finance itself, but it doesn't stop being racing at all; it doesn't remove the main point behind it.

[mkreku]

Ok. Lets say i'm a painter. As a painter, i conjure this artistic ideology and claim that art is the expression of the self, and whatever. End result, i end up painting. However, if i only have one job - that of being a painter - i'm also dependant of people's money to survive. That may mean having to swallow my pride and paint what people like more. However, that doesn't make me less of a painter, and the whole point of me being a painter (and of art itself) doesn't stop existing because i need money to keep painting does it? No. Without money or advertisement, many people would find themselves in dire straits. Racing uses advertisment to finance itself, but it doesn't stop being racing at all; it doesn't remove the main point behind it.

What if the painter paints advertisements?

[Nexus]

In some games, it might work, but I have a harder time seeing advertising used in CRPGs. Tommy Hilfiger emblazoned upon your suit of armor? All in your imagination. (And let's keep it that way.)

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Ok. Lets say i'm a painter. As a painter, i conjure this artistic ideology and claim that art is the expression of the self, and whatever. End result, i end up painting. However, if i only have one job - that of being a painter - i'm also dependant of people's money to survive. That may mean having to swallow my pride and paint what people like more. However, that doesn't make me less of a painter, and the whole point of me being a painter (and of art itself) doesn't stop existing because i need money to keep painting does it? No. Without money or advertisement, many people would find themselves in dire straits. Racing uses advertisment to finance itself, but it doesn't stop being racing at all; it doesn't remove the main point behind it.

What if the painter paints advertisements?

He doesn't stop being a painter because he works for money. In the same way racing doesn

[Judge Hades]

The way I see it is if a movie is going to take place in a modern or post modern world then it is logical that a Coke can and a Doritos bag just might be laying on the ground or at some desk. If the movie is based on real life, or a close approximation to it, then I don't see a problem with it. Now if the movie takes place on a Tolkienesque type world and all of a sudden I see a Pepsi logo then something is wrong there.

 

They same applies to computer games.

[Sarjahurmaaja.]

You're not really Visceris, are you?

[Judge Hades]

Yes. Yes I am. Why do you ask?

[neriana]

Just because its rampant doesn't mean it should be acceptable.

Ditto.

[Judge Hades]

As long as it makes since for the product to be there I don't see a problem with it. Such as if we were making a game or movie about a typical frat house there is bound to be beer and pizza boxes laying around, especially after a party. Wouldn't be out the way to place budweiser and Gumby's in the mix here and there.