Product Placement in Homefront Is About Verisimilitude

Greg Tito

PR for Dungeons & Dragons
Sep 29, 2005
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Product Placement in Homefront Is About Verisimilitude



Kaos' lead level designer Rex Dickson dispelled rumors that product-placement in games is about money, and berated Modern Warfare 2 for Burger Town.

Homefront is all about what it'd be like to live in the United States when the western half of the country is occupied by Korean forces. Because the game is set on American soil, accurately portraying what most of America would be familiar with, such as restaurant chains and familiar brands, is extremely important to the designers, especially lead level designer Rex Dickson. He said that product placement is not about making money for the game - in fact, Kaos received no monetary compensation its use of brands. To him, whenever a game uses a fake brand, such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's Burger Town, it rings false and pulls the player out of the world. Dickson wouldn't say what brands would appear in Homefront, but it was an uphill battle just to get the necessary permissions.

"We are not actually getting paid to put these brands into the game. This is us going to [brands]. They ask us what our game is about, and we say, 'Korea invading the US.' They say, 'Not interested,'" Dickson said with a laugh. "We've been rejected by so many companies that we've almost abandoned the idea due to the lack of interest."

Dickson thinks its important because so much of America is inundated with such familiar brands, and that it creates a world that players can believe is real. "It just adds familiarity. You look at Modern Warfare 2 with Burger Town. The fact that it wasn't McDonalds or Burger King takes away from the game. If it had been a real world place, it registers in a different way with the player."

The problem is that the prevalence of real-world brands might actually be worse, something that Dickson freely admits. "My only regret with that whole thing is that we weren't able to convince more companies to get in on it. We have a mix of brands that we came up with, the small Mom and Pop stuff contrasted with bigger names but I kind of wish we could have got enough people interested that we could have done a corporate brand for everything in the game," he said.

A quick survey of the The Escapist offices agrees with Dickson that having one or two real brands pop up in Homefront might do more to crush immersion than if all the brands were fictional. I commend Dickson for trying, but I'm not sure that mixing between the fictional and real will create the desired effect. On the other hand, Homefront's somewhat unfamiliar 2027 setting might help in selling the mix a little better.

Source: CVG [http://www.computerandvideogames.com/290939/interviews/homefront-if-the-big-developers-wont-take-risks-its-up-to-us-to-break-the-mould/]

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Stammer

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Apr 16, 2008
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Yeah, having McDonald's or Burger King in the game would actually break my immersion more than seeing "Burger Town" in the game.
 

Korten12

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Aug 26, 2009
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Sounds good, odds are though, a couple of posts, people will say how they're lying and that it is for money.
 
Apr 28, 2008
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Greg Tito said:
A quick survey of the The Escapist offices agrees with Dickson that having one or two real brands pop up in Homefront might do more to crush immersion than if all the brands were fictional. I commend Dickson for trying, but I'm not sure that mixing between the fictional and real will create the desired effect. On the other hand, Homefront's somewhat unfamiliar 2027 setting might help in selling the mix a little better.
Wait, are you saying real brands mixed in with fake ones would do more to crush immersion, or that having all real(or fake) brands do more to crush immersion.

As for me, real brands would help. I always find fake brand stuff to be rather silly, and disconnecting. It wouldn't feel like the US without a McDonalds on every corner of the street.
 

Onyx Oblivion

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Sep 9, 2008
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I find the fake ads much better, as it shows developer creativity & humor in many cases.

The GTA games are a prime example of this.

From fake radio ads, to fake TVs ads, to fake billboard ads, to fake ads atop a taxi.


Let's face it, if your immersion is so shallow that a fake ad breaks it, you're not a terribly immersive game to begin with.

I'm not saying GTA4 is very immersive, so don't quote me and argue that point. I just like seeing how creative developers can get with fake ads.
 

AmrasCalmacil

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Jul 19, 2008
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Really? I liked Burger Town because they obviously weren't going to allow their game to be a piece of advertising.

THQ are just being idiots for providing advertising without being paid for it.
 

Johnnyallstar

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Feb 22, 2009
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He has a point, but what he doesn't realize is that we already go into games with a mindset that "this isn't the real world" so when we see real ads in a game (outside of things like NASCAR where the ads are part of the realism of the cars) it actually throws us for a loop more.

Besides, isn't Homefront supposedly in an alternate timeline? Why would there HAVE to be a McD's or Burger King in the alternate?

Onyx Oblivion said:
Agreed on all accounts. I didn't enjoy GTA IV much, but the ads I really appreciated because they were funny and thought out. If fake ads can pull the player out of the immersion, then real ads will as well, simply because their application isn't right.

I mean, if we put little KFC stamps on all the guns of Homefront, that doesn't mean that it would work better than MW2's burger town scenario. Actually, it'd be much worse because of poor application.
 
Apr 28, 2008
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Onyx Oblivion said:
I find the fake ads much better, as it shows developer creativity & humor in many cases.

The GTA games are a prime example of this.

From fake radio ads, to fake TVs ads, to fake billboard ads, to fake ads atop a taxi.


Let's face it, if your immersion is so shallow that a fake ad breaks it, you're not a terribly immersive game to begin with.

I'm not saying GTA4 is very immersive, so don't quote me and argue that point. I just like seeing how creative developers can get with fake ads.
GTA takes place in fictional cities based on real ones though, so it makes sense that that ads would be fake and all that.

If your game takes place in real-world locations, and if you want to drive that point home(which seems to be what Homefront is trying to do) then it just ends up being silly. If you live in an area of where this game takes place, it'll be much more impactful to see all the stuff you see, rather then a bunch of fake stuff which will make it seem alien to you.
 

Arkley

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Mar 12, 2009
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Makes sense to me, and I totally understand where they're coming from. Fake adds do pull me out of a game if they're clearly a parody of an existing franchise. You might be wandering around in a game and see an ad for McWendy's Kentucky Fried King Burgers and think "Ha! It's hilarious how many real world fast food franchises they just mocked in one ad", and yeah it's funny, but that's kinda the problem. It wedges the distinction between "real world" and "game world" into your head whilst you're trying to immerse yourself in the game world.

I never understood the problem with product placement in video games, to be honest. I get that people don't want to be shown an ad on a loading screen. That's totally understandable. But placing billboards, radio or TV ads for real products, or real products themselves in a game can really help with the immersion, provided they don't go overboard. Add to that the fact that it gives the developer extra funds to use to further develop their title (although, not in this case) and if you handle it well, you have a win-win situation.
 

Branches

A Flawed Logical Conundrum
Oct 30, 2008
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When I was playing Modern Warfare 2, I did kind of get the implied standing of the restaurants. Then again, I was making up names for battle itself. And the nickname that the Rangers would get. So later in the game while heading through the Underground tunnels and passing silent soldiers I just imagined the dumb-ass conversations they would have.

"Oh man, see those guys?"
"Yeah, Heard they're the outfit that held off that whole Russian Regiment at the Burger town"
"No shit? The Burger Town Bastards in the flesh."
"Yeah, Got so heavy they stole a Russian Hunter-Killer Drone to save their skins, ended up getting down to pure bare knuckle brawling before the convoy showed up."
"Man, Imagine their war bond tour."
"What?"
"You know, They'd go back home and tour the US, begging for war bond money."
"No no no. It's modern warfare, You're still stuck in Point Du Hoc."
"...Shit, you're right. I keep getting my mind stuck in the 2 perspective"
"Nothing like trigger based level design along with that infinitely respawning Russians/Germans/Japanese/Islamo-fascists behind doors to no where"
"Speaking of that, did you ever encounter any of those doors to no where in the Berlin Subways?"
"Ah, No. You're thinking Treyarch"
"ah, shit, got me again...Well, let's go storm the White House"
"After you, Captain my captain"
 

mireko

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Sep 23, 2010
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I guess it could be helpful for immersion.

[small]You know, if the plot wasn't already masturbatory neo-con bullshit.[/small]
 

Worgen

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Apr 1, 2009
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Whatever, just wash your hands.
I prefer fake ads since if you use a real product then there seem to be all these unwritten rules about the, you cant destroy the advertising, you cant make fun of the product, you can even say anything bad about it, the new biotic commando was a shining example of how to do real world products horribly, you would see these vending machines all over but you couldnt use them as a weapon or anything, they were just there as an invincible reminder of who paid for the game

if they do this well and dont make them all in your face then it could work, if they dont then it will be annoying and wont endear them to anyone
 

DeadlyYellow

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Jun 18, 2008
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mireko said:
I guess it could be helpful for immersion.

[small]You know, if the plot wasn't already masturbatory neo-con bullshit.[/small]
You have summed up my exact thoughts. No amount of grounding will ever let me take this seriously, though I'm sure all the forced patriotism will leave some hilarious moments.
 

Bre2nan

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Nov 18, 2010
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Why not? Blade Runner had quite overt product placement at times, and it still turned out to be a sci-fi masterpiece. As long as the quality is there, whether the ads are real or not doesn't really matter.

As for this game, having real brand names may actually help with the overall effect. It's trying to be a more extreme version of the Virginia suburb scene in Modern Warfare 2. They didn't get the writer of "Red Dawn" for nothing.

This effect they are going for of juxtaposing these outlandish scenarios with the real and the recognizable actually reminds me a lot of Half-Life 2. The Combine and head-crabs and all that seems much more strange when it's set against such a mundane environment so that the game might as well be taking place in a New England countryside (I know it's set in Eastern Europe, that's beside the point).
 

zombie711

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Aug 17, 2009
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I enjoy product placement when used correctly like in super monkey ball, crazy taxi, and MGS peace walker.
 

Nooneishome

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Feb 10, 2011
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if mcdonalds(they don't deserve my capitalization) were in insted of burger town then i would be really ashamed of infinity ward

It amuses me to see sime of the fake names in video games like Burger town, nova gas and other things like that but if Sgt. foley yelled out "Rameriez get on top of MCDONALDS and use the stinger" that would have ruined the campagin for me i would have shut the game off and not finished it ther and probably wouldnt have the 17 days of playtime that i do now

but in games like Forza the parts are actual world parts and people know which brands are the best and if your making a replica of your car online your gonna want to rep the parts your using


TL:DR optional stickers good, funny fake names great, companys sticking there advertising dicks into my game BAD
 

AvsJoe

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May 28, 2009
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Onyx Oblivion said:
I find the fake ads much better, as it shows developer creativity & humor in many cases.
I'm with Onyx. Humourous companies and ads may pull away from the game a bit, but the laughs make up for it.

Besides, who doesn't love McBurger Kong?