It's OK to Advertise - If We Like You

[Russ Pitts]

It's OK to Advertise - If We Like You

So it would seem advertising is OK if it's for a product that's "cool" or that people like. Like guitars. Never mind how practically appropriate it may be. Need for Speed; Carbon and Battlefield (EA properties) were panned for installing in-game ad systems [http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3623323] advertising products from companies like Toyota, Kraft and Unliver, the makers of products like cars, food and toiletries - stuff people will actually buy - but how many gamers will actually be buying a Fender Stratocaster this year? Why is a Fender ad - and make no mistake, featuring the brand name, logo and product line is an advertisement, no matter what form it takes in-game (for crying out loud, the controller will be branded!) - any more appropriate than an ad for something people can actually use? The money is in the developer's bank no matter from whom it comes, and it all goes to the same place: making a better game. So why are gamers and the game press so uproariously down on some ads, but so effusively uplifted by others?

Perhaps they're just fickle. Or maybe there's another answer.

We're used to seeing ads for Toyota, Kraft and Unilever in newspapers, on TV and on billboards, but when we game we're supposedly trying to escape all of that. We don't want to be reminded that our six-year-old Hyundai has bad brakes, or that we need to pick up more Kraft Dinner at the store, or that we're out of soap. When we're holding that Stratocaster controller, we want to believe we're the rock star, and maybe we do have many choices when selecting an instrument and Fender is thankful for our business.

When we're playing Need for Speed, we want to believe that's our car we're driving, and that tomorrow, when we wake up late (having played too late at night) and drag our asses to work, it won't be in the aforementioned Hyundai, it'll be in that Lamborghini we've been drifting around hairpin turns.

When you've airdropped in to the combat zone and take aim at that weasly, little bastard lobbing mortars at you from the top of a burned-out building, seeing a bar of soap in high-res 3-D staring back at you through the high-powered scope is probably going to take you out of the game for a second. But when you hammer on the rock glory and pull off a 98 percent on hard with a genuine licensed Fender guitar, chances are you're not going to have a problem with that - even though it's the exact same thing.

And really, at the end of the day, who cares who's paying who under the table, what ads get served in your game and what logo is embossed on the controller? We say we want better games, bigger games, more innovative games, but then spend $60 a year on the latest, uninspiring Madden, ***** about ads but get googly over having genuine guitars in a game, courtesy of an advertising contract. We'll wear Nintendo (which is a brand) T-shirts to bed but throw sponsor-driven swag in the trash. Is there an advertising class struggle? Perhaps. Perhaps it's not about the ads, but all in how they're used, or what they represent. Replace Kraft dinner with Krystal and maybe the cries will be less hoarse.

Then again, we may just be fickle.

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[Ajar]

Perhaps it's not about the ads, but all in how they're used, or what they represent.

I'd say that it's in how the ads are used and what they represent in the context of the game. Left Behind is a decent example: every billboard in the game is an EBGameStop ad. So your squad of holy warriors is on a soul-saving rampage through a city and every other building has a huge EBGameStop logo on it, with no other advertisements to be seen. Or Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter -- do they really have giant billboards advertising Axe body spray in Mexico City? Is Axe even sold in Mexico? And why would the billboard be in English?

On the other hand, playing a Jimi Hendrix song in Rock Band on a controller shaped like a Fender Stratocaster has the potential to add something to the experience, making you feel more like Hendrix. Ads in sports games can be for more or less anything -- the variety of advertising printed on the boards in a hockey arena, for example, is remarkable. So the question isn't so much about what is being advertised as whether what's being advertised is reasonably realistic within the game's context.

IMO, anyway.

 

[Russ Pitts]

That's a good point, Ajar, and kind of what I was getting at in the editorial. But is it purely contextual, or does it also tap into fantasy and escapism? I mean, if we're playing Ghost Recon AWF, and we see ads for Goya beans or something, does that have the same visceral feel as holding that Fender controller? Aren't we still going to be just a little bit annoyed that we're being sold beens, even if it's region-specific and appropriate? Even though we're more likely to buy beans than guitars?

I think our occasional acceptance of marketing has more to do with wanting to be the kind of consumer that buys Fender guitars. I mean there's a good chance that we'll be more likely to buy a Fender Strat after playing with one in the game, but the chance that we'll become a consumer of musical equipment is still smaller than the chance that we'll buy deodorant. So in that way, the Axe ad is far more appropriate.

 

[Pottsy]

Sometimes advertising in a game can work and sometimes it can't. It's easy to compare the games industry to the film industry so I'd like to make this point.
Any form of advertsiing that wouldn't work in a film should never be applied to a game.

Placing an Astin Martin in a Bond film: fine.
Placing an Astin Martin in a Bond game: fine.

Having a billboard for Lynx Deoderant in a WWII film: not kosher.
Having a billboard for Lynx Deoderant in a WWII fps: blasphemy.

 

[Russ Pitts]

I see your point Pottsy, but who makes the decision about what's acceptable and what's not? Does Bond have to drive an Astin, or can he drive an Audi? What about a Mustang or a Hyundai? And what do you do for all of the advertisers who want to give you money to help you make a better game, but just happen to not be Astin Martin? After all, Bond films have lots of product placement deals; the Rolex, Astin Martin, BMW etc. placements are just the ones they brag about on TV.

 

[Pottsy]

I just used the Aston Martin as an example. After all, it is probably the most well known car manufacturer to be associated with 007. Since there are both Bond films and games, also Bond is known for product placement, it seemed to be a good point.

However, I couldn't think of a film that was notably bad for its use of blatant advertising let alone one that had a game made about it too.

Anyway, my point was that games developers (or more likely publishers) shouldn't just throw in adverts to make more money. However, if they did it subtly without it being intrusive or conflicting with the atmosphere of the game then I wouldn?t have much of a problem.

Also (though slightly off topic) I remember that in Goldeneye for the N64 they changed the names of most of the guns to distance them from their real life counterparts.

 

[Russ Pitts]

That's a good point about Goldeneye. I imagine the outcry would be even more severe is we were talking about taking money from Beretta or Walther in exchange for prominent placement of their firearms, but isn't that, in effect, the exact same thing Harmonix is doing with Fender? How many levels of appropriateness do we have to deal with?

My point is that the vague ethical expectations of gamers (which are often malleable and hard to track) make it a lot harder for game makers to do business. Whether that's just something they have to deal with or not is, I suppose, the question.

 

[Ferrous Buller]

It's been a while since I took a marketing class, but IIRC my professor used to say there are two kinds of non-essential goods in the world: the things people already want and the things sellers want to make people want. The former sell themselves; the latter are what you need advertising for. That's why game developers pay to license desirable properties for inclusion in their games, but get paid to allow advertising for products marketers want to sell.

People already want exotic cars and expensive guitars; and if they can't afford them in real life, then getting to play with them in games is usually the next best thing. Thus, including Ferraris and Fenders are an enticement to buy games like NfS and Rock Band: they let you pretend to have something and use something and BE something you'll never get to experience otherwise. But who lusts after Axe body spray or Kraft macaroni & cheese? Nobody. Which is why their inclusion in games is both jarring and unwelcome. Licensed goods enhance the gaming fantasy; advertising detracts from it.

 

[Geoffrey42]

I see it as entirely possible that there can be synergy in advertising and games. And I don't necessarily see the fickle aspect of the gamer's nature. We like it when it adds something to the experience. If MTV gives me a new song to play in Rock Band because they want to push the popularity of that song, at least I'm getting MORE game content, and CURRENT game content.

I can also point out where a movie did something wrong. In Casino Royale, the first car we see Bond drive is a FORD. Yes, I know they have an Aston Martin later on, and Aston Martin is owned by Ford, and he got a quick upgrade to a classic Aston Martin, but they product placed a Ford, and it was gross. It was wrong for the franchise, and they did it for advertising sake (I think at least. Not to much effect.)

The best ads I've ever encountered in games were ones that the development team MADE UP to contribute to the environment. YDKJ ads, DeathRow ads (there may have even been one authentic one thrown in there, I could never tell); these are wunderbar. If advertisers want billboards in games that gamers don't mind, they should either work more closely with the developers to make ads that fit the environment, or give developers creative control over the ads themselves. I know they won't do this, so I'll continue to have my willing suspension of disbelief jarred by bad advertisements. I can always dream...

 

[Russ Pitts]

It's encouraging that we're talking about this, because I see the issue of advertising in games as a defining issue for the industry as a whole, and for games as a medium. The main factor here is cost. The cost to make games is rising exponentially, and unless we're talking about browser-based games, or downloadables, a lot of independent studios are getting priced out of the market. Keep in mind that it's a lot harder to sell an indie game than an indie movie, because in a game, graphics and polish are the product, much more so than in a film.

So with costs rising, folks are naturally looking to ads as a potential revenue source. I, personally, can't stand advertisements in my games, but I can live with them if I have to. My question is: are we in the minority? Are ads in games really that annoying or are we just getting up in arms about nothing.? Do the vast majority of folks (the Madden and Need for Speed players) even care?

 

[Geoffrey42]

It comes back to using ads where they fit. In the moving picture (TV+Theatre) and print medium, there are three distinct categories of advertisement that I can think of. I've laid out the framework with which I identify advertising, and then tried to resppond to the issue within that framework. (My apologies for the length, cheers to anyone who makes it all the way through.)

Framework
One is "pure" advertisement; infomercials, a brochure dedicated to one company or one product. These can be entertaining for one reason or another, but almost always we expect them to be free. (One time, I found a fake catalog for Invisible Man toys and accessories produced to advertise the Sci Fi series. It was so entertaining [everything in it was invisible], I still have it. Never saw the show though.)

Next, we have "overt subsidy" advertisement. A full page ad in a magazine, or the commercial breaks during a show. They are often targeted to the audience most likely to be consuming the entertainment (Newegg ads in PC World, or DeBeers during an episode of Grey's Anatomy [disclaimer: I don't read PC World, and I've never watched Grey's Anatomy, so I'm just making these examples up]), but they are not typically PART of the content that I'm actively consuming. If advertisers are creative enough to make an engaging ad that is both advertising AND entertaining, kudos. They are being consumed secondarily though (except in a few exceptions, ie The Super Bowl or websites dedicated to television ads). In the end, we put up with them because we know that they are directly subsidizing the entertainment being consumed. We pay less to be entertained by giving the advertisers a chance to show their wares. This model is being "threatened" by the DVR, but I've never heard the same complaint from print advertisers saying "They're not even looking at my full page ad! Quick, disable the page-turning!"

The third category is product placement (moving picture-wise). The goal in this sort of advertisement should be for it to be noticeable (I can see that the character is wearing Nike's) but not overbearing (there are no lingering shots of said Nike's, absorbing 3/4 of the screen as they might in overt subsidy). Seamless integration might be a good term for it. In the print world, maybe (at least in magazines) we can think of the items being reviewed as the product placement. The New Yorker discusses new books, the local Post has movie reviews, PC World touts the newest Intel chipsets. We're reading/watching for the content, but that is helped by the material offered by the advertisers. The movie/TV show is more realistic because the characters are consuming products that actually exist, and the content being written about is content that I can go out and consume (books, movies, hardware).
/Framework

In the context of games, "pure" advertisement seems to have worked alright, and fits the medium. Ahhh, the adver-game (Sneak King, anyone?) No explanation needed. "Overt subsidy" is an awkward fit for gaming, and I think this is what results in much of gamers' complaints. Product placement is something we're generally alright with, especially in sims (Madden and Need for Speed). Having the current year's lineup wearing the official uniforms and playing in realistic stadiums adds to the experience, and you can have banners everywhere because that's what it looks like in real life. As has already been pointed out, it's more fun to drive a car in a game, in a semi-realistic environment, if that car is real. That's not to say Rush 2049 wasn't fun because the cars weren't real, but that's because they were never intended to feel real.

So, why is one okay, and the other not? Societal expectation. We expect "pure" advertisement to be free ("But," you say, "we paid for Sneak King." No, you paid for a disc and a box, the game was free. Learn to rationalize like a consumer, people.) "Overt subsidy" should reduce the price we pay. "Product placement" is a zero-sum game; sometimes the IP calls for a brand, and we pay for it, sometimes they have space for a product, and they make a little money off the placement. (I am not an advertising professional, this is just how I've always thought of it. Maybe they always make money off of it, but its the EXPECTATION I care about here.)

What I'm not going to say is that this framework WORKS for games. What I am saying is that the advertisers need to deal with our expectations about the character of advertising. If they want to put a banner in a game that doesn't mesh with the environment in an enhancing, product placement style, then we expect overt subsidy. We expect to pay less. But all the gamer sees are ever-growing prices. Maybe they are growing more slowly because of the inclusion of advertisement, but we can't see that. We have to take it on the corporations word that they're acting in our best interest to keep costs down by including advertisements.

So, to Russ's questions: No, I think the majority of people think in this way. Nobody minds a free advergame, nobody gets mad because Need for Speed has Porsche's and Brembo brakes. What everyone seems to mind are out-of-place ads that don't SEEM to make things cheaper. CBS is free to me because of the ads. If I can't see the subsidy, then how do I even know its there? That's when it becomes annoying, that's when we get up in arms: when the only thing about the "overt subsidy" advertisement is the "overt" part.

P.S. People would be similarly up in arms if they started playing unskippable commercials in the middle of the movie at the theater or on HBO (premium content), or if I hit a full page ad on page 5 of my new hardcover book (for which I paid full price). People get angry when you do things outside of their expectations, regardless of medium.

 

[Russ Pitts]

Nice analysis Geoffrey. And yes, I made it all the way through.

I think the only issue I'd take with what you presented is that the expectation is not clear. Millions of gamers buy the titles with the most obvious, obnoxious examples of (using your definitions) overt subsidies. And EA (let's not pretend) put the ads in their big-number games because they know millions of people are going to buy them.

People aren't turning their nose up at Madden because there are billboards all over the stadiums. You could argue that people expect to see billboards in stadiums, but you can also argue that since we're accepting of these ads in the best-selling game of the year why shouldn't developers assume that we'll accept them in all games.

Is expectation really the only difference, or is there a mindset, a predisposition toward acceptance from the "other 90%" who're buying these blockbuster games? When you say (and I agree, BTW) gamers have expectations, do you mean "gamers" or "everyone who plays games?"

 

[Alch]

I think what Valve is doing in CS is a good example of good and bad ads. Take one of their maps like Office. If I see a Xerox copier or a Coke machine I know it fits and I do not mind that someone paid for that spot. Take a map like Dust and having a big ad for Intel in some desert landscape that is 100 time better looking than the rest of the map then I don't like it.

Make an Intel ad like an Arabic Mural with matching colors then I will like it. I would even find it clever. This will not happen with companies being very strict with their branding. Right now they seem to just take their magazine marketing spots and squeeze them into the game.

Some Ads I see in games I equate to having a billboard for tampons in the mens room.

 

[Geoffrey42]

I agree that the expectations are not always clear, as with any other societal behavior. I think that what I laid out is a fair representation of how those expectations generally exist in regards to those other mediums. How the individual perceives the advertising is what results in the corresponding response. I give the example of playing commercials in the middle of movies, but the line blurs when the commercial is before the movie. People have been relatively okay with those. My best explanation for why is that the struggle of the theater (however manufactured by the industry it may or may not be [I have no opinion]) has been widely written about; it has been implanted into people's context about movie theaters. I know a small town theater owner personally and the ads before movies help keep him in the black. (Whoops, tangent, back to the point...) You have to try and interpret how people will perceive an advertisement in a new medium or context, and align it with examples from the consumer's previous experience. When you fail, we complain.

I don't see how the ads on stadiums, and the brand name items, and the NFL license can qualify as overt subsidies (using my definitions). They are not out of place, they belong in the context in which they are presented (this pushes them, for me, into the product placement realm, or at least somewhere in between the two). And, EA typically plays it smart. I will be very surprised if Spore or Army of Two comes out with as much branding in it compared to Need for Speed or Madden, because it doesn't fit, and they know it. I argue that advertisers should work harder to recognize when something fits the context, and when it doesn't. EA recognizes a place they can shove an ad where it works, and they do it to their great benefit. I also see some chicken-and-egg logic at play here, if only slightly. Maybe EA gravitates towards games where they know there is lucrative opportunity for advertisement because of the nature of the content.

When it comes to that other 90%, the unwashed masses, love for a franchise gives a developer a lot of leeway. EA can do a LOT of things wrong, and people will still want to play Madden for one reason or another. For a developer with a new game, they have to be more careful, because they don't have any loyalty yet. You have to gain our trust before you can begin abusing it. And, when I say gamers have expectations, what I really mean is that a majority of people raised in our society have these expectations. Of that majority, anyone who plays games will bring a similar set of expectations when it comes to the medium.

@Alch: *lol* tampons in the mens room. That's exactly what I'm talking about.

 

[Pottsy]

Electronic Arts inserts a sheet that blithely informs you it will collect information on your surfing habits, so IGA Worldwide can deliver in-game ads

I thought I might mention that EA's games, like Madden and Need for Speed, will give you adverts based on the web pages you visit. Just adding even more intrusion with their adverts.

 

[Russ Pitts]

Electronic Arts inserts a sheet that blithely informs you it will collect information on your surfing habits, so IGA Worldwide can deliver in-game ads

I thought I might mention that EA's games, like Madden and Need for Speed, will give you adverts based on the web pages you visit. Just adding even more intrusion with their adverts.

I'm not ignoring the invasive nature of this kind of spyware, that logs your web usage and/or uses demographic data to "target" advertisements to your location./hobbies, etc. but isn't this kind of thing _more_ likely to deliver ads that would be of use? If they could target you with precisions ads that _also_ fit into the game world, wouldn't that just be the absolute best possible thing?

 

[Pottsy]

I think I'm more against spyware completely. I feel even just monitoring you web habits is intrusive enough and I fail to see how it can't count as invasion of privacy. If they can get away with that whats to stop them there. I don't frequent porn or warez sites, yet I do have things I need to hide; debit card details, user names, passwords any any other sensitive data. Am I going to have to choose between playing pc games and using internet securely. I don't want to sound paranoid but you can't be sure what details they are sending off; is it just the web addresses or are they monitoring more.

However, I don't want to shift this thread towards anti-spyware so I'll make a comment about adverts as well.

I was thinking about some games that have put in adverts before now. I feel EA has been slowly sneaking in more adverts over the years. They used to have billboards in most of their games for their other games. I remember seeing billboards for 'need for speed' and 'Battlefield Vietnam' in 'Burnout 3' and that was over 2 and a half years ago. I think they will stick even more in if they don't get any significantly negative feedback.
I remember when VHS used to have 20 minutes of adverts before the film started and when they switched to DVD I thought it was great becuase they didn't have any. As the capacity of DVD's got larger, due to dual-layer, they started putting them back in. Blockbuster films are bad for this but at least you can skip them with a push of a button.
I feel we may end up seeing as many adverts in games as there is on television and online in the near future. However, I may be just becoming paranoid.

 

[Arbre]

^ I agree with lots of the arguments provided above.

Certain brand based games, or advertisement filled games, make the dreams come true.
Take car games:

Lotus Turbo Challenge. I'm driving a Lotus!
Outrun C2C. I'm driving a Ferrari!
Jaguar XJ 220. I'm driving a Jaguar!

Or like others have said, Need for Speed. We could even cite Gran Turismo, though this game features many cars which are rather unexciting. Wasn't there a more or less recent Porsche game as well?

Certain brands simply hold a much more tentalizing value to them than others, and though I disagree on the idea that everyone's ready to dress like a brand-billboard, simply put, if the ad doesn't feel too forced, but actually helps to make the product more credible, and blends in comfortably, then the goal is met.

It's also that gamers still want to breath a different air when playing video games, and escapism is strongly tied to dreams.
An ad for razorblades or the new soft paper roll are probably expectable in your everyday life, and they feel normal, and we know that they shouldn't be shocking if they were part of a profusion of many other ads pasted onto walls in some nameless virtual city featured in your random FPS.

But the fact is that they're just absolutely awfully down to earth components of a life we'd like to get far from when stepping into virtual worlds.
We're not playing games to get spoon fed with more of our real, normal life.

Then there's the other element. The coolness. There are those brands which seem inherently cool, like Coca Cola, and so big that they seem "normal" in a game, like they seem convincing in Blade Runner [http://www.blade-runner.it/forum/user-temp/coca-cola.jpg]. Maybe because the corporate theme is strong, and in a spoiled future, those voluminous ads feel like a natural skin.
So we're also seeing that an ad should also fit the mood or/and theme of the game, a point previously adressed by the members here.

That way, a Fender guitar, an iconic model of electric guitar as quoted earlier, can feel like a natural addition.

Let's look at the furor over in-game advertising. Microsoft and EA both made recent announcements that they'd be pursuing in-game advertising campaigns, placing region-specific ads into online games you may be playing this very day. The response from gamers and the game press was less than enthusiastic.

If they actually help and do it correctly, this would be particularily useful for a project I'm related to, because the game occurs in an environment that is naturally full of ads, and the problem is actually to find enough ads, and the correct ones, for the game to remain credible.
It's a weird thing to say, but without real ads, the game kinda looses a part of what makes it special to boot.