Product Placement in Homefront Is About Verisimilitude

[Sniper Team 4]

I liked Burger Town because I knew what it was supposed to be--even inside looked fairly accurate--but at the same time I wasn't drawn out of the game by suddenly going, "Hey, a Whopper sounds really good right now." Seeing real life brands it games always makes my brain skip a neuron or two. I remember thinking, "Oh hey, they got Energizer. That's cool." when I first got batteries in Alan Wake. Sort of breaks the immersion.

 

[Enkidu88]

Here's hoping I get to shoot it up in a Dick's Drive-Thru (local burger stand here in washington state).

 

[theSovietConnection]

It depends on the overall quality of the ad. If a fake ad is well done, it does no more to break immersion for me then a poorly done real-world ad. I'm hopeful for this, though. Since they aren't getting paid to put the company logos in, THQ might have a lot more control over how it is handled then if they were being paid to put them in.

 

[ProfessorLayton]

Honestly, this is a tough call. Take Alan Wake, for example. Having things like real brands of cars, for example, helped add a bit of realism to the world. However, when you've got huge Energizer billboards and Verizon ads on the television, it goes a bit overboard. I think that maybe if you fought inside of a Burger King or something, that would work. It would feel kind of weird knowing that you're fighting in a place that you know and are familiar with. As long as they keep it in moderation it's fine with me.

 

[wammnebu]

in a game that's entire premise is "this could be you," fake brands would soften the blow

thus should they be avoided

 

[Blind Sight]

I like fake product placement when it's used for the purpose of humour (someone already mentioned 'Burger Kong' from Red Alert 2) but I can see what he's getting at. When you're trying to play a fake product absolutely straight-faced I do find it somewhat immersion-breaking. I mean, bland 'give me money' placement is also a problem, but it reminds me of an old picture from the Red Dawn set of a McDonald's with sandbags, machine guns, Russian soldiers and tanks all through the parking lot. The contrast actually worked really well.

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

Yes, because alternative history is always politically motivated. Clearly Harry Turtledove both supports slavery and is a Nazi for writing novels where the Confederacy and the Third Reich won their respective wars. Give Milius some credit, he's very political in his personal life but a lot of his work (Rome, Conan the Barbarian, Apocalypse Now) doesn't reflect that.

 

[Jumplion]

It's not like these brands are going to be shoved in your faces, going "BUY GILLET FUSION!" I'd imagine that there would be just a few destroyed billboards, and maybe a broken TV with static giving out an Oreos commercial or something.

Besides, we all know [http://static.funnyjunk.com/pictures/untitled1870.png] what [http://photobucket.com/images/ramirez%20meme] happened [http://knobmonkey.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/SGT-FOLEY-RAMIREZ-DO-EVERYTHING.jpg] with [http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/077/c/5/MEME_RAMIREZ_by_Nemcopyz.jpg] Burger Town [http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l77cde0BlJ1qd4rqoo1_500.jpg].

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

My first problem I see with immersion is trying to by that North Korea had both the resources and ability to take over and occupy the US considering it is a nation of a few million starving people run by a complete idiot (and most likely dead) dictator.

 

[King_Serpent]

I guess it could be helpful for immersion.

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

great job judging a game before its out.

 

[mireko]

I guess it could be helpful for immersion.

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

great job judging a game before its out.

I'm not judging the gameplay or the overall experience of the game. I have no idea what those elements will be like (they could be fantastic), but I do know the plot. And it's ridiculous.

It seems so pointless to put so much work into making the game immersive and realistic when they're still going to have North Korea conquer Asia and invade the US. And it's written by the author of Red Dawn.

 

[The Random One]

Well finally a piece of news about Homefront comes out and doesn't make me RAAAAAAAAAAGE.

I agree that real brands add to the veracity of the world. However, I think Mr. Dickison is overestimating the power of brands in a game/visual narrative. GTA has already been mentioned, in which they must use fake brands because all of their ads are parodies of consumerism; anyone arguing for better immersion by suggesting GTA uses real brands does not understand the franchise at all. But even the case of 'Burger Town' is not as bad he makes it seem; in truth, brands are part of a big sensory overload in modern urban environments, so the fact that the brands exist is more important than they being 'real' brands (since in the case of a ficticious story the brands are as real as the story itself, then you get literary agent hypotheses and all that).

I'm tired of arguing about how Homefront makes no effort whatsoever to appeal to non-Americans so I'll only mention in passing that there's no White Castle in here (hell, both Subway and Burger King only arrived last year) and the only reason I know what White Castle is is because there is a movie [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_%26_kumar_go_to_white_castle] that was referrenced in a game [http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/White_Citadel_Quest] I played. If there is a more roundabout way to know what something is it must have an SCP number.

 

[faefrost]

Is it just me, or does it strike anyone that a lot of Real World companies, particularly fast food places might not be to eager to be placed in even mildly realistic looking FPS games? McDonald's in particular has got to be extremely sensitive about this sort of thing given the horrifying assault weapon incident from the 80's.

 

[Roboto]

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

Well... Wal mart became a north Korean headquarters, for whatever that's worth.

 

[cairocat]

snip

...I think going "Wow, these developers are funny!" is considered breaking immersion.

 

[Danceofmasks]

Best fake product in a game, ever:

In Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, instead of Coke they have red & white cans with the same swirly design ... only the colours are reversed, and it's called...

Cock

 

[Blind Sight]

Yes, because alternative history is always politically motivated. Clearly Harry Turtledove both supports slavery and is a Nazi for writing novels where the Confederacy and the Third Reich won their respective wars.

But this ISN'T alternate history, and even North Korea's nukes wouldn't be enough to allow the country's military to even GET to American soil to invade anyway, and how does the "Greater Korean Republic" even have enough soldiers in the other countries to even keep a heavy enough military presence in nearly every fucking country in Europe and Asia to keep them from fighting back WHILE STILL BEING ABLE TO INVADE AMERICA?!

The creators could have tried a story about another country being invaded for once but instead they went with what everyone else was doing.

Even without the "neo-con" in "masturbatory neo-con bullshit" you still have the "masturbatory" and "bullshit" and the sheer amount of it is enough to make George Lucas blush.

Honestly, I'm really getting sick of this 'it's unrealistic' argument. What games do you play? Are they absolutely accurate to the political atmosphere of the modern day? Of course not. I could pick apart any game sent it in the modern or near future on this premise. It's called fiction for a reason, it doesn't always have to be realistic. Also, you're completely ignoring major plot elements as well, such as the use of strontium to poison the Mississipi (which would severely damaged America IN REALITY, since that seems to be your obsession) or the use of the EMP. Also, North and South Korea have two of the largest armies in the world by U.N. estimates, and the industrial capacities of Japan would help as well. I personally still don't think it's a realistic scenario, but I'm willing to suspend my disbelief to have a little fun, not nitpick every detail to death. If I nitpicked games, I'd never actually enjoy myself.

Also, I find it hilarious that people call it 'masturbatory bullshit', and it's clear they're only doing so because it's American. If a Canadian developer, such as, say, Relic, made a game about resistance fighting in Canada against a foe, such as, say, the Somalis, no one would call it that. It just shows the classic anti-American attitude some people have. Hell, no one seems to even notice the fact that all the things that occur to the Americans in this game, such as the slave camps and mass graves, ARE OCCURING IN NORTH KOREA RIGHT NOW. This game could serve to spread awareness over these issues, because showing Americans these events happening in their own backyard puts it into perspective. Milius did exactly this in his movie Red Dawn in the 1980s for the mujahideen in Afghanistan, by replacing Afghani teenagers in Kandahar with American teenagers in Colorado. It's set in America because the audience for the game would be primarily American to begin with it, it allows them to see current events in a context they understand. If anything, this game could actually be trying to make American gamers more aware of international events.

Where did you get the full plot details for the game? Have you played it yet? Of course not, so everything so far (including my own comments) are assumptions.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

Nothing really to do with that post, but that Burger Town level in MW2 was the cartooniest level I've ever seen in a CoD game, seriously...

As a side note, I loved the random fake advertising in Borderlands.

 

[Outlaw Torn]

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?

That is better than Kentucky Fried Panda! Which game is it from?

Back to the adverts at hand...
I disagree that you need real world brands in a semi-fictional setting. Yes it would be a familiar sight but why can't they just make a fictional one that is clearly a reference/tribute/parody of a real brand? It sounds like they will have to anyway if noone is offering up their businesses to be put in the game.