Quote:AUSTIN, Texas - April 18, 2005 - The Game Initiative announced today that 250 executives from advertising agencies, game developers and publishers participated in the first annual Advertising in Games Forum on April 14, 2005 in New York City. The audience consisted primarily of advertising agency executives seeking to understand the market opportunities and expectations. Earlier in the week Massive Incorporated announced its game advertising network and IGN Entertainment signaled its entry into the advertising in games business.
A number of key facts, figures and estimates were provided to the audience by leading industry experts at the Advertising In Games Forum. Highlights include:
* The Yankee Group forecasted advertising in games is expected to rise to $800 million in 2009 from nearly $120 million in 2004.
* $266 Million, or more than one-third of advertising in games in 2009, will come from "advergaming," when advertisers create a game around a product rather than place their brands within a well-known title, according to Yankee Group senior analyst Mike Goodman at the Advertising In Games Forum.
* Mitch Davis, chief executive of video game ad network Massive Inc., told the audience video game advertising would top $1 billion in the United States by 2010, and approach $2.5 billion worldwide.
* There are 100 million game capable cell phones are currently in the marketplace. 65% of the population owns a cell phone. And the turn over or replacement rate of cell phones is every 16 months, reported Anita Frazier, Entertainment Industry Analyst, NPD Group, at the Advertising In Games Forum. Every cell phone being sold on the market today is game capable. So within 16 months all cell phones in the marketplace should be game capable.
* The top selling 2004 game titles according to the NPD Group: 1. Grand Theft Auto San Andreas – 5.5 million sold since launch 2. Halo 2 on X box – 4.5 million units sold since launch 3. Madden NFL 2004 on PS 2 – 3.5 million units sold since launch 4. ESPN NFL 2K5 –1.6 million units sold since launch 5. Need for Speed Underground 2 –1.7 million units since launch
* Top selling PC title of 2004: Sims 2 with 750,000 units sold., reported NPD Group at the Advertising In Games Forum
* Best selling game title of all time: Grand Theft Auto Vice City with 6.5 million units, followed very closely by Super Mario 64 on the N64 which is about 6.0 milllion units, according to Anita Frazier, Entertainment Industry Analyst, NPD Group, at the Advertising In Games Forum.
Advertising in Games Forum was the first conference where advertisers, publishers and game makers will come together to outline the opportunities and challenges of ads in games, and explore together the most effective way to take advantage of games as a platform while benefiting the consumer.
The Advertising In Games Forum East was sponsored by Massive, Inc., Alias Systems, Microsoft Game Studios, WildTangent, Mary-Margaret.com, GameSpot, GameDev.net, Moby Games, The Bohle Company, XFIRE, Inc., and Business Wire.
About The Game Initiative
The Game Initiative is a leading producer of conferences and events for professionals in the computer and video game industry. The Initiative is chartered with the growth of the industry through events, public awareness, information and supporting programs and serves the needs of companies and people involved in producing interactive entertainment software and hardware for video game consoles, handheld devices, personal computers and the Internet. Game Initiative events include the Austin Game Conference, the Women's Game Conference, The Advertising In Games Forum, The Casual Games Conference, Game Technology Association Meetings and the How to Break into the Game Industry national conference series. More information about the Game Initiative can be found at http://www.GameConferences.com
I don't about everyone else, but I can't wait for the day when Mario wears Nike shoes, chugs ice-cold Coca-Cola, and buys all his clothing at Gap.
I really despise this decision by advertisers. I don't WANT my games to be filled with product placement for some product that if I ever wanted I'd go looking for it instead of having some snooty executive-type person invading my personal escape from reality to flash some mundane ad for shaving cream or thirst-quenching beverage while I'm trying to fight the Demon King Agnarthrock on level 18 of the Ruined Castle in the Center of the Earth with my +12 Magical Sword of Punishment because the machine figured that I'd been playing it for so long that by that time I'd need be needing one of those at that point which I wouldn't and if I did I wouldn't need some billboard of ten second commercial with some guy shaving his face or drinking a Gatorade to tell me I needed it.
I really hope only companies that I don't care about like EA and...EA go in for this kind of craziness.
Planet Gamecube
I hate this trend... The very start of Splinter Cell 3 had a bubble gum product placement ad. The main character takes time, and the camera takes focus on, him chewing a piece of bubble gum. I didn't catch the brand name, but there was no good reason for that. That's the sort of attack on the integrity of the storyline I can live without. Oh yes, a giant "The Ax" billboard lights up a roof top. If anything they just got me to hate that stuff even more. Anyway, I took it out with extreme prejudice and kept moving.
And oh yeah, Nintendo adding that Duracell battery? Well, Pikmin isn't that serious, but come on! That didn't add any realism, that world was some alien planet not Earth, and all it did was insult my intelligence.
Look, I PAID for my games alright? Stop putting ads in them! Yes, I too hope this stops with sucky games I don't care about. I do NOT want to see Link start chugging a new magical energy drink, "Gatorade", to restore his health. Someone would have to die if that happened.
In-game advertising is perfectly fine if it's in an appropriate context -- the ad banners in a sports stadium, or ads in sports or real-world games (like Rush 2049 and its billboards/adboards, or racing games with liscenced cars)... it's just a problem when it goes beyond that to being in more innapropriate situations. But so far, ingame advertising hasn't really bothered me... though it does get a bit old to see those Dickies and Slim Jim signs for the millionth time in Rush 2049. :D
Actually, I thought the real products in Pikmin were kind of funny. :)
I don't think it's something that should be done more, but I didn't really mind it that much in that context.
In Pikmin it works because it makes sense. It makes sense in sports games because real sports have lots of ads. It works in futuristic racers because let's face it, in the future advertising is only going to get more invasive. But is
anyone buying this?
Quote:"In-game advertising and product integrations bring realism to Ubisoft's games and enhance the overall entertainment experience," said Jay Cohen, vice president of publishing for Ubisoft North America. "One of the major advantages for developers in partnering with consumer brands is that we can achieve this realism while helping advertisers reach their target market."
Source:
ConsoleGold 2.0
Well yeah it's not so bad in Pikmin or whatever (even though I really doubt whatever aliens are on that world have those brand names...). I just don't want to see it in Zelda. And yes, in Splinter Cell some of the product placements detract from the game. A billboard with a logo really isn't that bad. A medicine cabinet in a bathroom with a product isn't bad either. But, when you actually take a whole MOMENT in a cinema scene to focus on a completely pointless and storyline irrelevent product placement, you have gone too far! It's like in a movie when they actually FOCUS on the brand name of the phone the super cop is using. Don't DO that! I don't CARE!
Advertising in games = weak/lame. Eventually, we're going to get to the point where our dreams are advertisements, like in that one episode of Futurama.
Except that's just not physically possible, so I'm not that worried.
But you know, some people think it is. To those people, I continue my booming enterprize of selling tinfoil hats, and also tinfoil caps, helmets, and.... chapeaus...
Sweet, I'm all over this. Maybe I could get ads in my game. I could get real Poptarts, use a brand-name toaster, and put billboards up all over the place. WOO!
It'll be sad seeing Grand Theft Auto filled with billboards and commercial advertisements for real items instead of silly, made-up ones. Imagine CJ getting a Coke or a Pepsi from a vending machine rather than whatever that stuff is called in San Andreas. Imagine real brands of cereal which he buys at his local Super Wal-Mart. Imagine the different brands of guns he'll be wielding during a shootout... not to mention the different brands of car that'll be available! (Actually, having real brands of cars might be cool... I mean, the ones they have currently are just takes on those cars, right?)
Yeah... ads in games still sucks. It'll suck even worse in Zelda or Mario than it would in a realistically set game like GTA.
Quote:(even though I really doubt whatever aliens are on that world have those brand names...)
What? They were on Earth! I thought that was kind of obvious...
MGS3 has product placement.
Earth? Earth doesn't have any of those weird animals on it...
Hmm... one thing about liscences, I don't know if they'd like GTA... I mean, think of how in racing games often liscenced cars often don't have car damage because the manufacturers don't want it there? GTA... some companies maybe because of its mass popularity, but not all of them, given the content. That's for sure. Getting liscenced music is easier (as they already have, right?).
Quote:Earth? Earth doesn't have any of those weird animals on it...
Earth also doesn't have giant robots.
It's still Earth though.
But it seems to be a land of giant horrid animals. Now, I haven't played much Pikmin 2. Do you actually go into the city and find out that this is certainly Earth or something? Seems to me it's just a heavily littered planet from what I've seen, that's all.
Um, the animals are not giant--Olimar is tiny. ;)
Yes it's definitely earth.
Most of the creatures in the game are just stylized versions of bugs that you'd find in your backyard, with some excepetions of course.
Such as all of them? And come to think of it, yes he's tiny. They even have a diagram of his size... which would place the bugs and other creatures at way too big.
But anyway, I really want to know now, since I didn't play much of the second game. What's the clincher, the thing that says "alright, this is Earth"?
Actually, yes, though not that exact phrase. And the bugs are more cartoony and bigger than their real-life counterparts, so what? Since when does making something exaggerated remove the possibility of it existing on earth?
Does Looney Toons take place on another planet because all of the animals talk and are much bigger than they should be?
Quote:What's the clincher, the thing that says "alright, this is Earth"?
The Duracell battery.
Haha. And the earth globe you find, which says that it's a map of "this planet".
A Black Falcon Wrote:Hmm... one thing about liscences, I don't know if they'd like GTA... I mean, think of how in racing games often liscenced cars often don't have car damage because the manufacturers don't want it there? GTA... some companies maybe because of its mass popularity, but not all of them, given the content. That's for sure. Getting liscenced music is easier (as they already have, right?).
Yeah, most of the music in GTA is real and not just made up for the game, with some exceptions. (Like Love Fist.) Now
that I prefer over something made up for the game. As for brand names, I'd prefer they be absent. If they do give something a brand name, it should be silly and made up.
My question is, how does something as small as Olimar have any level of high intelligence?
It's called a "game" for a reason, ABF.
The duracell seemed out of place to me, but if there's a globe of Earth, yep, that does pretty much close the case. I guess like... it's the distant future and evolution has taken an odd course. That might explain why all you find is left over bits... Or it's just complete craziness...
As for how that fellow can be so small yet so smart... Even as a nerd you should realize that that's going just a bit TOO far ABF. Impossible in reality, possible in zany Miyamoto world.
Quote:As for how that fellow can be so small yet so smart... Even as a nerd you should realize that that's going just a bit TOO far ABF. Impossible in reality, possible in zany Miyamoto world.
That was my point, DJ... :) It's impossible in reality.
So, does Pokémon take place on Earth far into the future? Strange that the continents would have changed shape so drastically over time.
I'm pretty much certain Pokemon takes place on a made up planet that's only got enough similar to Earth that we can actually relate to it a bit. Pikmin though seems pretty clear, thanks to that globe, to be on some far future version of Earth where animals evolved all weird and silly.
Advertizers just found that the game industry has money in it. Look at em go! Who wants to bet money that GTA will have more popups than a free porn website? I can just imagine it, you pop in Crazy Taxi 3 and you see "Sega" then "Coke" then "Pepsi" then "Sprite" then "KFC" then "McDonalds" then "Taco Bell" then "Burger King" then "Toys "R" Us" then "Target" then "Walmart" then "Dominos Pizza" then "Pizza Hut" then when you finally get to the title screen, there's a mini game called 'Find the Menu!' where you have to actually find the start menu in a sea of icons and ad-art.
yay fucking awesome.
A Black Falcon Wrote:My question is, how does something as small as Olimar have any level of high intelligence?
Really tiny atoms.
