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Fightgarr

Concept Artist
Dec 3, 2008
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Did anyone play the game of The Italian Job? It was a bad game, as well as being entirely about driving Mini Cooper's around Europe. There were no non-Mini Cooper cars in that game... it was such a bad game.
 

Draygen

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Jan 7, 2009
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Stepping back in time a bit, but wasn't it one of the Need For Speed games, I think Underground, that forced you to drive EVERYWHERE with no quick jumps to the races, due to the fact that the entire game was plastered in advertisements? I skipped over that one. Then you have something like "The Getaway" that had a McDonald's in it, not for advertisements, but rather to just showcase how much work they put into getting the street layout of London right. McDonald's didn't even pay for it. The developers did it "just because". I'm fine with a bit of real world advertising filtering into my games (as long as, abovely noted, the games are at least set in our current time frame). But if an entire city is plastered with the same 4 posters all over the place, that isn't attention to detail. That's grubbing for greenbacks.
 

Ultimateslayer

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Sep 21, 2008
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Fightgarr said:
Did anyone play the game of The Italian Job? It was a bad game, as well as being entirely about driving Mini Cooper's around Europe. There were no non-Mini Cooper cars in that game... it was such a bad game.
That one made me lough.
That's were advertising should stop.
And hat Obama and McCaine advertised in games (I believe Obama did in Burnout Paradise) is somewhere between weird and vulgar.
 

Calax

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Jan 16, 2009
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Tasteful advertising I can understand. Like a company giving money to a developer for mentioning their name (for example Coke could give money to EA to have the developers put up ads for space coke in dead space or something. It'd work IMHO because people were living their entire lives on that one space station) WITHIN the setting. Stuff like having a movie release be posted on billboards in World Of Warcraft would just eject you from the game like you'd just had diarrhea. Metal Gear Solid had an ad campaign within it but it fit the setting so well, and the products were so popular, that it made sense (I speak of course of the Apple product placement).
 

chunkynut

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Feb 3, 2009
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Advertising is something that I completely ignore, I'm just not the sort of person that gleans product information from adverts and I?d say TV has made me immune to even acknowledging it. If the advertising was tasteful (no point me reiterating the point) and actually gave the gamer something rather than Sweet FA I'd agree with it. In fact in a setting like GTA 4 I'd expect the realism to include advertising as we are bombarded with it throughout our real lives.

However as a gamer I feel no benefit from it but the developer does, if this means the products are improved through advertising revenues then I'd expect to see free expansions or add-ons for games that include advertising. I haven't seen a correlation.
 

cyber_andyy

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Dec 31, 2008
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I don't mind as it never really affects me. Besdies the only in-game ad i've seen is one for the Fusion shaver thingy. It happened alot in ETQW, it was the only thing advertised for months.

Does mirrors edge have advertising? I'm thinking of buying it (on PC) and I was just wondering if it had it.

Also the "Ads" in Left 4 Dead are great :D.
 

MrGFunk

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Oct 29, 2008
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Velocirapture07 said:
Do these kind of promotions and ads bother you, or do you just ignore them? Do they actually make you want to buy the product featured in such a way? Or does it just make you hate the game developers and companies for selling out to the "damn consumerist vices" so prevalent in today's society. I won't exactly say where I fall on the issue, but it's somewhere in the middle. Just wondering what you guys think.

Are there any other games you can think of who were blatantly advertising products within the game?
Burnout Paradise is full of Advertising Vans driving round - doesn't bother me.

I'm gonna say if it's in context, I'm happy with it. It can make the game more imersive. Say if you have a vending machine, why can't it vend Coke for a bit extra development cash.

If it's out of context I hate it. Say if a 'Loreal supports the Soul Blade' screen came up when you selected Cassandra in Soul Caliber, that would suck.
 

742

New member
Sep 8, 2008
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adds in games... if i pay full price for a game, i expect a full, professional game. just like in a movie. now, if they have a billboard in game that actually makes sense (perhaps in a city enviroment) or a vending machine, i dont care if it says "pepsi" on it instead of "generic cola" that adds just a hint of realism, but, say, replacing my "lesser healing potion, cures 5 health" with "diet pepsi, cures 5 health" and my "healing potion, cures 10 health" with "pepsi, cures 10 health" then we have a problem.
 

chumpzilla_69

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Jul 19, 2008
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Normally i dont care about the adverts, but the one that threw me was when Need For Speed had ad's in their Achievements!
 

Pseudonym2

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Mar 31, 2008
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I hate it. If the company wants me to buy their product. They should explain why I should buy it and I'll decide for myself. Using a thought virus to trick me into thinking about them is a dirty trick. I usually boycott companies that do this.
 

Vault_101

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Jan 27, 2009
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I like the spoof advertising such as in GTA. Sprunk (Sprite) etc..

But there are times which I have thought, thats just weird. In Guitar Hero: World Tour I saw an advertisement for Cadbury's cream egg. :/
 

RetiarySword

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Apr 27, 2008
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EVE online: Quafe. Oh and the splinter cell series. I remember airwaves chewing gum and sony erricson phones.
 

Nigh Invulnerable

New member
Jan 5, 2009
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I got entirely sick of the ads in Guitar Hero 3. The Axe guitar and the magazine covers with Decibel were just a little much. Admittedly, the Decibel tie-in does make some sense for a music game, but I liked it better when there weren't any overt ads for any real world things.
 

AndyFromMonday

New member
Feb 5, 2009
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Has long has the adds "sink" whit the game, then I got nothing against it.

Heck I wouldn't mind if they put advertising in the menu or heck even in game has long has the game is cheaper.
 

Eclectic Dreck

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Sep 3, 2008
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I do not rally against the idea of in game advertisements, because in many of the situations I've seen them done their placement is entirely realistic. Watch any American Sporting Event and you'll find advertisements worked in at every turn - the stadium is sponsored, every available visible inch of space is covered in logos, analytical segments have sponsorship tags and every two minutes a commentator mentions yet another sponsor. Thus, when I play fight night and am forced to fight in the bout sponsored by dodge, being forced to watch a Dodge commercial actually helps the game seem more realistic. However, after completing the burger king sponsored bout, the fact that you can get "The King" as a trainer (he trains "heart" - a statistic that measures how quickly your health recovers among other things), I am annoyed because it is completely out of place. When I think "fitness trainer", you can rest assured I do not envision fast food icons (Ronald McDonald teaches agility, Wendy builds stamina!).

In other games, seeing advertisments for real products on billboards hardly bothers me because again it helps the game seem more realistic. Seeing a stretch of roadway without billboards seems utterly alien, and if you're going to put them in, you might as well use existing products and make some money doing it.

If properly done, ads don't bother me - afterall, as an American I cannot go anywhere or do anything without being assaulted by a marketing campaign; it's a part of life.