Dr. Wylie’s Revenge
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By David Wylie - June 10th, 2008
Picture this: You pop Metal Gear Solid 4 into your PS3. The cinematic introducing the game begins with a close up shot of Solid Snake’s boots, then the camera pans up his dark jeans to the waist where you see the Levi’s logo. The shot begins to pull back and you see Snake pull a cigarette from his pack of Marlboros. He puts the pack away and takes a big swig of his Budweiser before using a Bic lighter to spark his smoke.
That may well be the future of gaming, and that horizon was brought closer by Sony’s recent announcement that the company will be introducing “dynamic in-game advertising.”
Mind you, such ads likely (hopefully) won’t be quite as obvious as the above scenario. In fact, Sony Computer Entertainment’s senior vice-president, Phil Rosenberg, went so far as to say in the company’s news release that the ads will benefit gamers.
“Ads that are organic to the environment not only benefit developers and advertisers, but also create a richer experience for gamers,” he says.
I may be in the minority when I say that I actually like the idea, if it’s done intelligently; that means no “This game brought to you by” messages, no interruption to the game play for embedded ads and no Coke ads in alien universes. The ads need to lend realism and credibility to the gaming experience, real products in likely places that don’t have big look-at-me signs above them.
It’s not a new concept. Movie makers have been doing product placements for decades. And they do it well, without taking anything away from the film. I’d imagine game developers should be able to incorporate the idea with flair.
So what do gamers get in return? I’m sad to say we probably won’t see cheaper games. But we may well see more game developers hop into the fray as a new source of revenue opens up the playing field a bit. We’ll see tougher competition as game developers fight for your attention. That will mean better games in the long run, hopefully.
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I agree with you that this idea could work if it is done well. It would definitely ad to the sense of realism especially for first person games when you really connect with your character.
It would be nice if the companies would lend sponsorship to the games so that maybe the price of gaming could drop rather than the developers having to pay to use the product name.
I guess it’s another wait and see happenstance.
I truly hope the price of games comes down. This will certainly be a cash cow for those in the industry.
How much money will it inject? Read this quote from Sony’s news release:
“This partnership will serve to bolster the already rapidly growing worldwide in-game advertising industry, which is expected to grow 1,150 percent to $971.3 million between 2006 and 2011 according to the Yankee Group.”
One movie hat comes to mind in which product placement didn’t integrate well was Twister. At some point, the characters realize they could build a better storm analysis device by using the metal in soda cans. So they get all the cans they can and dump them into a huge pile.
All the cans are Pepsi products, and all of the cans are in perfect shape and spotless. It was awesome. Awesomely bad.