Hot potato, anyone? News that BF2142 is infected with ad-tracking technology has sparked some of the choicest quotes on the PC ZONE forum since the Steam/Valve shit-storm: "This has to be stamped out"; "I won't be buying"; "Shady borderline spyware"; and "Bring on Quake Wars!" But of course, who's to say that come release, Quake Wars too won't be up to its neck in virtual advertising?
Fact is, courting advertisers has become an accepted part of the PC game production process, and if that means you have to bath in Red Bull for added energy, or wear Agent Provocateur undies while straddling a quad bike, so be it. "Publishers and advertisers have become over-zealous," reckons Damian Thompson of global research group Mediaedge:cia, and author of 'Playing With Brands', a report on in-game advertising.
"Brands are desperate to exploit this medium. They're falling over themselves to get involved."
Stroll past a billboard in Funcom's Anarchy Online, and you'll trigger an audio promotion for a movie, while SOE games such as The Matrix Online and PlanetSide shove images of carbonated drinks down your gullet. Meanwhile, Splinter Cell: Double Agent is smeared with Nivea For Men, making Sam Fisher the first metrosexual stealth assassin.
You can find Nivea skin creams in Double Agent's hotel rooms and ship cabins. There are billboards in NYC, New Orleans and Shanghai, and a boutique window in the game's cruise ship, revealing manly skin products and a Nivea poster. Skulk about in shadows garrotting hapless guards. Why? Because you're worth it, you smooth-skinned nutjob.
"We wanted to pursue innovative ways to capture more attention from the notoriously hard to reach 18-34-year-old male consumer," explains Joe Venezia, Nivea For Men marketing manager. "When we started researching videogame titles, Splinter Cell: Double Agent presented a successful top-tier title that offered a strong match with the Nivea For Men target demographic and a realistic environment that Nivea products and billboards could organically be placed into."
HANG ON A MINUTE
Marketing gurus might claim that in-game advertising is nothing new. Back in Neanderthal days, Kool-Aid Man gargled violently colourful liquid on the Atari 2600; space monkey E.T. gorged his way through Reeses Pieces; and Crazy Taxi dropped us off at KFC. But MMOGs illustrate how virtual advertising now means big bucks - Second Life features an island for US bank Wells Fargo, and even a Nissan car vending machine.
While the developer is building a game, an in-game ad broker (usually one of the big three companies: Massive Inc, IGA or Double Fusion) will liaise and work out the best locations for billboards and product placements. Middleware companies like Demonware provide tech that can harvest data, tracking 'playing habits and characteristics' - favourite teams, stages of the game, weapons and so on.
"Publishers want to know the most popular aspects of their games, and that information is later used to place ads," says Dylan Collins, Demonware CEO. Dynamically-updated billboards are all the rage in 2006: these are the source of contention in BF2142, but prove extremely effective for advertisers and publishers. When an ad is cemented into a game disc, it can't be changed or localised, and there's no way of telling how many times people looked at it. Online, billboards can be updated at a whim.
IGA's Ed Bartlett explains: "This form of advertising allows us to create time-sensitive campaigns, geo-targeting and a real sense of investment in terms of how many people have seen it. If the advertiser says, 'we want to reach an 18-24 male audience in Belgium', we can look at our network and say, 'these are the games that have that exact demographic'. That way, we don't end up showing French advertising to Americans."
Comments
5 comments so far...
Anonymous on 1 Jan '07 said:
So, do they have a demograph for me (34 year old male surviving on a War Pension)and WTF are they going to try and advertise? How are they going to find out that information without having a good snoop on my PC.
About the only thing I spend my spare cash on (which isn't much) are PC games....So is one PC game publisher going to let IGA advertise another game by a rival publisher?
Otherwise, IGA and whoever are wasting their and my time. Stick a decent pair of tits on the billboard and I'll probably take more notice, then again, do they know what my jug preferences are?
I'm having doubts as to whether this form of advertising will be commercially viable for the companies wishing to advertise. Sure, lots of people will get to see the ads, but who's gonna take any notice?
Dajmin on 3 Jan '07 said:
"Are PC games selling their souls?"
No. Worse than that, they're selling ours.
There is a reason so much anti-spyware and anti-adware software exists - people don't agree with it and don't want it. So why would a massive global company like EA feel the need to infect their paying customer's machines with it? It makes no sense.
It's not as if they can even justify it as a cost due to crackers, because you need to sign up with a valid game account to even play online, meaning cracked versions of the game are essentially worthless.
I don't think the idea of streaming adverts is a bad thing in itself, just the method they chose to use. It would be a much better idea to have a simple short questionnaire during install which asks you questions about your age, location and favourite game genres (for example), then uploads that to the servers to decide the adverts you get.
So what EA have done is totally alienate their customers, meaning many people who would have played BF2142 will just move onto something else. Nice marketing move there, congratulations.
humorguy on 3 Jan '07 said:
It's funny how advertising in games is creating a who haa, and yet spending £20 in a shop for five hours of gameplay in Half Life 2 EP1 could have no detractors!
So 5 hour games for £20 ok, as long as it doesn't have advertising..... It's a funny ol' hobby!
Anonymous on 5 Jan '07 said:
To be honest, I'm that bothered about advertising in games. Everyday i'm bombarded by ads on my way to work, via emails, on TV etc. None of them make me want to rush out and buy their products, so they are largely wasted on me.
If developers want to rake in some more cash via adverts, fine. It might mean they have more cash to play with to make games better, or even cheaper (yeah, right).
I don't care whether my racing game is sponsered by Castrol, I don't mind if there are billboards for Coke in my next sandbox game. As long as they are in context, it's just a touch of realism, they don't effect me any more than all the other crap i see every day.
My only concern is if they become radically out of context. The last thing i wanna happen is to be playing Call of Duty XII and get the following conversation:
"Holy s**t, sir! The germans have got us out-flanked! Bravo company is pinned down by sniper fire, and I havn't heard from Corporal Jones unit since 0600!"
"Now calm down solider. Seems to me you need a mouthfull of delicious Lipton Ice Tea! The drink that refreshes!"
humorguy on 5 Jan '07 said:
McFarnsworth, that's exactly my thought. This industry does not have a mature track record that makes you think they will demand advertising that fits the game.
I do not want to be in 15th Century Germany hunting down witches in a totally immersive RPG about hunting down a witch conspiracy and then see a hoarding for the new Pentium VII multi-processor beside a track with armour-clad knights riding past it.
But you know what? That's what I think we'll get..!
Or worse, all games will now be set in the 'present' so that these ads can be placed....!
Either way, another nail in the coffin of PC gaming and another dent in console gaming for the future!