Talk:In-game advertising/Archives/2012

Grand Theft Auto

The Grand Theft Auto series is known for having it's own vehicles which are inspired by real-life cars. The in-game Buffalo for GTA IV may look like a Charger but it is in no way advertising the Dodge brand or any actual brand. The link posted as support for the idea of GTA advertising is a fan-made one that has modified vehicles in it that replaced the in-game brand with real-life ones. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.12.19.155 (talk) 23:19, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Balance needed

This article only appears to address the success and/or potential of video game advertising. Balance is needed and it can also provide interesting discussion/debate: Wired Magazine's August 2007 article "Embedding Ads Into Games Seemed Like a Good Idea" is a great reference for this. —Parhamr 20:34, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Essentially this is the same concern which Parhamr brought up below. There appears to be virtually no negative connotations present, even though the reactions from gamers themselves seems largely negative.

It's true. When I authored the article, I noted that it was unfinished in the edit summary, but never got round to actually finish it. The missing section is "player reaction", this is hinted to in the lead section. Given that many players hate in-game advertising with a passion, I thought others might write that section. A year later though, it turns out that I was wrong. - hahnchen 18:08, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

F*** these c***s who use dynamic advertising in game. why the f*** do they have ads in something you already paid for? another way c***s these days f*** you over.

Second Life

It mentions this, yet Second Life is technically not a game, it's a virtual world, apparently.--h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 14:33, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

It's an MMO, quite a few sources mention in-game advertising and Second Life in the same breath. No matter how you cut it, a virtual world is essentially a role playing game. - hahnchen 18:08, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Incidental advertising

"While permission to use logos, brand names, and other advertising material is usually given by the company owning the rights to these symbols, their use within the game does not serve to raise awareness of the product which is usually already very familiar to the player."
A proof in 5 parts:
1)Permission to use logos and brand names is given by the company owning the rights to them ("To be sure, product placements in games have been around for several years. However, in the past, publishers weren't getting paid." according to [1])
2)Brands like adidas exist in sports video games. (see [2])
3)Sports fans are familiar with brands such as adidas and nike. ("Since 1954, Germany's national soccer team has been wearing shoes from what is considered to be the nation's top brand: Adidas.", "77 percent of the nation’s soccer fans support a change to Nike" both according to [3])
4)Sports fans are commonly sports-video-game fans. ("Sports gamers are primarily sports fans first, gamers second." according to [4] or if that doesn't convince you, "Perhaps the more athletically talented enjoy the games because they offer a more relaxing version of their favorite sports. It is the same sport they love, but now they can play it on a Wednesday morning before work" according to [5])
5)These advertisements don't serve to further 'raise awareness of the product which is already very familiar to the player.' ("Even with a natural fit of banners around a stadium, very few gamers are likely to consider a product just because they see it in the football stadium of their favorite video game" according to David Pluchino, Senior Research Manager at Phoenix, see [6])
In sum: Companies give the rights to use their products/logos/ads to the game developers even though they do not expect to produce increased awareness in the game players since the game players are already familiar with the logos/products.

Hope that helps.Thibbs (talk) 22:54, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I have also re-inserted the section on product placement of guns. I think the new article I cited will explain to you how even unpaid and unwanted product placement can still arguably constitute advertisement. See [7]. Again, hope that help!Thibbs (talk) 23:04, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't get why incidental sports advertising needs a separate section when it could so easily just fit into the static adverts section above. People expect billboards in a stadium, why not work that in with the rest of the billboard advertising? Yeah, originally, publishers weren't getting paid, they did it for realism and products got a free ride. That can be worked into the same section too.

Adverts do raise awareness, that's their whole point. You can raise awareness for a product people are familiar with. Your 5 point "proof" just states that in-game advertising is used to advertise established brands. Yet you make a jump by saying that it does nothing to raise awareness. Saying it does nothing for awareness is saying that the adverts do nothing at all.

The guns thing is meaningless because its so obvious, I likened it to a film prop. Death Wish 3 clearly had an influence on the sales of a particular firearm[8] and should be highlighted as such. But your comment on Grand Theft Auto, is just that it includes some real world firearms. Why does this point need to be made? - hahnchen 00:01, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Incidental advertisement is different from normal advertising because it is not solicited by the advertisers. All of the things listed under incidental advertisement are cases where the game developers included advertisements (mainly product placement) for the purpose of creating a realistic game and not for the purpose of selling the products. The advertisement in this case is incidental to the gameplay and as such the players of the game typically don't object to this form of product placement. This is in marked contrast to normal static game advertisements which intentionally use product placement to hawk their products. Game players who are opposed to in-game advertisements are usually opposed to purposeful advertisement and not incidental advertisement. Whereas the game-player is the target of both kinds of ads, the product being sold is different. In normal ads the product advertised for is being sold and in incidental advertisement the game itself is being sold as the incidental ads only serve to make it a better game by increasing realism. Does that make sense?

The guns thing is just another clear example like the cars thing and the billboard. An adidas billboard would make a soccer game seem completely realistic and in fact if the game had no billboards it would seem totally unrealistic, however the adidas billboard also serves the same purpose as the real billboard serves - it reaffirms the brand in the minds of the fan. The use of specific guns in games is more clearly only incidental advertisement due to the fact that if the game used different brand name guns or had generic guns then it would still potentially seem just as realistic. The reason these games use brand name guns is to evoke product recognition in players who then better understand the dynamics of the game in terms of the real world. In this way brand name products can serve to enhance in-game realism even though their advertising qualities are only incidental to their use in the game.Thibbs (talk) 00:40, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I get that, adverts were placed in games for the purposes of realism. You see it in sports games, but the licensor wouldn't allow their brand name to be used if it offered no benefits, it was mutually beneficial and cross-promotional, it does serve to raise awareness. The ads you see in sports games aren't merely incidental, they're just plain in-game advertising. That it adds to the realism is a bonus. FIFA were advertising Adidas Predator football boots in 94, and I find it very unlikely that they would seek to license the Panasonic brand for incidental billboard realism. The benefits of realism, and the move away from the developers licensing a brand, to being paid to advertise should be made in the static adverts section. It can be stressed that even given this move away, licensing deals such as Test Drive Unlimited and OutRun 2 exist. Real world weapons may by there to enhance realism, but the incidental advertising they offer is trivial, it'd be like mentioning that real life weapons are seen in films, what would be the point? - hahnchen 01:42, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

If the films made note of the fact that they were real life weapons then I think I would consider it incidental advertising. That incidental advertising is trivial should be obvious from the nature of incidental advertisement. It is not meant by the developers to perform advertisement. The main point behind the whole subsection of the article is that some forms of advertisement in video games do not fall under the same category as traditional advertisements which tend to leap to mind when someone speaks of in-game advertisement. Typically such in-game advertising is paid for by the advertisers, hated by purist "core" gamers, is a source of profit for the developers, and does not appreciably contribute to in-game realism (although it doesn't necessarily detract either). I don't think the category of incidental advertisement should be regarded as an third alternative to static or dynamic advertising which rightly make up their own bipolar system but rather incidental advertising is a completely separate subtopic like "Online Presence" or "Advertising industry reaction". Just as many elements of "Incidental advertising" and "Online presence" could be easily fit under "static advertising" and "dynamic advertising," yet they both address issues which are not really within the scope of those subtopics. Or alternatively, I think it could be argued that "Incidental advertising" and "Online presence" should both be subsumed as sub-subtopics by "static advertising" and "dynamic advertising" respectively if this is mainly an attempt to reduce the article to a bipolar system. What do you think?Thibbs (talk) 02:35, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

GTA doesn't go out of its way to sell the AK, it's just an assault rifle which is part of our everyday cultural language, any incidental advertisement is original research. You mention how sports games use incidental adverts to enhance realism, but the adverts you see in FIFA and other EA titles are paid for. If you read the articles on in-game advertising, especially quotes from advertising execs, they highlight the realism that in-game advertising can bring. So why bracket these "incidental" advertisements into their own section? The virtual worlds advertising is supported by numerous sources concentrating purely on that facet, there is nothing on effect of incidental advertising. Games actively market that they feature licensed cars, this incidental advertisement is well documented, and the distinction between this and in-game advertising should be made clear. The others, aren't. - hahnchen 20:51, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I take it that the primary focus of the subsections entitled "Static Advertisement," "Dynamic Advertisement" and "Online presence," lies on commercial advertisement. This, to my mind, is the clearest example of the difference between those subsections and "Incidental advertisement," which is mainly concerned with non-commercial advertisement. However, the term 'incidental advertisement' is a slightly broader term than 'noncommercial advertisement.' Incidental advertisement also encompasses commercial advertisements employed non-commercially. The concept which distinguishes the "incidental advertisement" subsection from the others is the focus of the advertising which lies not on future consumers but on gamers. It is true that parts of the "incidental" subsection cross over with parts of sections like "static advertisement" but this is because the two subsections concern topics which are not mutually exclusive. An ad might be a static incidental ad or a dynamic incidental ad or even a dynamic incidental online ad. Although the "Online presence" section crosses over with "dynamic advertisement" I think we all agree that the "online" subsection is concerned with and highlights a different aspect of in-game advertising than the "dynamic" subsection and thus the "online" subsection is worthy of inclusion in the article. That there are a paucity of sources concerning incidental advertisement directly or indeed even employing the term at all does not suggest to me that the subsection "screams of independent research" but rather that it is a compilatory classification scheme. There is, in fact, much evidence to back up the statement that "video games exist that contain brand-name product placements that have not been financed by the brand-owners and that have been included for the main/sole purpose of enhancing a noncommercial end," although most of it must be compiled to be proven beyond intuition. If my explanation of what incidental advertisement means has still confused you then here is the definition employed by the FCC: [9].

I get the feeling that Hanchen and I are the only two who are in any way concerned about this issue. It seems that if I am unable after this post to convince Hanchen that the phenomenon of nontraditional, unsolicited, non-commericial advertisement is worthy of a subsection then maybe we should get some moderation? If a qualified unbiased third party thinks that there is no value to the subsection entitled Incidental Advertisement then I am entirely satisfied with abiding by their decision and deleting it.Thibbs (talk) 22:22, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Wiki Public Policy Initiative Edit

This page was rewritten by one of my students for a course assignment, as part of the Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_United_States_Public_Policy/Courses/Advertising_and_Marketing_Law_spring_2011_(Goldman) Ericgoldman (talk) 23:33, 28 April 2011 (UTC)