Words fail me
In game advertising, already gone too far.
(Found on Slashdot Games. Weep for humanity.)
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I'm not sure that really counts as in-game advertising. It's not even /pizzahut - just /pizza - and it just launches a browswer to an online ordering form.
It's a little more convenient than alt-tab, but not really all that different when you get down to it.
Comment by Jeff Freeman — 19 February, 2005 @ 8:41 AM
It's a tentative first step into a larger realm, I think. I'm not really all that horrified about it, but it is interesting to see this level reached in a fairly major game. I think the part that gets most people going is the direct sales aspect; it's not something passive like McDonalds or Intel placing products in TSO. They are essentially pimping Pizza Hut via an in-game command.
Interesting times, I guess.
Comment by Psychochild — 19 February, 2005 @ 1:42 PM
I think there is a big gap still between in game product placement like this, and product placement in the game world itself. In this case a feature has been added to the software to provided easy access to the product while running the game software. Its a whole other step before we start seeing Pizza Hut billboards on the castle walls while putting together a group, or selling your loot in the market place.
Comment by Al Riddoch — 20 February, 2005 @ 9:13 AM
Not on castle walls, but doing a near future game without McDonalds and Burger King seems slightly fake. In some games, product placement is the immersive choice.
Comment by Evangolis — 21 February, 2005 @ 2:51 AM
"My bet: EQ II will have an in-game quest to find the ancient coupon relic of 5$ off Pizza Hut medium pepperoni."
Comment by Paolo — 21 February, 2005 @ 9:58 AM
I personally don't see the harm in it. I don't see it as product placement, per say. I actually think it's a pretty neat idea.
Now if EQ II does have an ingame quest for the ancient coupon relic for a Pizza Hut pizza, that may be crossing the line. But it wouldn't surprise me. C'est la vie.
Comment by Samuel Axon — 21 February, 2005 @ 12:36 PM
I didn't put much comment on it because I figured everyone else would have commented on it already. But, I guess I was wrong. The big issue, for me, is the likely financial bits going on behind the scenes. You know that Pizza Hut is paying SOE a chunk of money to have /pizza go to their website, right? People seem to be ignoring this fact. First of all, will this make online games cheaper to produce? Will we just assume that you have to have a sponsor to make a large game? What about smaller games? Will I be able to get a chain to support me if I put in a "pizza" command into M59? Is M59 less attractive because it runs in a window instead of fullscreen? There's a lot more issues than mere product placement (and TSO did that first with McDonalds and Intel, although TSO has gotten overlooked since then).
Some more thoughts.
Comment by Psychochild — 23 February, 2005 @ 3:25 PM