The Ad Invasion of Videogame Land.

Avder · Post by **Avder** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 4:39 pm

I think by now weve all seen at least a few ads in video games, but get ready for the real torrent:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/fun.games/ ... index.html

Apparently the ad people are figuring out that we dont watch as much TV anymore because were busy playing video games, so here come the advertizers in droves. I'm just gonna love configuring my firewalls to block video game ad servers.

*goes off to find a random advertizing executive to beat*

Lothar · Post by **Lothar** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 5:58 pm

if they want to put ads in video games, more power to 'em. If you have a problem with it, don't buy those games.

Dedman · Post by **Dedman** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 8:15 pm

Having a 17 month old in the house and no family in town Mrs. Dedman and I don't get out much. However, we were able to sneak away to a movie last week and I was apalled at the amount of non movie related advertising there was in the previews. There was automobile ads, network TV ads, you name it.

I can get all that crap at home for free. If I am paying $6.50 (student rate, grad school is good for somthing) then I don't expect to see ads like those.

If madison ave is going to attack my video games too, then I may be forced to start reading books again. If fact, this may just be a leftwing liberal plot by the American Institue of Literacy to increase book sales. Drat them all.

Avder · Post by **Avder** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 8:28 pm

Yeah, pre-movie advertizing is getting absolutely rediculous. And then before they turn the lights down theyre sticking you with slideshow ads and song clips over the sound system.

TheCops · Post by **TheCops** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 8:33 pm

i love the fact that 6dof helped my sex life.

can you imagine, as a woman, having to deal with the guy who couldn't bring the "bank" to your version of reality?

edit:
if "properly excuting". all descenters should be good in the sack.

you no self-esteem having laser masters.

Avder · Post by **Avder** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 12:40 am

You make no sense, man!

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 12:51 am

another nail in the video game coffin.

Instig8 · Post by **Instig8** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 2:24 am

I think TheCops was shrooming.

And regarding ads... think of it as entropy... (not the d3 kind) ... eventually it will be everywhere.

roid · Post by **roid** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 3:06 am

if advertisers target major game manufacturers. i probabaly won't even notice. coz i left them behind long ago.

i'm so ahead of the game

, you are all jealous of my elitism. go on, you can say it.

Kyouryuu · Post by **Kyouryuu** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 11:30 am

Most good things are corrupted by advertisers.

- ( insert famous person here )

Tetrad · Post by **Tetrad** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 11:38 am

As a game developer, anything that makes me more money is fine by me.

Logistically speaking, games are getting much more expensive to make, especially when it comes to the next gen console systems. And for the most part these ads are designed to fit in with reality. If you see a coke machine in an office building instead of a fizzy popâ?¢ machine, do you really care? And likewise for billboards in racing games or tony hawk style games aren't terribly obtrusive.

People aren't going to go for things like "this loading screen sponsored by Lysol!", but product placement is here to stay.

Vertigo 99 · Post by **Vertigo 99** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 11:58 am

Tetrad wrote:As a game developer, anything that makes me more money is fine by me.

Logistically speaking, games are getting much more expensive to make, especially when it comes to the next gen console systems. And for the most part these ads are designed to fit in with reality. If you see a coke machine in an office building instead of a fizzy popâ?¢ machine, do you really care? And likewise for billboards in racing games or tony hawk style games aren't terribly obtrusive.

People aren't going to go for things like "this loading screen sponsored by Lysol!", but product placement is here to stay.

Exactly. I don't care, so long as it's realistic and in the game's environment. Random advertising, NO. Logical advertising, YES!

Top Gun · Post by **Top Gun** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 12:45 pm

I, for one, actually enjoy seeing such things as real soda machines/car models in a game; advertising or not, it gives a much greater sense of realism. Something like Tetrad stated, such as brand names on loading screens/menus, however, is a huge no-no.

Dedman/Avder, I'm in absolute agreement with you over the advertising in movie theaters issue. I didn't pay $6, plus the $8 for a popcorn and soda, to get bombarded with yet more commericials. If I wanted commercials with my movie, I'd wait to see it on cable TV. It's gotten to the point where, along with the (mostly) worthless trailers, you can show up for a movie fifteen minutes late and still catch the "Feature Presentation" screen

.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 4:16 pm

Anyone ever fly D3 SP level 4? The one in the city, looks like ads in a video game to me. Not that any of us would be interested in beno-cola tho...

Lothar · Post by **Lothar** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 5:48 pm

I agree with the sentiment of the last 3-4 posters -- if advertizing fits into the world, I don't mind it. It adds to the realism. "Best Buy" or "CompUSA" by the side of the road in a modern racing game? Sure, that's legit.

What would bother me is having like... a coke ad in the middle of some D&D universe RPG, or on my loading screen. If there's an ad in my load screen, it better be an ad for something game related (I wouldn't terribly mind a joystick ad in the corner of the load screen in a Descent-like game.) And if there's an ad in the main game, it better look like it belongs there.

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 6:42 pm

I don't know if a lot of advertising money will go to the game developers.

Kyouryuu · Post by **Kyouryuu** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 6:56 pm

Well, I develop games too, and I think in-game advertising for real-life products is rather corny and easily dates a game. Ever since Pizza Hut did the tie-in with the old TMNT 2 game, in-game ads have seemed like a blatant "grab the player and rip them out of the fiction" move.

Personally, I think the fictitious advertisements in some games, like racers and even the one we're making, are quite funny on their own, even if most are in-jokes.

I don't think the advertising goes directly into my wallet, albeit it has an indirect affect. Tetrad is totally correct in saying that games today are very expensive to make. It's not unusual for a game to cost $3-$4 million, which is quite a chunk of change. Advertising supports companies faced with have to raise funds to produce these games.

To me, at least, the great irony is that even though video games cost almost triple to make what they used to, they aren't exactly more fun...

roid · Post by **roid** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 9:46 pm

Kyouryuu wrote:Tetrad is totally correct in saying that games today are very expensive to make. It's not unusual for a game to cost $3-$4 million, which is quite a chunk of change. Advertising supports companies faced with have to raise funds to produce these games.

To me, at least, the great irony is that even though video games cost almost triple to make what they used to, they aren't exactly more fun...

games are being made that cost MILLIONS?! i hope you're joking.

how the ★■◆● could you justify that. where does that money go? to pay for famous voice actors? (in which case, it's not really a game is it, it's a HollyWood movie)

Gooberman · Post by **Gooberman** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 10:26 pm

Say you have 30 people on the project, the game takes one year to make, and each gets a six figure salery.

Adjust salery, people, and time to make, add advertising, music, price of development software, and voices.

roid · Post by **roid** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 10:36 pm

Gooberman wrote:each gets a six figure salery.

6 figure salary my ass.

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 11:05 pm

six figure salary? yea maybe if you're john carmack.

Gooberman · Post by **Gooberman** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 11:26 pm

Again, I was just trying to hit that 3mil #. You have to adjust all those other things, but it is still very realistic to get there.

Tetrad · Post by **Tetrad** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 11:27 pm

roid wrote:games are being made that cost MILLIONS?! i hope you're joking.

You have to remember that the amount of money that a game takes to make isn't all development work. Sometimes the amount that the dev houses get is about half of what the game actually costs. Advertising is f'n expensive, and if the publisher wants to actually make any money on the game they have to try to get themselves on the top 10 lists.

And besides, a lot of higher-profile games take several years to make, and require a bunch of people. Teams of 30+ people isn't uncommon. You can see upwards of 50 on the really large publisher in-house teams. Take even a decent salary of 40k or so a year times 20 people times 2 years to make and that's almost 2 million right there with some overhead.

Just a quick look around the internet tells me that Final Fantasy 7 cost 40 million to make. Diablo 2 cost 6-9 million. You'd be suprized how expensive it is to make a halfway decent console or PC game.

roid · Post by **roid** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 1:54 am

if we compare this to the movie industry, those games you just mentioned are like "The Matix" and uh... some other big movie.

only the big movies and big games would use such extravagent budgets. I have not played either of those games.

dollars a good game makes not.

but marketing games sales makes. yoda agrees.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 5:27 am

Except very, very few people who have played either of those two games can say they weren't good...

But yeah, there is more to it than cash. I'm willing to bet a ton was spent on Enter the Matrix, and it came out virtually unusuable.

Tetrad · Post by **Tetrad** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 10:35 am

roid wrote:if we compare this to the movie industry, those games you just mentioned are like "The Matix" and uh... some other big movie.

only the big movies and big games would use such extravagent budgets. I have not played either of those games.

My point is that unless you're making a game with less than 10 people or for a very short period of time, you can very easily get over a million in development costs alone. Not all of that is salaries either, software is expensive. For almost every seat you need at least visual studio and a source control package, or photoshop and 3dsmax/maya for the artists.

Of course your free online games or your games made by 3 or 4 people aren't going to cost that much at all. But look at most of the console games and some of the PC games on the shelves and they probably did.

Edit: okay, console games you've probably heard about is a safer assumption. According to this

Current development budgets for an A-list title average around $5 million, Doak said. For the upcoming consoles, "I expect the minimum will be two to three times the current costs," he said.

Kyouryuu · Post by **Kyouryuu** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 8:21 pm

There are about 30 or so people in the studio I work at, and like Tetrad said, we're all at least paid a "decent" salary. Development on the current title has been about a year-and-a-half so forth. Do the math yourself. Remember way back when the Game Boy was the bulky unit with the olive-green screen? A game for that cost anywhere from $1-$2 million. It's more than just paying employees. It's also:

- Buying software licenses. Software doesn't come cheap. A professional 3D modeling package like Maya Unlimited costs about $7,000. Adobe Photoshop can cost about $600. Copies of Windows and Office too. Granted, there are bulk discounts, but they only get you so far.

- Buying development kits and workstations. It takes high-end computers to develop games, so everyone needs about a 2 GHz rig at minimum. Those rigs also need monitors. If you make console games, you also need development kits for the Xbox, PS2, and/or GameCube. For a PlayStation 2 development kit alone, it costs a whopping $20,000 for an ancient piece of technology when you think about it (in all of its 300 Mhz 84-megs-of-RAM glory - and you thought the iMac was expensive). Cross-platform? You'll need to buy the equivalent for the Xbox and GameCube too. For non-programmers, you'd probably save some costs by investing in the "test kits" or "debug kits" rather than the development kits.

- Paying for marketing. This includes box art, manual art, web site development, submitting work to the press, writing the press releases, and even buying a particular eye-level spot at the gaming store.

- Cost of a license. If you're basing a game on a movie, cartoon, or some other intellectual property, you need to get the rights to produce it. They don't just give these things away.

- Cost of voice actors. Unless you have the vocal gibberish of the Sims games, chances are you'll need to hire voice actors. And then you need a good place to record those actors too.

roid · Post by **roid** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 9:48 pm

bleghlhseras

that stinks.

Kyouryuu · Post by **Kyouryuu** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 11:33 pm

Maybe so. But it's all supply and demand. Today's video game consumer expects cutting edge graphics, cinematic sound, and quality gameplay. That stuff doesn't come free, unfortunately. We wouldn't be doing this if consumers didn't keep demanding better graphics every year. I, for one, was perfectly happy in the 16-bit days of yore.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 11:43 pm

I recall WC2 had voice acting done by the developers... undoubtedly saved a bit, although the quality was rather so-so. You sure wouldn't see anyone doing that these days, though.

I'm almost surprised that eye-level spots actually matter in gaming stores... that seems to imply people actually buy games they don't know anything about other than what the box tells them. Sure as hell isn't the way I'd do it... I research -everything- I buy first...

But then, some people perhaps have too much money for their own good...

Kyouryuu · Post by **Kyouryuu** » Tue Oct 26, 2004 10:08 pm

Sirius wrote:I recall WC2 had voice acting done by the developers... undoubtedly saved a bit, although the quality was rather so-so. You sure wouldn't see anyone doing that these days, though.

I'm almost surprised that eye-level spots actually matter in gaming stores... that seems to imply people actually buy games they don't know anything about other than what the box tells them. Sure as hell isn't the way I'd do it... I research -everything- I buy first...

But then, some people perhaps have too much money for their own good...

Well, it's a little bit like the cereal aisle in the supermarket. Most grown-ups, I suspect, don't eat Winnie the Pooh cereal for breakfast. But, General Mills would spend a premium to have their Pooh cereal stocked at eye-level for the little kids to ogle over. A marketer would tell you that shelf space is important. But, it goes beyond shelf space too. For example, getting yourself positioned in the Sunday ads is one thing. Having the giant cardboard display in the likeness of your game's protagonist is another thing. Even having the little hanging signs over the cash register - did you ever think that, when you walk into a gaming store, that you're completely bombarded by advertising? If you don't, that's because it works so subtlely. You may not think shelf space matters, and that's perhaps true if you go in with a specific target in mind. On the other hand, if that awesome "Game X" is sitting on the middle shelf and the game you wanted to buy is on the bottom shelf, you might at least be inclined to give Game X a look. View the back of the box, and then maybe you'll go home and do some research on it.

If WarCraft 2 had in-house voice acting, they definitely got away with it. But, WC2 was also very cartoony about its voice samples too. On a team of 30 people, you probably have someone who can say "Zug zug" in a funny way, or "Yes mi'Lord."