Gearbox Hates Blatent In-Game Adverts

[CSN NewsBot]

You may or may not have heard about the partnership between Gearbox and the ad company Double Fusion, and if you did you might have been a little worried about in-game advertising to Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway. The CEO of Gearbox wants to ease those fears you have.

We hate exploitive advertising that doesn't offer value to the gamer.



We partnered with Double Fusion because we believe they approach this kind of thing with the right attitude and because we wanted to be in control of these kinds of decisions for some of our games. It is important for us to ensure that we're able to keep our artistic interests in mind and that our gamer customers' interests are cared for.



As of this post we haven't committed to any particular in-game advertising for any of our upcoming titles (including Hell's Highway, Aliens: Colonial Marines, and Borderlands). What we've done is to enable Double Fusion to connect us with opportunities. If this leads to anything, we intend for the results to bring you advantages that can increase the quality of our games, including improved authenticity, increased budgets, or out-of-game promotion that helps attract more gamers.

Pitchford goes on to flush out those advantages, and issues a challenge to the forums to list clever uses of in-game or in-movie advertising that worked to enhance the experience. His example? Toy Story with Mr. Potato Head.[break="sample shots of adverts possibly appearing in hell's highway"]

The first image is an image from 1944 showing the Philips logo and name next to a picture of the Philips building in the background. The next two images are in-game examples of what the developers are considering.

[Linux]

I guess it isn't too bad. But even that stuff most people probably won't pay too much attention to. Its when they start shoving it IN YOUR FACE, and bright spamming it all over the screen does it become a problem.



I say if it fits the game, then its ok. But don't shove dumb crap into our games! DOWN WITH THE IN-GAME ADS!

[Thortok2000]

If it fits in like it does in a movie...where the product placement makes sense and actually enhances the realism because they're using real products instead of 'fake' brands, then yeah. That kind of advertising I like, perhaps even support.



Take for instance I am Legend...the times square had a McDonald's in it. It looked just as rundown and deserted as everything else, and totally fit into the movie, but it's still brand visibility. When it comes to advertising, that works for me.



Ads on loading screens, score boards, and randomly placed on walls like they were a spray.... No.

[Zom-B]

Billboards that make sense are fine for in game ads, especially if the game is set in the modern day, or even at a push, the "near future".



Not just randomly pasted everywhere on walls and menu screens.