BW Media Spotlight

It’s the only Electronic Arts game in my site’s image library.

The video game industry, or to be more precise the so-called “AAA” industry, make decisions that tend to tick off the very audience they seek money from. Some come off as gambling, some come off as making it more difficult to survive in a multiplayer game. Advertising is the latest in a series of gimmicks from companies not satisfied with simply making profit. They want all the money, and they’ll shut down older games to force you to buy a remake or a new one. We saw that last week.

I’m not against advertisements themselves, or even product placement. I watched ads for products and services that were fun but still had no interest in those products. Even as a kid I watched Cap’n Crunch and Sugar Bear gain mecha and superpowers to protect breakfast and just treated it as more stories. If I use Crest now it isn’t because I saw the Crest Team fight Cavity Creeps but because it’s hard to find toothpaste that isn’t mint flavored, and cinnamon is my only option beyond flavorless, if I can even find that. In-world product placement means nothing to me because those same billboards, outfits, and magazines ads exist in my world, and it’s easier that making fake products to make the world feel lived in. I thought Shasta was a fake soda brand until I saw them in a local Dollar Tree. Never did try it.

So EA announcing they want to put ads in their games…no, I do actually have more concerns there. The main reason the dropping of banner ads on YouTube, which TV tried to steal for awhile, is that they distract you from the video, even covering subtitles and last-minute notes of something that only came up during the final edit with no time to record a new clip. It takes you out of the world, and in video games that’s a bigger mistake than other media forms. Characters stopping to extol the amazing flavor of Coca-Cola is just silly. Having an ad pop up out of world draws you out of the world, which isn’t an issue for some talking head show but in a narrative, seeing a knight of Camelot being covered by an ad for some sitcom ruins the experience. In video games, where immersion is part of the gameplay experience even when there is no narrative will ruin the fun, and that means nobody wants to play games from your company.

Does EA know how to work ads in right? Between their press release and an examination from Geeks & Gamers contributor Alex Gherzo that translates the corporate speak, let’s see.

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