Gearbox Ingame ad's

    The Phillips logo still screams out as placed advertising, they show the old logo, then have 6ft tall PHILLIPS slapped up there which isnt in the original photos.

    So much for historical accuracy....

    Quote from ginger_lord

    The Phillips logo still screams out as placed advertising, they show the old logo, then have 6ft tall PHILLIPS slapped up there which isnt in the original photos.So much for historical accuracy....

    Yeh, I bet that real ruins the game man... C'mon, it definitely isn't that bad! I kinda like it tbh, "non-obvious" advertising.

    I found it to be a very good way of implementing ads, something which other entertainment medias still have to learn most of the time. I personally find this Philips example to be fitting, if only slightly exaggerated in size. Kinda the exact opposite of many of the latest James Bond movies (just to point the finger at a genre really).

    It's a shame in-game advertising is largely seen as billboards and posters. Movies have been using relatively subtle product placement for years upon years, and for the most part you hardly even notice it even though these brands are being waved into your face. The advertisers who pay for those ads understand that they don't need to be the equivalent of a banner at the side of a football/baseball/etc game. I'd say Battlefield 2142 is probably the most laughable example of this.

    Gearbox's attempt is definitely better than any I've seen yet, and a huge step in the right direction.

    One could make the argument that once ads in game become the norm, the financial pressure will lead studios to make less fantasy games. Or turn them into purely children entertainment, where ads will still be seen as something to fight against.

    Fight games can sport ads in their arenas, racing games can have that a lot more than they already do, sports games are ads magnets, and any other game in a realistic modern era environment is fair game. Doesn't leave us with much. I'm just surprised we haven't seen a ton more in GTA so far.

    Quote from Bl1tz

    I still don't know how it's ever going to work in fantasy games without being cheesy as hell.

    Then maybe it'd have to just be like films — they arent.

    Quote from Furyo

    Fight games can sport ads in their arenas, racing games can have that a lot more than they already do, sports games are ads magnets, and any other game in a realistic modern era environment is fair game. Doesn't leave us with much. I'm just surprised we haven't seen a ton more in GTA so far.

    I could imagine the reasons for this being is the "bad reputation" of GTA in mass media. Nobody likes to read articles about your company advertising in "new mass murder simulator". Obviously these people also don't perceive GTA as a satire but as dead serious and don't get the humor displayed in ingame world ads (if you watch the first GTA4 trailer, you can see there are plenty of those in the new game as well).

    Ah, thats more believable then. I held back on my comments of the ingame building looked nothing like the one shown either

    Any period pics of that building anyway?

    I wonder how much phillips pays for something like that? It doesn't seem like it would do a lot of good for phillips, like someone would be shopping for tv's and think hey, I remember having a shootout in that old bombed out 1940's phillips factory, I should see what they have for sale! It also seems like a lot of work for the developers to work that in so I would imagine the situation is much more like "we are going to put this in anyway, lets see if the company will pay us to put their signage up there instead of making up some fake company", Instead of an actual form of revenue where companies can push what they really want to advertise.

    well now it is historically accurate I guess!

    Zaph, I think inside media advertisements aren't supposed to get you to consciously think "Oh well I had a fight inside a Philips building I think I'll buy their TVs" but more of like the brand is put in your mind.. and you may.. just maybe will think of them first since that electronics company is fresh on the mind. That's pretty much how it is for most of the seemingly obscure ad placement in movies and tv shows.

    Semi-on-topic and not pertaining to anyone here but on other boards I've noticed a weird level of acceptance of in-game advertising in general. Even to the point of thinking ads displayed on in-game scoreboards, for example, are actually good ideas and should be implemented. How about no-ads k thx? It's just really strange how willing some people are to have products shoved in their face.

    But, this Philips thing seems to be an interesting implementation.

    Quote from zaphod

    I wonder how much phillips pays for something like that? It doesn't seem like it would do a lot of good for phillips, like someone would be shopping for tv's and think hey, I remember having a shootout in that old bombed out 1940's phillips factory, I should see what they have for sale! It also seems like a lot of work for the developers to work that in so I would imagine the situation is much more like "we are going to put this in anyway, lets see if the company will pay us to put their signage up there instead of making up some fake company", Instead of an actual form of revenue where companies can push what they really want to advertise.

    It's not so much about getting paid as just being able to use the asset we wanted. The Philips factory in Eindhoven was one of the biggest buildings in the city during the war, and a major landmark in the industrial area. We wanted it in the game purely because it looks cool and was really there. There was Philips sign on the building at the time (we fudged it a wee bit to make gameplay fit and to make it a little more aesthetically cool looking).

    I think as most people recognize, companies get a bit skittish when you start using their logo or their building for things, even out of historical accuracy. Like Randy mentioned in the article, we can't use the Opel logo because of just that reason. Philips was luckily cool enough to take pride in their company's history, and let us put it in there.

    If anything, when this came out, a legion of people was Kotaku or Shack were ready to string us up and call us sellouts, and then they went to wikipedia, found out they were wrong, and got a little history in the process. Not bad for putting a sign on a building.

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