Posts by -Stratesiz-

  • Graphically Misleading Ads

    Quote from Izuno

    bah...marketing is second to product quality anyway. Is the game fun? Does it have a wide appeal? those are the most important questions to answer to determine game success. "is the marketing good" is only a valid question if you have a good enough game. History of game sales shows that.

    Not necessarily true either. Games based on films tend to be shitty. Nevertheless, some of them have been fairly big hits.

    About the fake in-game content, you wouldn't be discussing about it here unless it had an impact on you. Negative critical incidents tend to lead to stronger emotions, more mind processing, and are stored in your memory for a longer time period. People do not tend to give feedback when they are satisified with something, unless their perception of the quality significantly exceeds their expectations. Negative incidents still lead to stronger reactions like taking the initiative to complain here and creating negative word-of-mouth. Of course, all this depends on your previous exposures to the product/service/brand (positive/negative), number of exposures, relationship length with the brand, values, etc...

    What if bigger information sources would spread this negative word-of-mouth. Could there be a snowball effect? Would that affect sales? Perhaps in some age groups or social groups. Perhaps not. It might if the people who first played it would have felt as if they had been betrayed, spreading the word to others. What if game reviewers would take this matter in their hands?

    bleh... I'll shut up now.

  • Graphically Misleading Ads

    Quote from mikezilla

    truths:marketers will never stop lying to you. they dont care about the product at all, they care that you buy it.

    consumers will never stop bitching. it's in their nature.

    As a future marketer I can say that's not true. That might have been the general view a few decades ago.

    Never underestimate the power of negative word-of-mouth.

    The Axe commercial is exaggerated enough for consumers to perceive it as unrealistic just like Red Bull commercials. They use a comical approach, the strongest method for building brand awareness and brand recall if done right.

  • the new cartoon thread

    Does the word "you" imply the person who drew the characters, the people who publiced them in the first place, Denmark, Scandinavia, the Nordic Countries, the EU or the Western countries in general?

    How can the actions of a few individuals be blamed on a nation? Are all Danes evil now? Does that count people that have two nationalities?

    I don't recall where I read it but I think a Swede got kidnapped somewhere since the kidnappers thought he was a Dane. After realising this they let him go.

    "-Sorry for kidnapping you, wrong nationality"

    Bleh.

  • Games and product placement~

    I suppose fps games haven't gotten into product placement as have games like the Sims and sport games. No one really wants to sponsor a game that has violence and graphic content.

    A research article by Nelson et al. (2004) discussed that while real brands maintained immersion inside the game world, fake brands might offer a chance for imagination (on the part of developers and players) and could add to the humor and entertainment value of a game.

    Previous research has also shown that gamers have a rather general view on product placement. Fairly sophisticated views of how the persuasion attemps work (subliminally or explicitly) and the perceived effectiveness of subtle, realistic, placements over blatant, out-of-context hyped commercialism have been witnessed.

    Some future research questions:

    - Do real brands allow greater immersion or telepresence over fake brands?

    - Are fake brands - if clever spoofs - considered more entertaining than real brands?

    - Do spoof ads activate their real brand counterparts?

  • Games and product placement~

    I suppose "branded entertainment" was fairly popular back at the time (NES) when production costs were much lower. There wasn't really any room for product placements due to the limited graphics. I expect product placement to grow exponentially, especially when games of today are becoming so expensive to deliver without the help of sponsors.

    But I would like to get a professional game developer's view on this.

  • Games and product placement~

    Quote from Hourences

    As long as it totaly fits the environment and doesnt stand out its okBut frankly I only see realistic games or maybe some futuristic games apply for that rule...

    Last place on earth where I want to see a coca cola logo is in some medieval game..

    Publicity wants to stand out, because it wants your attention. While in games they need to be subtle. If you play the game your focus should be drawn to whats important in the game. Some commercial thing shouldnt grab more attention than whats its actually about, the game.

    They both want the same, its bound to go wrong in some situations.

    Would you like to see more "branded entertainment" games like America's Army? Is it beneficial to game developers?

  • Games and product placement~

    Yes you're right. I just remembered having a Nintendo game that pretty much revolved around McDonald's, a game for kids. Kids are not, however, very good at understamding the true intention of branded entertainment and the like compared to teens and adults. Are there ethical issues that developers should take into consideration?

  • Games and product placement~

    Lately I haven't really had time to visit mapcore on a regular basis as I've been extremely busy with other things. So... hi ~~~

    Anyway, I'm currently working on my Bachelor's Thesis on product placement and branded entertainment, and am currently trying to figure out what exactly my research problem will be. What I'm doing right now is trying to acquire as much information as possible of different forms of media, ie. films, tv, games, etc.

    I'm sure product placement is familiar to you all in movies and tv. Branded entertainment is basically an extreme form of product placement, in which the brand or the product becomes the show itself (think of America's Army as opposed to a Coke vending machine in a commercial game).

    There has been much research regarding product placement in films and tv shows, however games, on the other hand, are a rather new phenomenon. Discussions about integrating advertisements in games has been a hot topic lately. This can also be referred to as advergaming. So far, few people have researched games. No research has been conducted from a game developer's point of view.

    So, what are your views on product placement in games? Has there been an increase in product placement deals in the gaming industry?~

    Some recent articles on the subject:

    http://archive.gamespy.com/ces2004/placement/ (General look)

    http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/co ... 792815.htm (Stuff about EA)

    http://blog.fastcompany.com/archives/20 ... games.html (News about THQ)

  • So are video games art?

    Quote from mikezilla

    I think art has and will always have a very simple definition. If the person creating it says "this is art" than it is. It is no one's right but the artist to give or take that away.So when people who make or work on games deem their creation art, it sure is.

    Bingo.

    Art is something the creator perceives to be art. It involves thought, commitment and an intangible, although not necessarily a concious purpose of some sort.

    That's my definition.

    Art is also dependant on a certain context. For example a pair of jeans from target or a bag of beans is not art. However, if an artist decides to include the jeans or the beans in something that involves all the aspects above it can be defined as art.

  • Why EU sucks

    Good points Fletch.

    First, we are all dependant on one another, you can't look at one country alone. We live in a global economy.

    Second, we've experienced that a completely free economy does not function well which is why some form of control must be maintained for the sake of everyone. More weight must be put on stakeholders rather than shareholders.

  • so, any of you have 360s?

    Quote from Izuno

    this guy is trying to sell at the uber inflated price in hopes that some rich idiot will be stupid enough to buy his way into the annals of ebay/internet idiocy...eg...get famous. the seller's only real goal is to make the uber cash.honestly, there are a lot of rich idiots out there, but do you want to be a rich idiot who gets famous (or more famous) for buying a 360 for that much money? please.

    Well I would be satisfied with $139,900, the current bid.