In-Game Advertisements versus In-Game Advertising
Advertising is coming to videogames. This is something gamers will come to accept.
However, I have reservations with some arguments supporting in-game advertising. First of all, very few people want their game spoiled by blatant, obvious, advertising. Posting billboards for pepsi inside a Counter-strike third world city map is bad.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, most people are happy when games that mimic reality. We might not want billboards in strange places, we’re fine with the fake-company parody advertising in Grand Theft Auto. Any ad that is as realistic as possible, even though it mentions no real company, makes Grand Theft Auto feel more real.
However, my reservations are on people who argue “I’m fine with in game advertising, you can put pepsi in a pepsi machine because it promotes realism.” My argument is that it isn’t real. Unlike the manufactured advertisements in real life ™, the advertisements in games promote only the brand of the advertiser. I’m only fine with pepsi machines in my sandbox GTA-esque game, as long as across the street I might find a coke machine.
Advertising doesn’t promotes realism in games, because there is only one advertiser. It is void of product differentiation; advertising tries to convince you that there are no other products. Yet those who want advertising in games want it because it makes the game feel more like reality.
Without competing advertisements, there is no realism. It is eerie, and gives the user a feeling of being cheap.
Therefore, I argue in-game advertisements are fine, but in-game advertising is not immersive. It can never be immersive by definition.
“This ultrakill brought to you by MOUNTAIN DEW.. YEAH“