In Game Advertising, The Future of Product Placement

Unless you’ve been sticking to those old Atari and NES cartridges you’ve probably noticed the growing trend of advertisements in games. Whether you’re playing a racing game, using real world cars, or Splinter Cell, using Sam Fisher’s Ericsson cell phone, you’ve noticed those products just keep creeping into your gameplay.

According to MSNBC.com:

Several companies are now working on technologies to change that, giving both game publishers and Madison Avenue a better idea as to the effectiveness of in-game ads. The implication of these technologies, however, extends far beyond selling ad space.

Nielsen Entertainment Media announced in April that it was working with Activision, Inc. to develop a tracking technology that would monitor how many in-game advertisements a user encounters and when.

This sounds like it could spell out a very different video game world if not kept in check. Most present in-game advertising takes place as shameless product placement rather than standard commercials. While this can cheapen the gaming experience it does very little to distract the gameplay. As long as the game takes place on Earth then that Honda Civic your character is driving isn’t so bad. If Halo 2 features a scene where Master Chief shaves with a Gillete, that may be a different story.

One thing is for sure, if ads are going to be more heavily integrated with games then there should be an inversely proportionate price change for the average game. Most gamers won’t be too anxious to dish out $50 to watch Jak & Daxter go to Pizza Hut or Sonic the Hedgehog shop for a Buick.