Product placement in games.

I don't mind that advertising is here to stay. I don't mind product placement in games, so long as it's subtle.

What do I mean by subtle? Well, here's a couple examples:
Racing games: You pass a billboard with a Burger King ad.
Sports games: Product ads on the sides of the stadium or on the scoreboard.

Basically, here's my "litmus test" for game product placement: If it's something that would make sense in real life and doesn't detract from the immersion of the game, it's acceptable.

Guitar Hero 3, however, is a great example of forced product placement that not only breaks immersion but also borders on outrageous, if not embarassing.

• Setlist: Wrigley 5 Gum package.
• Second venue: A "Pontiac" themed garage.
• Desert Rock Festival venue: McDonalds ads on the billboards.
• Desert Rock Festival venue (Boss DLC): Led Zeppelin DVD ads on the billboards.
• Red Bull cans scattered about on various stages.
• Axe-themed Guitars and Basses.
• Axe-themed "stripper" dancers.

These things are absolutely horrible because they're completely contrived and serve no purpose other than to shill ads to a captive audience. Worst of all, most of them are impossible to ignore. While you could choose to never use the Axe themed hardware, there's no way to avoid the Pontiac shit, no way to avoid the glaring, lit, McDonalds (or Led Zeppelin) signs and no way to ignore the Wrigley gum pack. Seriously, when's the last time you went to a concert and saw signs promoting some other band's forthcoming release? I've been to a hell of a lot of concerts at the VA Beach Ampitheatre, NorVA, The Boathouse and Hampton Coliseum and never once have I seen the level of forced product placement GH3 puts on the screen.

You'll notice what I don't mention are the "band sponsors" & amps, the guy wearing the Zildjian logo t-shirt, or the Gibson guitars. These are all subtle and make perfect sense. You'd need band sponsors & amps in real life. I've seen plenty of Zildjian t-shirts being worn and since it's a music game which Gibson has licensed, the guitars make sense.
 
GH3's forced product placement should set the standard for what game developers should not do.

Posted by Captiosus @ 1:04 am EDT | Permalink | 3 Comments

My wife / Won't get fooled again.

Today I raided my storage and snagged out my entire The Who catalog - another series of CDs I had yet to encode, a fact of which I was reminded after playing GH3. Encoded them all and started listening to them just before my wife gets home. Since no one was watching TV and I essentially had the room to myself, I was blasting "Won't Get Fooled Again".

My wife gets home while I'm blasting the song, tears through the door, notices the TV is off, and says:
"Oh, I thought an episode of CSI: Miami just started."

Sigh! Such is the life of great music, I suppose. Destined to become commercials and theme songs making people unfamiliar with the music only able to identify it as "that music from [insert show]" or "that music from that commercial".

Wonder if I should tell her that CSI and CSI:NY also benefit from The Who...

Posted by Captiosus @ 1:38 am EDT | Permalink | 1 Comments

"Free Bird" and me - a story.

I'm not a huge fan of Lynyrd Skynyrd by a long shot, but anyone who's been around while I play GH2 knows I tend to go nuts when I play Free Bird. But the reason I go nuts isn't because I'm playing it, but rather because it makes me recall a time, years ago, not long after I turned 21, when I was still too young to give a damn about most things...

See, I have to preface this with the fact that in Middle and High School, I was a performing arts geek. I did a combined total of 9 years in chorus and 4 in drama. During that time I was in 12 stage plays, went to all city chorus 4 times, all state chorus 2 times and southeast regional chorus once. In other words, I'm no stranger to getting up in front of people and ultimately making a complete and total ass out of myself.

My friends and I used to have this bar we'd go to down at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront every Saturday night - Abbey Road Pub. Saturday night also happened to coincide with the live local band nights and because it was cramped for space it was practically "band in the round" with the band in the middle of the floor. We had been going there months before I had turned 21 because we had found the place one early June day when we were at the Oceanfront. Over time, I had gotten to know some of the bands because many of their bands were repeat performers. They weren't ever going to be big name talents and they were fine with that. Most of them just played cover tunes and did it in their spare time as a hobby and were glad they had an audience to be playing to.

So, two weeks after I had turned 21, we went down there and I got completely plastered. It was the first time I had been down there since I had turned legal drinking age. One of the bands I knew were playing and in chatting with the singer (a very attractive woman with one hell of a voice who was easily 10 years older than me at the time, might I add) and the bassist before they took the stage, I accidentially let it slip that I had just turned 21. About 20 minutes later, I found myself being pulled up on the stage. Usually, about this time, I get really pissed because I hate it when people make a big deal about birthdays, but I was about 5 shots of Tequila past the "I don't give a damn" stage. The woman said something about it being my birthday over the microphone and then said to me "I hope you know Free Bird".

Then it dawned on me: I didn't just get drug up on the stage to be told happy birthday to.. no.. I was expected to sing. Ah shit! A double penalty for chatting with these people about how I loved to sing in high school and some of my favorite songs they've covered! Oops.

Long story short, it was the best 9 minutes of what ended up being a semi-bash for my 21st birthday and one of the reasons that Abbey Road, to this day, gets my patronage. I oft wonder what happened to the bands that used to play there. So when I hear Free Bird in GH2, or just in general, it reminds me of that day. Some days I wish I could do it all over again.

Posted by Captiosus @ 1:49 am EDT | Permalink | 2 Comments

Tabloid stuff...

In all honesty, I'm not the tabloid reading kind of person. I honestly don't care about the day to day bullshit of the random celebrity.

However, when I read yesterday's article on MSNBC that Britney Spears will have to pay most of her ex-husband's court and attorney fees - essentially paying for losing her kids - I cracked a little smile. Maybe it's because I've had to deal with custody and support issues on a personal level and have had to support friends who have also dealt with support and custody issues, but the article actually swayed me into a small bit of laughter.

At the end of the article, however, it linked to a related opinion piece from October 1st regarding the loss of her kids and how it may be what she wants. In said opinion piece, the writer comments the following: "Sean and Jayden were her snotty-nosed, diaper-wearing accessories."

The sad thing is, a month later, when Britney's new album dropped, this statement was practically proven fact. Case in point, let's examine some of the lyrics from track 2, "Piece of Me":

I’m Miss bad media karma
Another day, another drama
Guess I can’t see the harm
In working and being a mama
And with a kid on my arm
I’m still an exceptional earner
You want a piece of me

See what she did there? She uses her own kids to promote herself. She views herself as a perfect mother who does nothing wrong and, in fact, deserves to be even more "recognized" because she has kids. Not even Madonna had that kind of audacity and Madonna had some balls, metaphorically speaking, when it came to the media.

Not sure where I'm going with this but it could end up devolving into my rant about the generation which suffers most from an utter lack of responsibility are now having kids and proving, beyond any shadow of a doubt, their inability to be responsible. All I hope is that when or if she ends up in court trying to get the custody situation changed these lyrics come back to bite her in the ass as further proof of her shallow self-centeredness. She can argue that they weren't written by her all she wants, but she sang them, she put the public face on them and they're a great example why she lost custody to someone who is admittedly unemployed with no tangible future.

Posted by Captiosus @ 6:23 pm EDT | Permalink | 1 Comments

Random thought of the day.

Random thought of the day:
Why does Kentucky Fried Chicken use Sweet Home Alabama as their commercial jingle?

Posted by Captiosus @ 5:44 pm EDT | Permalink | 2 Comments