Poll of the Day > Would you be okay with product placement in games?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I think I would prefer it to the off the wall crap some products are called in some games.

I mean I wouldn't like them to be all in your face. But, a can of coke or dr pepper would be better than something like "rocket cola" or some other cheesy thrown in name

nope..

Depends on the game, mostly

Dont care.

there already is and have been for decades

Powerade vending machines were in Enter the Matrix in 2003 to help you recover health.

Also I think this topic was made like a month ago. That or there's a glitch in the Matrix.

I'd be fine with it...

Alan wake had too much of it. So did Final fantasy xv

ive always wanted to see master chief drink a pepsi

Product placement / advertising doesnt really work on me so it wouldnt make any difference. Im fine seeing something like an actual Snickers bar than a made up Snackers bar.

Johnny Eagle posted...

Depends on the game, mostly

This. But also how it's used.

Like, if I'm playing a game and there are Coke vending machines scattered around town, I'm not going to flip out or anything. Have a game set in Times Square or along major roadways and I'd be completely cool with real ads on the billboards. Sports games where they use legit advertising on the boards/ice/etc (like they do in actual sports) is fine, because it adds verisimilitude. Even games where you jump into a car and it clearly has branding logos on it showing off a real company.

But when it's gratuitous it can be annoying. If the main character stops dead in the middle of doing something else to talk about how much they love Pizza Hut, or how there's a game mechanic where you buy Nike sneakers to get super jumping powers, or anything else super-blatant, I'm going to call bullshit. Or if you're playing a game like GTA and they put real commercials for products on the TV or radio. That's where I'd probably draw the line.



hypnox posted...

I mean I wouldn't like them to be all in your face. But, a can of coke or dr pepper would be better than something like "rocket cola" or some other cheesy thrown in name

I feel the main reason you see this is because it's the opposite of product placement.

To wit, if you're making a game like GTA or Saints Row, that's filled with sex, violence, drugs, etc, then actual real world brands won't want to be associated with your product. So if Rockstar just put Coca-Cola vending machines in town, Coke would sue them. So it's easier/safer for GTA to just invent a fictional brand name (which they can then potentially make jokes about later if they want).

Most of the fake brands you see in TV aren't because the creators want to maintain some level of integrity or because they holding out for someone to pay them money, but because they're kind of legally obligated to not use trademarks or branding unless it's been specifically approved. And licensing rights can be extremely complicated and annoying.

Yes, but only for feminine hygiene products

if the game's free, anything's fair game, but your gameplay better be freakin' good to convince me to continue in the face of overt advertising

if it's a full price game, lol no i'm not buying

if you get clever about it though I don't give a shit if it's funny. there's a fucking shinkansen mecha anime (made explicitly to hype up japan's trains, and funded by train companies) in the newest super robot wars game as part of a package of paid DLC and i'm completely fine with it because what the fuck train mecha. to a lesser extent I think gundam build fighters (and Try) is one of the best actual gundam anime, so I don't care that it was explicitly made to sell gunpla, it's actually good.

Johnny Eagle posted...

Depends on the game, mostly

Pretty much, provided it's not too intrusive. If I'm fighting a boss in Dark Souls and there's a Coca-Cola billboard in the background, we've got a problem. In a more modern, realistic setting? That's fine.

Though, that being said, the sort of publishers that consider moves like this tend not to be the sort of publishers that I sympathize with at all when they claim that they need to resort to product placement as a revenue stream. I'd rather they do something like this than the more manipulative, predatory monetization options that are around, but given how the AAA industry tends to go, they'd rather just cram both in there because they want to milk every possible cent out of their games and pass none of that success on to the people that are actually creating the products they're getting rich off of.

I'd like more realized product diversity... both coke AND pepsi

Lokarin posted...

I'd like more realized product diversity... both coke AND pepsi

if you drink both back to back you are going to have fighting words about one or the other

Apparently Pepsi tastes better warm. I read somewhere that its due to them trying to appeal to countries without good access to refrigeration. Not sure if its true or not. But room temp pepsi does taste better to me than room temp coke.

Johnny Eagle posted...

Depends on the game, mostly

Yeah settings where stuff like that would exist that's cool. Gta or even games like final Fantasies set in modern or futuristic settings. As long as it doesn't go much past what ff xv did with the cup of noodle side quest. It was amusing quest by if there where a bunch of them it would get annoying.

Most annoying ad in a game I saw was some free to play mmo. In a hub town they played the same old spice commercial on loop an all tvs you came across. It made that jingle super annoying

For the most part I'd want it limited to stuff in the background like billboards.

hypnox posted...

Apparently Pepsi tastes better warm. I read somewhere that its due to them trying to appeal to countries without good access to refrigeration. Not sure if its true or not. But room temp pepsi does taste better to me than room temp coke.

I'd strongly disagree. Pepsi tastes worse in every scenario.

But I think the real difference between the two is that Pepsi is sweeter. So whether someone likes one or the other depends strongly on their tolerance for how sweet each one is.

As for temperature, it's worth noting that temperature affects sweetness. The taste receptors of your tongue will sense sweetness more strongly the warmer it is (and vice-versa). Room temperature soda is sweeter than cold soda in general, regardless of brand. So if you like room temperature soda, you generally prefer sweeter soda, which might be part of the reason why Pepsi appeals to you more than Coke.

it already exists

ParanoidObsessive posted...

But I think the real difference between the two is that Pepsi is sweeter. So whether someone likes one or the other depends strongly on their tolerance for how sweet each one is.

It is now. Coke reduced the sugar content by 3mg/can (42 to 39) a few years back while Pepsi held the line (41 I believe, don't have a can here to check).

As someone who drinks way too much Coke, I noticed the change right away, but I'm guessing a lot of people didn't. I prefered the old version of course, but even the new version is better than Pepsi.

DarkMinun posted...

It is now. Coke reduced the sugar content by 3mg/can (42 to 39) a few years back while Pepsi held the line (41 I believe, don't have a can here to check).

It always was. As far back as the 80s, the entire point of Coke switching to New Coke was to try and make Coke sweeter to compete with Pepsi. The assumption was that Pepsi was more popular with younger people because it was sweeter.

It's not just a question of how much sugar is in the product (or how much high fructose corn syrup is in the product). It's how the different recipes taste in total. It's actually possible for something to taste sweeter even with less sugar.

Though at this point the amount of sugar means pretty much nothing to me personally, because I've started only drinking sugar free Coke Zero for a while now.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/0/8/AAanagAADWsw.jpg

How about you stop being wrong? Box on the left is from 2013, can on the right is current.

I feel like they have reduced the carbonation as well in coke. Even if they reduced the sugar marginally (39g of sugar is still a crap ton in a 12 oz can), the reduced amount of carbonic acid is going to make the drink seem sweeter in addition to making the drink smoother. They certainly have been screwing with the recipe a lot over the years to compete with Pepsi.

I don't think they're competing with Pepsi. Pepsi sells less than half what Coke does at retail, sells their 24s at a discount to even acheive that, and snaps up every restaurant contract available in a desperate attempt to make up some of the difference.

Cutting down on sugar and carbonation reduces input costs. THe standard bottle of Coke here is now 500ml rather than 591, with no associated price reduction. Mini cans sell for more than regular cans. Coke is so far ahead of Pepsi that they can sell less product for more money with no noticeable reduction in market share. THey're doing his because they can, and it makes more money for them.

DarkMinun posted...

How about you stop being wrong?

How about you learn to read English?

"It's not just a question of how much sugar is in the product (or how much high fructose corn syrup is in the product). It's how the different recipes taste in total. It's actually possible for something to taste sweeter even with less sugar."

Take two identical glasses of water, and add the exact same amount of sugar to both. You'll notice they taste the same. But then add salt and a bittering agent to one of them, and you'll notice that it no longer tastes as sweet, in spite of the fact that the amount of sugar hasn't changed.

Pepsi tastes sweeter than Coke. Pepsi has always tasted sweeter than Coke (or at least has for the last 50 years). It's been a pretty universally accepted statement for decades. And no part of that statement says that Pepsi has more sugar than Coke (or needs to have more sugar than Coke) in order to taste sweeter.

pepsi has more sugar than coke lmao

that's why it's sweeter tasting

what the fuck po this is a stupid thing to try and argue

He's trying to create an overcomplicated argument to avoid admitting his initial statement was wrong. His current argument may be technically correct, but it's irrelevant to his earlier statements.

DarkMinun posted...

I don't think they're competing with Pepsi. Pepsi sells less than half what Coke does at retail, sells their 24s at a discount to even acheive that, and snaps up every restaurant contract available in a desperate attempt to make up some of the difference.

Cutting down on sugar and carbonation reduces input costs. THe standard bottle of Coke here is now 500ml rather than 591, with no associated price reduction. Mini cans sell for more than regular cans. Coke is so far ahead of Pepsi that they can sell less product for more money with no noticeable reduction in market share. THey're doing his because they can, and it makes more money for them.

Yeah, you are probably right. Cheaping out tends to be the answer for most corporate decisions. Although, to muddy the waters a bit, in the 80s Coke did replace thier previous version of Coke with New Coke to explicitly compete with Pepsi, so there must've been some type of fear that the marketing & sales team saw for them to try to copy Pepsi at one time. And yeah the blow back was enough for them to switch back almost immediately, but I wouldn't preclude that logic for switching to be totally eliminated and for them to change the flavor on the down low.

Its already occurred, Cup Noodle and Coleman in FFXV.

I don't mind it.

One of the MMOs I used to play (City of Heroes) actually did it during its last couple years.

fettster777 posted...

Its already occurred, Cup Noodle and Coleman in FFXV.

Yeah, your "final meal" is even a cup noodle in that game. Like, I have been saving this cup noodle for only special occasions. Not a nice bottle of wine, a fricken cup noodle.

Speaking of Cup Noodle, I find it weird Bandai made a model kit out of one. Even weirder, is people in the Gundam groups I am in go crazy over it.

No.