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In game advertising is becoming big business as video games take time away from TV and the 2K Sports series is the latest to jump on the ad bandwagon. Up to nine 2K Sports Games will have ads in them published by Double Fusion. Previously in game ads were restricted to billboards in levels or in the case of sports games banners in stadiums. Double Fusion is going a step further with “deep integration into gameplay and storylines”. Are we going to have the Nike half time show in NBA 2K8 or maybe there will be celebrity mascot pitches by the King from Burger King in Major League Baseball 2K8. Do product placements in video games make them more realistic as claimed by the ad agencies or are they annoying? Maybe they would be more acceptable if ad placement brought down the price of games. It hasn’t yet, but what if ad sponsored copies of 2K Sports games sold for $20 would that be fair?
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6 Responses to “In game advertisements invade 2K Sports”
December 4th, 2006 at 8:21 pm
Tell me about it. In NBA 2K7 for XBOX360, an ad for Gatorade will come up, blocking at least half of the screen. This occurs at the most convenient time… when I have the ball and I’m about to make a big play. 
December 4th, 2006 at 9:30 pm
I say it’ll be annoying. Why do we NEED to have dynamic ads in our video games? I by them to get away from reality, not be immersed in it. I get enough of that on a day-to-day basis. And even if it does bring down the cost of games (which it won’t, just look at movies, product placement is rampant, and yet, I still eight bucks for a ticket and four dollars for a drink…), is it worth it for me to see an ad for some new drink Coca Cola’s making that they’ll plaster on every available surface they can find in the real world? *sigh*
I miss the days when developers made games with the intent of being fun and profitable, and not just a fiscal investment…
December 5th, 2006 at 5:09 am
Another good reason why I don’t play sports game (minus Wii Sports of course :P)
December 5th, 2006 at 6:51 pm
While it is extremely annoying, I can understand why more and more companies are taking up this position. About a week ago, the president of Namco said that it costs over 1 billion yen to make a PS3 game and to turn a profit, it’d have to sell more than a half a million copies, which is not a good thing since Sony’s missed its shipment goal. On top of that, Sony’s making 3rd party companies pay for the bandwidth that is used to download their demos from the PS3 online store. With all these extra costs, I wouldn’t be surprised to see more and more companies following suit and still maintaining the $50-$70 price point we have now.
All this might help out the Wii though and repaire the damage Nintendo did to their relationships with 3rd party developers after the 64 and Gamecube. The Wii has a supercheap and friendly developer’s kit, projects won’t cost as much because of the non-HD graphics, and since the hardware’s similar to Gamecube’s, developers are probably already familiar with programming for it.
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December 4th, 2006 at 3:49 pm
Annoying. They are ok to the extent of billboards and such. If they start implementing more they certainly should lower prices, but I don’t see that happening, ever. After all there are plenty of games saturated with ads already on the shelf for the same price as the others.