Ads within Video Games

I'm not much of a video game player, even though I do like the casual Super Mario Brother's session now and again. Now a days video games are so realistic that it actually looks like you are watching a movie or you yourself are in the scene. I wont at all be surprised when they come out with 3-D video games (which if I may say would totally be awesome). Some of the most popular games throughout the last couple of years, keep coming out with new and improved udated versions from the original, like Halo, Grand Theft Auto, and Zelda. A couple of years ago NewsWeek printed an article called The New Ad Game by Jessica Ramirez which'd talked about how the companies are now paying for or are thinking about putting their logo or product to end up in a video game via an advertisement. Not only will these companies open up a different target market, it will also give them a differnent more modern way to get their name out there.

Xbox 360 and Playstion 3 were just about to be released when this article was released in 2006. No one could have predicted what system was going to do better, or which games were going to be more successful by selling, yet companies were still interested in advertising through them. Companies risked their money and started to advertise within video games such as "Coca-Cola, T-Mobile, DaimlerChrysler and Honda". I don't know how I necessarily feel about there being real life products advertised in a virtual, fake world. I do know that it doesn't really make much sense to me, because my thought process is that people participate in video game playing to basically escape from their everyday reality only to be sucked back in with an ad. Whatever technology you seem to go on, there are ads everywhere.

"I don't want to play a medieval game and see a McDonald's" a video gamer named of Joshua Robinson says. I understand that video games, aren't generally supposed to make sense and be real life, but the people who spend all their time and energy playing them, I bet would disagree. Playing a video game that takes place in medieval times such as 2007's Assassin's Creed, there just wouldn't be a McDonald's or Coca Cola company advertisement to advertise yet. If I were to put myself in those peoples shoes, I believe I would get distracted and could potential endanger my life or my fellow gamers and have been in the presence of people who are completely into that, they would be completely thrown off and offended.

Another issue, I along with the article have with advertising within video games are the success that advertisement actually has, and if anybody actually noticed it or not. The ad could be in or on any number of places, located far away or so close that it appears blurry, so who and what determines the cost of the ad? We all know that the gaming company wouldn't allow them to advertise without a heavy price. The questions I am asking, are questions I'm sure other people are questioned as well, that is why I believe they came up with a code that allows them to figure out how and at what angle the product was noticed. "They can tell you down to the nth degree how long your ad was looked at, from what angle and who was looking at it." " Basically this means that the video game makers will be able to tell how much of a success another company's advertisement. This will either persuade or discourage companies to invest in this new, high tech way of advertising.