Nielsen Adds Videogame Ad Rating Service

Thanks to Mediapost.com for their article discussing the attempt by TV rating arbiters Nielsen to move into the videogame market, launching the Nielsen Video Game Service, intended to calculate "the data and metrics that will enable video game marketers to pitch advertisers on the value of 'in-game ad exposure.'" The service, backed by publisher Activision, who is "eager to cultivate a video game advertising marketplace", launched alongside a survey that "claims 27 percent of active male gamers noticed ads in the last video game they played", and further revealed statistics claiming "52 percent of heavy gamers saying they like games to contain real products and 70 percent saying that the placement of real products makes the games more 'genuine.'"

The Man takes an interest.

[b0r0din]

Once games start getting rated for advertisement and demographics are launched against the gaming community, it's a full sign The Man has taken a vested interest in the video game agenda. We can expect even more annoying advertisements put at the bottom of future console games. Maybe even some popups. Heaven knows there aren't enough goddamn advertisements everywhere else. Reminds of the Diamond Age by Neil Stephenson where people who got optical implants committed suicide because they kept getting spammed, literally to death, by ads.

Re:The Man takes an interest.

[KDan]

What I want to know is WHO are these fucking idiots who go and blabber on about how genuine ads make the game more genuine for them? Can someone pinpoint these muppets and maim them into silence for our collective good?

While you're at it, get the dumbasses who buy stuff advertised in spam as well.

Daniel

Re:The Man takes an interest.

[msoya]

Meh. I can think of a circumstance when genuine ads would make a game more realistic, but not just adverts for the sake of adverts... If a game's supposed to be set in a real city, it should have ads. Not excessively, but just ads where they'd be in the real city. I still wouldn't answer 'yes' in a survey, though, because the people doing it would take that to mean 'I love ads! I buy stuff from spam! I have a 12" pianist!' However, if Master Chief in Halo 2 starts drinking Coca Cola...

Genuine products do work yes

[SmallFurryCreature]

Mafia had all kinds of historical cars with fancy names. First user made patch? Turn all the fancy names to the real names.

Same with FPS war games. Far more fun to have a M16 then generic assault rifle type 2.

But I can't really see that much marketting for it. Surely real gun nuts shudder at the kind of ballestics you find in games and simirally a FPS fan will have little use for a gun you have to use OUTSIDE?

I can see product placement in a game like The Sims. Say coca-cola company making free models available sporting their logo. Coca-Cola fridge? The pizza delivery guy in a domino skin?

But will this sell anything?

Sports games have long since had real advertising but the way I understood at least in the time of "grand prix legends" it was more the game makers begging if they could please use the image instead of being paid to include a companies logos.

Guns you bet it works

[cyrax777]

go to a gun show some time and see how many people oogle the desert eagles and h&k's "thata like da gun from CS yo"

Re:Genuine products do work yes

[GTRacer]

I don't know about other gamers, but as a racing game junkie, I must admit I'm a sponsor/logo whore. I like playing racing games featuring signage and imagery of real racing-related and otherwise-relevant brands.

I get slightly annoyed at "fake" branding where the dev or pub couldn't secure licensing for real cars/tracks/race oil, etc.

I get more annoyed at racing games with little or no branding, if the equivalent RL series or race type would be so. I know street racing is different and that's fine.

I ha

Re:Genuine products do work yes

[Jackazz]

The problem is getting multiple sponserships. If they make the stats of the STP car better than the stats of the Penzoil car, Penzoil gets angry and doesn't sign the contract. Nobody wants to be seen as having the inferior product. that is why you see product lines in games, like good, better, best golf clubs from callaway.

the only way to avoid this is when you license from the governing body, like EA gets a license from the NBA to use all the names of the teams and players (which are trademarked by th

Re:Genuine products do work yes

[*weasel]

Actually, some of the earlier free downloadable objects [ea.com] for The Sims were: a McDonalds cart, (with which your Sim could crafty burgers that had better in-game effects than a regularly prepared meal), a Pepsi Soda Machine, and an Intel-branded computer.

Who knows what they've got now. (let alone with user-created-content)
But at least even the 'official' product tie-ins were a thoroughly optional downloads.

As for people liking authentic tie-ins - It's one thing for a consumer to craft these things in his spa

Activision? No Way!

[illuminata]

Well, it's no surprise to me that Activision would really like to cash in, with games like Tony Hawk and MX Superfly, there's bound to be quite a market for advertising. Knowing how to place those ads would be very beneficial to them, although I don't know how well Nielsen's method will help.

However, they better play wisely. Gamers would be quick to turn their noses up at ads where they're too intrusive or don't make sense, and thus blacklisting the developer and publisher responsible.

I'm not surprised by Activision, the king of sequels and licenses, wanting to do this. I just hope that they don't shoot themselves in the foot.

Great...

[ghost.]

...because Neilsen already does such a stellar job estimating the true value and popularity of TV and radio programming for advertisers and networks.

Re:Great...

[Cecil]

So true. I still can't help but admire how accurately they gauged the true viewership of Futurama, Family Guy, Farscape, and Firefly.

It's so weird, though, how well all the DVDs are selling. Kind of strange, that.

Bah!

[orkysoft]

I'd choose Slurm any day of the year.

Pure BS

[*weasel]

Clearly the pitch from the publishers will be: "It'll help us defray costs and let us get more, better games to market for a lower cost to the consumer!"

Not that there's any chance of that happening.
I might give a purely ad-supported free game a shot. Similarly to how I'm not philosophically opposed to catching such 'free' content from TV/radio broadcasting.

But this new craze of putting ads in consumer-funded-content is pure BS. Product placement shots in films haven't kept the price of tickets from going up. The ads thrown in amongst the trailers at the movies haven't kept ticket prices from going up. The ever-increasing quantity of ads in magazines and papers haven't kept their prices from going up.

Of course, no-one's started voting with their wallet just yet - so why should advertisers and publishers care?

Re:Pure BS

[Pizzop]

Completely true, this is pure bullshit. If you ever play SSX 3, look at the beginner courses. There's ad's all over. 7-Up dn-L Honda Element. Shit, you jump over one. How much less did the game cost me since EA got sponsors? Nothing less, not one dime cheaper. "For sports games it's different..." Not this sports game, I don't see any Burton Boards, and Think Boots, and Spyder Race Suits. Now don't look at this as a rant to just rip on SSX-3, I love the game. It's more pointing out how this is already happen

As long as the ads are appropriate...

[Delita]

...then why should any person care? I like a Penzoil logo or a Toyo billboard in a racing game; it just makes sense. Heaven forbid Wilson has a spot in a tennis game. 7-up's dn-L and Honda's Element happen to be aimed at the same demographic that really does snowboard. I haven't played SSX 3 so I can't account for unrealistic placement of the physical ad within the game's maps.

It's when ads are totally out of the context of realism, or even something remotely similar to it, that I'll complain. Most people

It's true!

[Snowmit]

Quake was a much better game and a much more engaging experience thanks to the Nine Inch Nails logo.

Re:It's true!

[mahdi13]

Funny...but Trent Reznor's musical contribution to the game was beyond spectacular! Honestly, that was one of the reasons I got the game was for the soundtrack. The gameplay was OK and there was almost as story. But the audio had me hooked!

I really, really hate in-game ads.

[josh glaser]

I mean, sometimes it is actually cool to have a real product (wouldn't GTA be cooler with real cars?), but most game advertising doesn't make sense. A billboard along a racetrack or ads along a stadium, well, they kinda make sense, and I guess I could put up with them (I don't play many sports games anyway) but most game ads are crap. You'll find big ads for completely unrelated products plastered all over the levels, and worse still, sometimes integrated into the gameplay. Remember in Super Monkey Ball, how you picked up Dole bananas? Hmm...I kinda have mixed feelings on that. I mean, it's kinda funny, and not too out of place (except when they have the Dole logo on the floor of the level). Remember San Fransisco Rush? In one of the various sequels, I remember how you had to find cans of Mountain Dew that were hidden in the levels. That's just kinda dumb, and it's going to get worse. It's like product placement in movies: I've paid for the entertainment, I don't want ads.

If there will be in-game ads,

[vegetablespork]

the game should be free. I will not knowingly pay money for software that contains ads. Neither should anyone else.

Re:If there will be in-game ads,

[bigman2003]

You don't want ads in your games- cool. Don't buy them- take that stance.

But, if you read the article, you would know that actually 52% of heavy games LIKE ads/products in the games. (I'm one of those people)

So, saying you don't like them is fine. But saying nobody else should, and people should think the same way you do, is a bit arrogant.

And like other people here- I really think they add to the realism in sports games. Because when the ads are not there, it just seems like something is missing. T

Re:If there will be in-game ads,

[0x0d0a]

Ads replicated from the real world and simple insertion of ads or more product placement are two very different things.

If you are reproducing a real-world environment that contains ads, yes, most people are not going to have a problem with you replicating the ads. It adds to the realism.

On the other hand, if you are simply dumping product labels into a game, frequently flashing them, and your main dedication during the game production is simply to ensure that gamers are exposed to a product in conjunctio

Re:If there will be in-game ads,

[ooby]

I disagree that there are few special cases. Sports games make up a large percentage of games, for instance. Their sales tend to be higher than games of other genres as well. In this case, we have the ads adding to realism. I think that there are cases where it adds to the value of the game and cases where it detracts, a view expressed in many posts in this topic. But i think that we are pretty aprehensive about it because it has potential to generate some really crappy games. Those crappy games are alrea

Re:If there will be in-game ads,

[mahdi13]

I don't care much for product placement, it usually sticks out like a sore thumb and looks like it was put there only for advertisements. I see this WAY too often in movies and it's almost sickening (but Wayne's World had an awesome bit about how product placement sucks as they were advertising all these different consumer brands, that was classic!)

I like when games make up brands that look like a real brand. GTA3 and Vice City did a great and creative job with making fake advertisements. How many people

Re:If there will be in-game ads,

[vegetablespork]

I never thought of a splash screen as "in-game," but you have a point. Were it a 1 minute spot for Malboro or Coca Cola, I'd certainly draw the line there.

MMOG Advertising

[wigginz]

I recently read an interview with the lead designer of the Lineage MMORPG series sees the future of online games headed. He mentions that the subscription based model needs to go away and be replaced by in-game advertising revenue (among other sources). Article can be found here [1up.com]. Warning: the article just briefly mentions this; it's mainly about the game itself.

I can't wait until I get my Nike chain mail boots.

That doesn't make any damn sense.

[DAldredge]

How in the hell are adds for 21th century products going to make sense in a FANTASY RPG? Yea, I won't to be exploring a dungeon and see ads for pepsi.

Wow, imagine the spyware possibilities...

[Anonymous Coward]

this will eventually create. "Our in-game Nielsen meter reports that the Mountain Dew billboard was viewed for an average of 8.2 seconds, while the Pepsi sign only scored 3.6 seconds. Also, three times as many rockets were fired into the Pepsi sign, which suggests that the Britney texture on it needs revision in the next forced patch--perhaps we should show 52% of butt cleavage instead of the present 46%. It's great how the game stops working without each week's updated batch of product impressions from o

It's been going on for years.

[OneHungLo]

Does anybody remember the European release of "Biker Mice From Mars" on the SNES? SNICKERS ADS EVERYWHERE! [encyclopedia-obscura.com] Talk about out of place advertising... And how about the 7-UP Spot video games? Or the game starring Chester the Cheetah? At least they're not making games like that anymore. Oh well. At least "Yo Noid!" was somewhat fun.