Adverts Coming To Xbox 360 Achievements 55
Joystiq reports that the charming sports custom of having game elements sponsored by a corporation or product will now be coming to Xbox Live Achievements. "A quick skim down the list of achievements for EA's upcoming NCAA 08 Football shows sponsored goals such as the 'Old Spice Red Zone Perfection' and 'Pontiac 4th Quarter Comeback.' Each achievement is accompanied by a logo for the company in the achievement's image. We can only imagine the possibilities for future Xbox 360 games. Halo Around the Collar, sponsored by Tide? Mass Effect sponsored by the Axe Effect? Grand Theft Auto IV's Bounty Beatdown (great for sopping up blood spills)? The possibilities are endless." One would hope this will stay restricted to sports games.
The -real- Halo achievement... (Score:5, Funny)
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Criteria: Stick 50 enemies in multiplayer ranked matches
Icon: Post-It note with a picture of a Plasma Grenade
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Criteria: Stick 50 enemies in multiplayer ranked matches
Icon: Post-It note with a picture of a Plasma Grenade
Publisher's/Developer's choice? (Score:2)
Man I hate EA though.
This is the quick way to obsolescence. (Score:2)
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In fact, I don't think anyone should care in any sports game. Even without "advertisements" in sports games, the entire game is a giant advertisement. The NFL and the NBA are corporations. They are businesses. They are not public utilities. If you're dumb enough to cheer for th
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Take Forza 2 for instance. Your main GT is the one you use to play through the game, and unlock all the goodies/cars/money. If you want to fuck around and wind people up online, you have to switch to another GT. To play with your car of choice, you either have to level up the new GT, or send your car over from your other account. For a
Good luck with that (Score:2, Insightful)
There's money to be made in in-game advertisement, so you'll be seeing this a lot more.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:4, Insightful)
Or the early days of cable television... "advert free!" because you "paid" to subscribe to it... funny... never panned out there either.
Wonder where the price drop for this advertising comes in? Guess it's not getting as far as us this time. We're paying to be advertised to. Amazing how far we've fallen.
This is new? (Score:5, Informative)
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You know, I don't follow sports much, but decided to watch a game the other day. Even the announcers are into product placement every, like, 2 minutes or so. It's shameless. So I have no doubt that it'll creep into sports games, and from there to many others.
Similarly, I just re-played Crackdown (Xbox 360) again for the first time in several months, and there are now "starting spots" in the game which try to sell you add-on packs for the game. Wish those could be disabled, I already bought the game...
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"This knockout was brought to you by burger king". No, it was brought to you by my fist in the other guy's face.
I could tolerate the underarmor ads, since they are in fact a company about boxing, and therefore add realism. I mean for christ's sakes they had a MINI van as prizes your boxer would ge
Old Spice? (Score:2)
I hope this means that Bruce Campbell is coming to the Xbox.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af1OxkFOK18 [youtube.com]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg6bZSM48vU [youtube.com]
Will we see any of the money from this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Similarly, I used to have a subscription to Xbox Live but haven't played on it in a very long while. It was a fairly good service in and of itself (most of the shortcomings deal more with the people who use it than with the technical details of the service) and not really all that bad of a deal for the roughly four dollars a month that it cost. At the time it was completely free of adertisements or anything else designed to get me to fork out more cash.
However, now that there seems to be a store selling virtuals goods and other things as well as increased advertisement both online and in the games themselves, will part of the money earned by the companies who produce these games and host the online system be used to offset some of the cost that I pay for these games and services? However, if I'm cruising around in my "Built Ford Tough" Warthog in Halo 3 and then looking over the stats in the post-match Pepsi rundown, I'd like to pay a little less than the full price. If you're going to subject me to crap advertising that I'd like to escape and expect to charge me just so that I can be subjected to it, I'm not going to spend $60 on your game or $50 on your online service.
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It's all about what you can do without alienating too much of your audience. Some ads are actually enjoyed by some people. I agree about Crackdown, I particular
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You said it.
The McDonald's ads look surprisingly distasteful (pun...), especially after having watched "Super
If Movie Theaters are any indication... (Score:1)
Correction. (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that they are injecting even more advertising in their games comes as no surprise. Hell, if Microsoft Games started making their published games support ads, that would be surprising. Even more so if Nintendo started doing it. EA is just like that...
PS3 - Worst Console Ever (Score:2)
See, I can make up shit too!
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'Noisy as hell'? Have you ever been near a working PS3?
'Disc Scratching'? I'd need a source on that one.
I have both. Price is not an issue (other than the fact they are both expensive). My Xbox with wireless/live sub/rechargable battery totalled more than my PS3 which comes with those things included in the price. I haven't bought the HD drive add-on yet, but if I do, it will make the price difference greater than the difference between a 360 core and a premium PS
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You don't quite "get" advertising. (Score:2)
The advertisement isn't trying to get you to run out and buy deodorant. They already know that you will likely need deodorant eventually. The ad is there so that when you go to buy it, one of the brands you know about is that one. It's on your radar.
Most people think they aren't swayed by ads on TV, either, but guess what? The ads do work. And so will the ones attach
The real issue with in-game advertising. (Score:1)
If they were smart about this (Score:4, Interesting)
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They are advertising to the person playing the game.
It may sounds silly, but unlocking an achievement feels good. When I finally kill my 2,000th bad guy in Halo3, I'm going to be excited. Now if I see an Axe body spray logo at the same time I may associate that logo with the excited feeling. Next time I'm in a store and I see the same logo, that associated feeling comes back and I'm more likely to buy.
Makes sense (Score:2)
I only watch 2-3 televised sport games a year plus 1-2 college games live. They are full of advertising. Ads on the side line, ads on the players, ads on the ball, ads on the court, ads on the scoreboard, ads on the tickets, drink cups, mens room, etc. If you are a big enough fan to buy a $3000 Superbowl ticket, you are not going to say "no thanks" because it advertises Budweiser.
Ad dollars run sports. Not having ads in the achievements would look out of place.
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Yes, but millions of people pay for the privilege of watching Cable or Satellite TV AND have to watch commercials.
So don't expect a major outrage to this business model. Some how, for some reason... it worked for TV...
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But they do charge you to watch it on cable, more if you want to watch it in HD-TV.
In many cases, the amount of advertising doesn't go down if you pay more. In fact, it sometimes goes up. What changes is the type of things they advertise to you (you are more likely to see ads for higher end cars if you buy a Super Bowl ticket).
Grand Theft Auto IV's Bounty Beatdown (Score:1)
Red Bull presents: Battlefield - RB Rampage. (Score:1)
In-Game Ads Are Fine With Me (Score:2)
I'm less inclined to allow them to advertise to me in a disruptive fashion. Don't interrupt the game, or make me sit through an ad. I've resigned myself to dealing with ads on TV, but in a game it migh
This would so piss me off (Score:2)
More visual pollution. (Score:2, Insightful)
Many products I buy come plastered with stickers for extra services or features. I pick them off when I can. Then once you step out side it's ev
my 360 died (Score:1)
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