The topic that I am going to be studying is on product placement and marketing within video games. In recent years product placement has grown exponentially due to rising costs in the making of a video game. These can either be seen as just subtle advertisements in the game world or as something more integral to a game such as a gadget representative of a real product.
I am going to looking at how this aspect of games has come about and grown into something that is now considered commonplace amongst big budget video games. I am also going to be looking at how this affects the game and how the player is expected to react when exposed to such marketing techniques.
To do this I am going to be using the internet to research specific games that express product placement frequently throughout games. I will be looking at other articles that are on the topic and I will also be drawing a comparison between product placement in movies and in video games to see how they are becoming similar and the reasons why.
This made me think of GTA: San Andreas (haven't played 4 yet) and how there is heavy marketing and product placement pervading the entire game (radio, posters, stores) but that the products and industries being advertised are totally fictional. Seems to me to be directly critical of just the kind of product placement you've picked up on.
ReplyDeleteCan't think of any other games off hand though.
It might be worth you looking at the gamebrandplay research blog and the MA thesis that came out of Ilya Vedrashko's research at http://www.gamesbrandsplay.com/ there is a full version of the thesis as a pdf on the site
ReplyDeleteThere is a wealth of research on this topic from a buisness perspective all over the internet, lots of figures and bar charts etc. What sort of angle will your essay take, are games a space for advertising? Every other media seems to include advertising as part and parcel should this be differnt for games as they are a space of "play".
ReplyDeleteI guess arguments like this come down to how you value a game, is it a piece of entertainment on the same level as television? Is it between two levels like film where it is an art form and entertainment?
I don't personally see why there is a fuss about ingame advertising if games are a form of entertainment, but there are spaces where advertising doesn't tread such as education, places of religious worship and usually play grounds.