a friend sent me this link regarding burger king starting a campaign with activision where they give you a portable game device with your meal. could this be the first step towards retailer/advertiser funded original game content? i hope so. the alternate financing and distribution that setups like this could afford the industry might help to ease the original-content-free monopoly interactive publishers currently have over the industry.
already i’ve heard that the games given away are crap. when will burger king and others realize they could produce high-quality interactive games inside their existing television advertising budget and create dual content (games and animated commercials) that actually drives original branding/ip?? thank you, drive through please.
3 responses to “advergaming”
That would be surprising to see a quality branded game. Probably the closest I have seen was the Skittles game (Darkened Skye), which was just short of being really good.
The big thing about the concept is how much of an old one it is. Advertising seems almost cyclical in nature. Shows used to be presented uninterrupted in their entirety thanks to a “Presented By”. Then, shows added the commercial break. Then, shows started being shown in their entirety thanks to a “Presented By” (Ford did a “presented by” of Schindler’s List on NBC, which is about when I remembering it becoming briefly vogue again). My favorite of course are the shows with both the “Presented By” and commercial breaks (Superbowl, to name the most recent I can recall), which begs questions about how much money really is needed for such programming.
Advertising is such a twisted art. It is great when you can see it subsidizing quality, and it is annoying when it is merely to fill space and keep a name in your head. I completely agree with you that the alternative financing could help promote quality original games, and in some small baby steps the advertisers seem to be moving in that direction (the NASCAR stuff between Fox Sports, Dodge, and Wild Tangent), but it’s still asking a lot somedays to hope that advertisers can see quality projects to promote. After all, they tend to follow a lot of the same trend following patterns that the current games publishers seem to have follen into, and have done so for several more decades than games publishers.
In Australia. We have already had a similar portable game giveaway at McDonalds. Ours were through SEGA though, using a lot of SEGA IP’s “Sonic etc” as a bonus with a kids meal.
This topic sounds so interesting. When games such as ‘The Sims’ and reality shows like ‘Apprentice’ take a strong grasp on the market; then we know the populace is hungry for Fast Food Franchise Manager sims, etc. I think McDonald’s could dominate with a McDonalds related trivia game covering it’s history, menu, jingles, and advertising characters. But if I were a developer, I’d work with Dominoes. I can think of tons of pizza pie puzzles(other than choose-the-different-slice.)
I think the previous ad/games were crap. Creative developers will certainly make a killing in the new wave of ad/games.