Films versus Games Round one!

ULTRAVIOLET...BMW PAID FOR THE WHOLE FILM...OK not really...
As the games industry continues to grow it's safe to say Hollywood is having trouble with where to grow. Another issues is where can they make the most money? I was just watching a PBS documentary on advertising in films. The more I continued to watch the more I began to understand the amount of control the advertising companies have on the types of movies that get made and the places these product are pushed the most. It got me thinking about advertising in games. Games and films are different in this area simply because products in games are fairly new compared to movies. According to the case study movie studios have the placement and written-in control of these products down to a science, its scary. They were spitting out examples on some of my most favorite films and once I could see where and why these choices were made it began to upset me. Hollywood simply can't make a film these days without product placement because before everything was done with investors its was all a film had behind it but more and more the investors are backing down and chain companies are moving in. This is interesting with games because most of the time finding products in a game is an after thought unless a company like EA asks for "Power ad" to be in madden 09 but games don't need it as much. There are loads of "placeholder" art for mimicking real products without having to make it a coke bottle so coke doesn't need to see a profit. I wonder if the more expensive games become the more apparent this product placement will become. Sometimes it works great and can even work to be funny or clever within a movie or game but many games are marketed to kids and for me I don't sit down to write a script or design document with products in mind I know that it can help if someone like coke could invest a large sum so that a "soda can" becomes a "diet coke" but again what does that do for the players? Does the fact that it is a coke change the experience or take them out of it?What importance does it draw away from the story? Just something to think about as you look at some of my other works at the moment.


KENDO GENERAL HOSPITAL: XTEREME GURNEY ADVENTURE

Think Crazy Taxi meets Katamari. A casual game with a fun use of physics and mission based gameplay.

Read the Design Document (Now with pictures!)

May 19, 2008