Game advertising does have some negative influence on video games. If in-game advertising is one of the standard financial pillars in the funding of games, then a studio is limited in the types of games it can produce.

For example: If 15% of development funding for a game is to come from in-game ad space then it clearly can't be, say, in a completely non-humanoid fantasy world void of the concept of consumerism. A racing, sports, or earth-based shooter game makes the most economical sense.

It's a trend that I rather not like since it creates artificial limits and breaks immersion at times, but meh. I got over being angry about it and just research what games do it and don't buy them.

[Edited by - necreia on July 24, 2010 5:45:21 PM]

Remindes me on:

Nuke-Cola in Fallout 3.
The cokes are everywhere, they might be not directly adressed to coca cola, but come on? What else should the player think of then "Coca-Cola". But they are not disrupting the player experience. (They even add an "awesomeness"-point)

Besides... finding normal "Coca-Colas" in GTA etc. isn´t that disturbing since its more of an to-expect-thing becouse the games are pending on "reality". So the developer WANTS to put Coca-cola ingame. Why not get money for things you might have actually done by youreselfe. But the difference is, if you ask the firmes about putting something ingame, you maybe would have to pay them for their ok. Its better arround if they come to the devs paying you for... "free" :)

I dont think funding games is a bad thing, since it DOES helpt to actually make them better (more money, more time, more polished).

I agree with Excess Neo: they rush the game because the film.

the funny example is Batman.

Batman Begins, the game, had good chance to be a good game, but didn't work.
anyway, I was expecting another bad game, this time about dark knight, but they released Arkham Asylun, a good one.

I think it's funny because they never needed the movie to create good game, but they take some time to realize this.

Load Screen and Propaganda.

Maybe a good strategy to use advertisement in games is the Load Screen.

During the loads we could show sometihng like "Mc Donald's" or any other product.

the advertisement would be just this, and will have no influences in game dev structure.

But I'm not sure if this is a cool stuf. you know...

It depends on context.

For a game modelled (to a degree) on real life, something like GTA4, what difference does it make if billboards and posters in the city are fake ads or real ads? that's just what a city looks like.

If however, you're walking around on an alien wasteland planet, it would totally kill the experience to see recognizable shitty products from Earth, obviously... That would be bad. But I can't think any examples of in game-advertising with a completely broken context like that. As it's been said already, it's publisher controlled.

The other thing that would bug me is banner-type ads or full screen/video ads for real products during loading screens or interstitial sections of a game. I doubt I'd stomach that crap. Again, with the exception of Flash gaming portals (which I guess is sorta different) I can't think of any examples.

Companies make big games for big money. No use troubling yourself over how they make it, just ignore a game that goes too far. There's a million other reasons a game can suck just as badly.