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In game advertising is a Marmite subject. Some believe real world brands and products being forced into their games detracts from the experience, while others – like Ruffian Games producer James Cope – believe a well placed and well made ad can actually help ground the game in reality.
“I’m actually quite positive about it,” Cope told VideoGamer.com when asked about in-game advertising in Crackdown 2. “I think it makes games look more grounded in the real world.”
That doesn’t, however, mean you can expect Crackdown 2 to be flooded with Red Bull billboards.
“The problem we’ve got with Crackdown is that it’s more of a hyper real world, and we want to be careful about how we present advertising in that because we were keen to maintain a graphic novel aesthetic, and people were very protective of their brand identities, especially in advertising. We don’t think those things necessarily match up together,” Cope explained. “We’ve got a very graphic novel style, we’d want to be able to have advertising in the game that is graphic novel in style, but that means more work in terms of developing those partnerships with advertisers and being able to change those identities to match the game.”
He concluded: “It’s very compelling for me because, like I say, it does make the game more grounded in the real world, but there are lots of technical and legal issues around being able to do that. It’s all about creative control in the end, and to be honest, you don’t want to make more problems for yourself, you want to make things easier.”
Crackdown 2 is scheduled for release on July 9. For hands on impressions and more from Cope head over to the Crackdown 2 game page.
Are you for or against in-game advertising? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
