Big Macs and GTA: A Match Made in Advertising Heaven

Marketing has entered a new age for our generation. In the 1930's, marketers began to hit the radio waves. During the 1950's, these same marketers peppered the television screens of so many with images of cigarettes and beer. So, what's the next step? Well, there's online advertising. We all experience this when we peruse the Internet. Sometimes, we can't even get rid of these ads (thank you, Ad Blocker). However, an untapped market exists in which advertisers are just beginning to scratch the surface. I am, of course, talking about the virtual worlds in which Master Chief, Link, and Samus Aran call home. Yes, the video game is the next frontier for advertising and marketing. Numerous examples already abound within the video game world. Let's take a look at a few. First, we have one that, frankly, surprised me. My friend, whom I frequently play Xbox Live with, informed me about an in-game advertisement for the president. At first, I didn't believe him. Really? Obama advertisements in an Xbox game? Well, it turns out he was right. Voteforchange.com appears on the side of the scorer's table in NBA JAM (Xbox 360). Even more interesting is the fact that the advertisement only appeared in certain states (my home state of Ohio being one of them). This isn't the only game the president's face has graced the virtual playground. A billboard featuring the Big Cheese's head was placed in 2008's Burnout Paradise. Sports games aren't the only target for in-game advertisements. They even show up in the most serious of situations. Imagine: you're a CIA agent. You're sneaking through a top-secret facility to stop terrorists from annihaliting the world. As you creep through the offices, you peek around the corner to make sure no enemies are waiting for you on the other side. The bright light of the SoBe vending machine almost blinding you. Wait, what? Yes, in 2002, Sobe partnered with Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell franchise. Even secret government agents get thirsty. That was in 2002. Think of how it is in today's world. You can't escape ads, whether they're in your video games or on your computer. YouTube has even succombed to the marketing prowess of advertisers. In-game ads aren't going away either. According to Forbes, in-game advertising will double by 2016. The industry already makes 3.1 BILLION dollars. By 2016, that's going to exceed 7 billion dollars. That's a lot of money for in-game ads. You might be asking yourself why advertisers would spend all this money. After all, just becasue I see a cheeseburger on television doesn't mean I rush out to grab a Big Mac. However, Nielsen research would disagree with you. According to Nielsen, NBA Street Homecourt (2007) advertised Gatorade. Surprisingly, sales for Gatorade shot up 24%. Yeah, it works. Weird, right? I really don't have a strong opinion on the subject either way. I think if anything, ads could either create a more realistic experience in games based in "reality" (GTA, Burnout, NBA 2K, etc.) or they could bring the player out of the experience and distract them. They may find the ads confusing and be turned off by the concept of ads "cluttering" their games. What do you think? Leave a comment below if you want your voice to be heard!

The Delicate Fruits of Love

Peach and Mario. Link and Zelda. Sonic and...Amy? Yeah, we'll go with Amy. Hello to all fellow gamers out there in the harsh, cruel world of reality. If you haven't noticed, today is a special day. Today is the day in which card companies and chocolates make all their dough. Yes, today is Valentine's Day! In honor of this holiday focused on love (we all know it's about the marketing), I have decided to write about...love. What is love? What mysteries lie in the depths of our souls that ache to be let out? Well, maybe I won't go that far. I will, though, focus on love in video games. After all, love is everywhere. Here's how I like to think of it. We (as gamers) play games for a challenge. We like to overcome obstacles. We find this fun. However, when we play these games, we begin to get emotionally attached. Whether it be to a game from our childhood or a specific game character, love is always flowing out of us. According to this research study, real people become attracted to virtual people through three avenues: personality, usefulness, and looks (if you'd like to learn more, simply click on the link above for the entire article). Amazingly, we judge these video game characters just as we do real people. It also mentions in the article how we don't like the idea of virtual people realistically looking like humans. However, that's another topic for another day. As we form emotional bonds with charcters, we feel their pain. We feel their joy. We feel the indifference (RPG's, I'm looking at you here). I can attest to this concept of emotional bonding. I remember playing the game Dead to Rights when I was a child. In the game, you take on the role of a police officer in a K-9 unit. At the beginning of the game, your father is murdered and you have to track down the criminals in the city, trying to figure out who murdered him. You finally get your hands on him at the conclusion of the game in a bolier room. It's fisticuffs to the end, a one-on-one match. You might be wondering where this is going. Well, I clearly remember fighting him in the boiler room. My friend had come over and was watching me. I began to yell obscenites at the character. I remember my friend telling me to calm down and that it was just a game. I turned to him and said "I can't. He killed my father. He's got to die". That right there is a perfect example of the emotions I was feeling at the time. I legitimately cared for this guy and wanted this man who murdered my father dead. This emotional attachment is something unique to art. We see these types of bonds in books, movies, and television shows. A great example of a recent video game that has exemplified this type of emotional attachment is Telltale's The Walking Dead. The player is a convict that takes care of a small girl, Clementine. You then take on the role of a father figure to the girl as the game progresses. This relationship is one of the most popular of the year in gaming. Why? The fans have become so emotionally invested in her. According to this article from Game Informer, the craze of Clementine is structured. Everything from the character's appearance to the lines she says is carefully crafted to tug at your heart strings. With all of this in play, us as players can't help but get sucked into her struggle. This attachment goes beyond merely caring for her in-game. A Twitter account exists in which people share how far they would go to save Clementine. People even dress up as her for conventions. People genuinely care for her. I think it's amazing how far we'll go for virtual characters. And you know what? I think we all need a little bit of that. We could all use a little love, virtual or not.

Apparel and Video Games: The Perfect Mix

Video games are a force to be reckoned with. Raking in billions of dollars a year, the industry is a cash cow when it comes to merchandising. Everything from the actual video games themselves to items as strange as light fixtures and ceiling fans have had video game characters adorned upon them (the last two examples are courtesy of Mario). The endless possibilities and merchandising opportunities make the businessman salivate. Here in the United States, there are numerous stores that carry this type of merchandise, specifically clothing. Have you ever longed for a Mario necktie? How about a Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 t-shirt? You can’t go wrong with Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 apparel. Having sold over 11 million units and counting for the Xbox 360, this is the hottest game on the market right now. From boys in their teens to men in their 30’s, this type of merchandise sells…and sells well. Now, what if you aren’t into the logo t-shirts? What if you’re looking for more than just a shirt saying “Call of Duty”? Well, you’re in luck. Even specific game modes have their own merchandise. Take, for instance, the Call of Duty mode “Zombies”. Here is a link to a “Zombies” t-shirt. T-shirts aren’t the only article of clothing video games grab a hold of. Pajamas with Mario’s likeness exist. Want a Halo hat? You got it. People want to identify with their games. Gamers are proud of who they are and what they do. What better way to express themselves then through their favorite video game apparel? The best part about video game apparel is the personal satisfaction you get when wearing it. Gamers who love Halo spend hours and hours imagining what life would be like if they were Master Chief (the main character). In reality, the closest thing people will get to Master Chief are movies, virtual reality games (fingers crossed), and apparel. When you stretch that Halo hoodie over your head, you aren’t just putting on a piece of clothing. You’re sending a message. You’re telling people that “I support Halo” and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Some Call of Duty fans might have a problem with it (the games often act as rivals to each other), but all gamers support their games with apparel…and that’s just awesome. As you go browsing the Internet today, searching for that perfect Zelda t-shirt, you may want to check out a website called JJGames. It specializes in old and used games, as well as systems and accessories. I know, I got your video game juices flowing and now you just have to go back and beat Super Mario Bros. for the millionth time. Having trouble finding it? Is it lost in the basement? No need to worry, this link will help you out…and will also help you save some cash! Thanks for reading!

"Contracts" and the Rise of Connectivity

Stealth. Cunning. Dangerous. Silent. Assassin. These words can best describe the franchise that has churned out five commercially successful video games, as well as a number of novels and a movie. The franchise? Here's a hint: you'll never see him coming, unless you spot the bar code on the back of his neck. Give up? Why, it's Hitman, of course. Hitman is a series focused on stealth game play. The object of the game isn't to rain down a hailstorm of bullets in every level. On the contrary, the game hones in on the player murdering people by indirect, and often silent, means. This type of game play, at least for me, is refreshing. I love FPS's (first-person shooters). However, I also like a fresh gaming experience every once in a while. This game gave me just that. It was a great feeling to have complete autonomy over how I killed the baddies in the game. I could cleverly poison them with their favorite drink. I could blow up their car as they were wondering over to it. I could even push them down a manhole. Any way that I felt fit to kill them, I did so. Along with the autonomy (free will), I would also like to point out the addition of a new feature to the franchise. The emergence of the "Contracts" mode has caught my eye. As technology evolves, the increase in online connectivity in all game genres is being felt (take for instance the addition of co-op and stat tracking on the single-player experience of Resident Evil 6). Possessing the ability to communicate with other players of the same game is a significant step for this particular franchise, since the games have always held a primary focus on single-player game play. The new "Contracts" mode allows players to create their own challenges and objectives in the game. So, not only does the player have a sense of autonomy (free will/creation), but they also have the ability to interact with other players online. We can connect with each other by challenging our fellow enthusiasts to garrote (strangle) the three selected enemies, shooting the place up, or stealthily poison the targets. Through these user-created missions, we grow closer to each other. This situation is similar to the rise of user-created content seen in other games. One of my first experiences that ushered in user-created content was the creation of custom maps and game modes in Halo 3 . This idea of customization is only going to grow in the coming years of gaming, and I think it is a great road to travel down. Hitman: Absolution took a risk, and for that, we thank you.

Movie 43: The Bomb

Bomb. That's the one word that keeps popping up when discussing the bizarre comedy film, Movie 43. Let me start off by saying that this article is not going to critically examine the movie. I'm not writing this because I want to persuade you to like it or hate it.Why I am writing this pertains to the notion that Movie 43, in theory, should be a hit. All the parts are moving correctly. Like a well oiled machine, the film has parts that, when put together, should produce a massive hit. However, that does not seem to be the case. Let's examine these parts from a social point of view and try to figure out why the makeup of the movie has failed thus far. The first concept you should understand about Movie 43 its its narrative structure. The film is comprised of 12 shorts. Most films that contain multiple shorts connect them together. Known as an anthology, these films tell their story through small segments. Sometimes, the anthology is connected not by a continual story, but by theme. One such example is New York Stories (1989), an anthology about (you guessed it): New York. These types of films are not new and date back to as early as 1932 (Grand Hotel and If I Had a Million. The narrative outline that connects the stories in this particular film is a crazy man (played by Dennis Quaid), who is trying to pitch his nonsensical movie to a Hollywood producer. Now, since this film does consist of 12 shorts, doesn't it make sense that audiences should like it in this day and age? Research has already shown that our attention spans have shortened dramatically over the last 15 years. Youtube is a prime example of this. The link dealing with attention span calls to our attention (pun intended) that we can't concentrate for a sustained amount of time. According to the article, a tad over 50% of people click out of a video after the first minute. That's half the audience! Half of the audience is gone after the first minute. So, when applied to movies (which last an average of 90 minutes), shouldn't it make sense that anthologies would keep people's attention more than one long narrative? Movie 43 acts just like Youtube. A bunch of random skits played back-to-back-to-back. In theory, the movie should keep our attention better than a film that focuses soley on one narrative. We are used to the jumps from skit to skit via YouTube. Secondly, the humor associated with Movie 43 is that of shock humor and slapstick. Let's be honest with ourselves: Most of the videos we watch online are stupid people doing something stupid. This is exactly what Movie 43 entails. Actors acting stupid and silly. The shock humor can be likened to that of the popular website Reddit. My friend and I even joked that Movie 43 is a film version of Reddit. Though Reddit may not be for everyone, it is ranked among the top 100 sites in the U.S. (currently ranked #65) and is slowly rising. While shock videos have always been around, they are prevalent and extremely popular today (via YouTube and many other sites). Take, for instance, the monumental popularity of 2 Girls 1 Cup. While being extremely disgusting, the video has been seen millions of times by people all over the world. Now, mix this type of shock value and humor with short segments starring Hollywood's biggest stars, and you should have success. However, this has yet to be the case. So, I now turn to you. Why hasn't this formula worked? Or, did it work for you personally?

Video Games Matter!!!!

Hello all! Tonight, I wanted to hit on a topic that needs some attention and love. Mainly, the idea that video games MATTER. Sometimes, I sit and play Call of Duty and think to myself, "What am I doing? Why am I wasting my time playing some game when I could be out "bettering myself"? I hate when I feel this way, but it happens from time to time. I mean, I love video games, but this thought still creeps into my mind. That's when I remind myself why I do what I do. Video games aren't just a time waster. They do mean something. Personally, I think video games matter becasue they let us ESCAPE from the normal world we all live in. Let's face it: Normal life sucks. If bills aren't getting you down, it's that girl or guy you asked out that said no. If it's not that, then it's the fact that you're unemployed (just as I am shortly about to be). Life's stresses can get into your head and mess with you. DO NOT LET THEM IN. Playing video games can help you destress. Don't believe me? Here you go. Games let you jump into somebody else's shoes and, for that small span of time, your mind gets a break from reality. You forget about the relationship problems and focus your attention on problem solving (or killing noobs, whichever you prefer). Also, video games run on a much deeper level than most people think. Just like movies, books, music, etc., some video games contain multiple layers to them. The superficial story might be about a military-generated super soldier who battles aliens. However, for those who know what to look for, the story also serves as a vehicle to discuss religion, military/political commentary, etc. How is this a bad thing? Video games aren't just these things little kids play. That's a major stereotype of videogames and people who play them. No difference exists between reading a book and being "high brow" versus playing video games and being "low brow". Both get the person thinking in different ways. Among the positives of playing video games? Multitasking skills,improved skiils in vision, and even quicker reaction times. These games may have had origins in simply providing entertainment. However, a major contrast is evident between a side-scrolling Super Mario title and a complex character study like the Mass Effect series. These games matter. Don't ever feel like you're wasting your time. Quite the opposite. You're probably learning a lot more than you know. So, in conclusion, don't ever quit and don't ever stop playing. Video games matter. So do you.

It's in Our Nature

Have you ever read The Dark Tower series of novels by Stephen King? If you haven't, the story revolves around a man on an epic quest to reach a lone standing tower. The story spans seven novels (and now an eighth, which acts as a prequel), and keeps the readers on the edge of their seats. (You'd better hold on to your butts, to quote screen legend Samuel Jackson). Without giving away too much, the final novel essentially ends where the first one begins. It is a circle. The reader goes through this journey with the characters, only to end up back at the beginning events. Normally, you would think this wouldn't go over well with readers. Seven novels, and it's a circle?! Believe it or not, this series has sold roughly 30 to 40 million books. How is this possible? Don't we like progression in storytelling? After all, to get scientific and lifey here, humans do evolve. It's in our nature. However, it's also in our nature to repeat and conquer. Perfect example? Call of Duty. Call of Duty's multiplayer is known for its addictivness and awesomeness. It boasts a fun and engaging online experience, complete with customizable gear and interconnectivity like none other. But, one of the features of the newest installment, Black Ops II, gives the player the power to completely reset their stats. That's right. All of that progression you've achieved, all of those countless hours you spent running around with a pistol to get headshots and earn a special medal, all of that can mean nothing. You have the power to zap all of those achievements away. You can wipe the slate clean. Why would someone do that? Isn't the point to earn the medals and emblems and jack up your K/D? The answer lies in the idea that gamers love to PLAY. We love to play, no matter the stats. We love to play the game. I have some friends who have reached the 10th prestiege (the highest you can go) on Modern Warfare 2. While playing with them, they have said numerous times that they would love to reset their stats. Why? To put it simply, they get bored. They want to regain that feeling of accomplishment when you unlock a challenge. They want to feel that rush when you make the long trip back from level 70 to Level 1 when they prestiege. They want constant challenge, reward, and progression. That is why Black Ops II has added this feature. Gamers love to accomplish challenges. That's why we play games. Why do we play multiplayer more instead of single player? Why is multiplayer more popular? The answer? Multiplayer offers you a completely differnet challenge in every match you play. In single player mode, you can memorize the levels.You can get to the point of speedrunning through the levels and game. Multiplayer does't afford you this opportunity. Everything is constantly changing. The opponents you face are different. Maybe one match you play, you face a team of noob tubers. The next match might pit you against a healthy mixture of snipers, campers, and fraggers. Constant adaptation and constant challenges are what fuel gamers. This is why we do what we do.