Mark Rein Interview
There's an interview with Mark Rein on FiringSquad, asking the Epic VP about Gears of War, post release content, and the release of Windows Vista.
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Silent Sorrow
replyRein says, Imagine how much more it could be worth to advertisers to have a captive audience of 1,000,000+ next-gen gamers watching their commercial while they download new sponsored content for hot games like Gears. That’s not to say a Coca-Cola commercial would have been out of place either – it is important for users to realize that somebody is paying for the cost of that content because, even with Unreal Engine 3, next-gen content is still expensive to produce. If watching a short commercial saves you $6 and gets you some great new content or features then it is totally worth it.
Interesting. I suspect that in only a short time from now there will be commercials in the manner he's talking about all over the place on the 360 and in that sense it will be little different from TV. I can't see why Coca-Cola, tc., wouldn't be all over this.
Not sure I really like where this is going though.-
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Although I'm not talking about in-game ads. I'm talking about pre-roll stuff, which is what I think Rein is referring to.
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Would it break the immersion if you were playing Half-Life 2 and came accross an old Pepsi machine, a burned out Civic, or a Nike poster? In that case I think it would add to the immersion and make you feel like this used to be our world.
Or if Blizzard and Red Bull hooked up and made the drink availiable in game where it would actually give you wings, letting you fly around for a couple minutes. That would fit in with WoW's sense of humor and would not break immersion as WoW is almost a parody of high fantasy anyhow.
The problem with in game ads is that many want everything for nothing. They want 300 hour long mega epics, voicework by 20 AAA-list Hollywood stars, unique music for every cutscene, and mind blowing graphics, but only want to pay $9.99 for the game.
People just need to get over it and stop their bitching.-
Except that no advertiser will (apparently) agree to have their brand presented in anything other than its original, pristine light.
So, for example, in a real, war-torn setting that Pepsi machine might have half its face wripped off and be only vaguely identifiable as a Pepsi machine. That would be realistic and immersive. But would Pepsi agree to that? Unlikely at best.
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