They come irrespective of fashion or need. They come despite desire. They come, simply, because they act as another touchpoint for a potentially important audience in a media-saturated culture. In-game brands are no longer a disliked possibility, they're a reality. And we're stuck with 'em.
Yet they need not be tastelessly and mindlessly incorporated into interactive entertainment just because the bigwigs are passing cheques around; Gamasutra's front page column for the week of 3 April features Water Cooler Games' Ian Bogost making some prescient points to game designers about how to incorporate brands into games.
Bogost is a veteran of interactive advertorial subterfuge; his excellent persuasive game Disaffected! critiques the work practices of American photocopy chain Kinko's and uses their branding to illustrate his agenda. There are other examples of guerilla adbusting in games, including McDonald's Videogame, an interactive Fast Food Nation-style anti-fast food thought piece.
However, such approaches are only possible for designers in the indie circuit; Toyota, Jeep, Adidas, Jaguar, Dominos et al hope their more mainstream partnerships are more positive. This doesn't mean, argues Bogost, that designers need to be at the mercy of marketers; taking a more proactive approach and thinking laterally could reinstate the ownership to the developer's side:
You can use advertising to exploit cultural preconceptions about known items that then serve as a kind of shorthand for aspects of your game world. And that sort of attitude turns the tables on in-game advertisers, making advertising a tool in the hands of the designer, rather than one in the hands of the brand, agency, or network.
By using the brand and its inherent, socially-defined meaning, game designers can create levels of understanding in game worlds that, rather than take away from the game, contribute to the realism and immersion which players find there.
.jpg?w=600)
