We've come a long way from McKids and Cool Spot, and we've got much further to go apparently: according to an industry analyst group, in five years from now, advertising in videogames will have reached $1 billion. The downturn that the in-game advertising sector has been suffering from non-withstanding, the analysts claim "we have only just begun to explore that potential".
Advertising in gaming in general already does a pretty good gig of sapping the credibility from at least the mainstream section of the art form; last I checked, the Oscars, however goofy they may be at times, do not at least have to suffer the ignominy of the Best Independent Game Fueled By Mountain Dew Award. But in addition to general shamelessness, the industry is also plagued with runaway costs. A billion bucks could go a long way towards helping, but that kind of money brings a lot of concessions, or "potential", to the admen, including perhaps even some creative control. So while we joke that in five years we'll start seeing Final Fantasy characters using Preparation H to soothe wounds from Firaga Spells, or The Annoying Hispanic Guy From Killzone 2 suddenly stopping to talk about how tasty Red Bull is during a firefight, it might not be all that funny five years from now.
This old French PS2 commercial however? Now that's always funny. IN THE FREAKING HEAD.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment