Apparently the Obama campaign is placing ads in Burnout Paradise.
(From GigaOM.)
Fascinating, but I also find the whole idea of in-game ads a little disturbing. Imagine playing Lumines with commercials – I could be made to buy anything.
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My name is Jesper Juul, and I am a Ludologist [researcher of the design, meaning, culture, and politics of games]. This is my blog on game research and other important things.
This is more direct than we’ve seen before, but live ads in internet connected games aren’t new. But again, usually far more subtle. Just in time for me to be assigned a paper…
I wonder if the players, when deeply focused on playing the game, will still realize the content of the ads ;)
After all, several studies (including Jesper’s) points out that the players are able to “mentally filter” the information displayed by the game to keep the only information relevant to win.
So, are these kind of in-game advertising non related to gameplay really useful or efficient ?