Advertising coming to Xbox 360 achievements

by Kyle Orland on Jul 2nd 2007 12:40PM

They've been embraced by major publishers. They've infected everything from first-person shooters and MMOs. They even occasionally served as the entire basis for a game's existence. Now, in-game advertising's inevitable extension is reaching into a new area -- Xbox Live Achievements.

A quick skim down the list of achievements for EA's upcoming NCAA 08 Football shows sponsored goals such as the "Old Spice Red Zone Perfection" and "Pontiac 4th Quarter Comeback." Each achievement is accompanied by a logo for the company in the achievement's image.

We can only imagine the possibilities for future Xbox 360 games. Halo Around the Collar, sponsored by Tide? Mass Effect sponsored by the Axe Effect? Grand Theft Auto IV's Bounty Beatdown (great for sopping up blood spills)? The possibilities are endless.

Source

Tags: achievements, ads, advertising, EA, Electronic-Arts, in-game advertising, In-gameAdvertising, NCAA, NCAA 08, NCAA football 08, Ncaa08, NcaaFootball08, Old Spice, OldSpice, Pontiac, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (40)

EA makes all this advertising money and still charges 60 for games....and ubisoft too WHY ARE THERE MAN VS WILD ADS IN A CASINO! lower the prices back to 50!
oh and um boooo ads.

rant over continue on.

ahhh, I can also see it now.

GTA4: Trojan Protection: do 5 hookers without getting caught by police.

;)

Not too suprising from EA. They are all about shameless advertising in their games. I would sincerely doubt you would see a move liek this from many other developers, unless of course the advertiser directly contributed something to the game like the Discover Channel did for Gears.

I don't mind the ads, but I don't like that the icon picture is from the brand and not from the game.

Sony Playstation 3 Slideshow: Win a game of NCAA 08 while playing at 30 frames per second (20 GS)

wow this is horrible

SEGA slam: fumbled more than 10 perfectly good passes in a single game

I hate advertising in almost every form. However, you are paying $65 for a videogame about a commercial enterprise sports-team and then complaining about advertisements within it? A sports game is ALL advertisement! Sports teams aren't there for your benefit. They are corporations that exist soley to make money off of people who think that if their city's company wins, they as an individual are somehow superior for awhile.

Complaining about advertising in a sports game is like going to an Opera and complaining that it was all in Italian.

This doesn't bother me at all and I believe you guys are blaming the wrong people.

Sports TV coverage and all it's little piece has have been sponsored for years now. I know for a fact ESPN has the "Pontiac Game Changing Moment" during college football games and I'm guessing that's exactly what that achievement is in reference too. If I recall correctly NCAA 07 had that label on certain replays during the game already. They're not sponsoring the achievement, the moment in real life is sponsored and the moment in the game is sponsored.

IMO, the only people who will come out against this are the EA haters (see Nathan above) and the people who hate sports games.

@copa #5

Nice! jeje

This is frigging ridiculous. I don't mind looking at ads, but they should really pass some of the value on to the customer. Plus, your ads piss people off - is that the goal you want your advertising dollars to achieve? To make people pissed? Sponsor some free map packs like Discovery did - they're the only ones who seem to "get it".

EA wasn't the first to do this...2K actually had Pontiac-branded achievements for participating in their Virtual Final 4 Tournament last year where some kid won a car.

http://www.achieve360points.com/game/collegehoops2k7/

When we're done crying about advertising, check out the "BCS Conference Invite" achievement. That implies that a feature all us NCAA fans have been clamoring for years is finally in the game, I can take PoDunk U. and build them up and eventually get invited to join the SEC or Big 12. Very cool, something I missed if it was included in the game's previews somewhere.

"Ring around the collar" is a Whisk commercial...not Tide.

This is nothing new for EA. The achievements for Fight Night Round 3 are all "beat the (insert advertiser here) sponsored tournament."

Old news man! Already had WAY branded stuff with 'Fight Night: Round 3.'

Sony First Quarter Fumble; drop the ball every other play for at least the first quarter of the game; promise that the next quarter will be much better.

Microsoft Injured Player Challenge; allow 1/3rd of all your players to become injured during the course of the game, replacing them with whoever the last injured player pulled from the game was.

Nintendo Same-Play Showdown; run the exact same play every down while successfully distracting the other team by flailing your arms in the air wildly.

@mccomber,

That's funny and non-partisan. Nice work.

Brian hit the nail on the head: kudos. I didn't need to comment, but wanted to anyway. It's a sports game, if you can deal with the Reebok emblems on the jerseys and shoes, playing in the Staples Center, and having your clock accuracy assured by XM radio, then why shouldn't you understand that this is part of your game.

I hope you were being facetious, Quazi: if you've ever been to Vegas, you'd understand what a blight advertisement is (and make you wish they had kick ass graffiti artists to cover it all up).

The fact is, we shouldn't have to pay $60 for any sports game that isn't the first iteration. Madden, Hot Shots, Tiger Woods, etc. should all be dirt cheap, but they never will be, so deal with it.

Like was said above, EA did the same for FIght Night Round 3. I mean, hell the only achievement I haven't gotten is one sponsored by ESPN. In a Sports Genere game, it adds to it.. in some ways.. is thier mentality. But.. the point is.. This is as much of a symbol of the future as Fight Night was last year

It's EA! What did you expect?

This isn't new. Take a look at EA Sports Fight Night Round 3's achievements. ;)

Can't we have anything without advertising, you damn dirty apes?!

do u guys now how much it cost now to makes games now
they should be charging even more but they wont cause it wont sell they have to find any way to make money

JP (#21)

It doesn't cost nearly as much to make Madden XX than it does to make a new game from the ground up. Companies do have to put more money into making games now, but that doesn't mean they're not still incredibly profitable. Sequels mean ridiculous amounts of money for publishers, when they don't have to develop a new story with new characters, they don't have to build a new engine (or they can just rent one) and they don't have to start from scratch.

Ugh, I just went back and read your sentence (although, according to rules of the English language, I shouldn't even call it that) and realized that you probably won't understand a thing I wrote.

But wait!!!

I payed $399 for the system, $50 for XBOX LIVE, $60 for each of these games? $179 for the 120GB HDD.

Didn't they make enough money? No? Now they have to advertise to make more money?

Oh yeah, it's Micro$oft.

If they are going to trash the games with advertisements then they should LOWER THE FUCKING PRICES already. I don't care if it's cheaper for you to make it with ads,we're the ones playing the game and seeing them,ASSHOLES.

That is very very gay. How much money do you think they paid to have their names on there?

wow how long have they had old spice and pontiac in there game now there just using it for achievements and people crying whats really good they have advertising in alot of games (fight night, rainbow six, etc....)

Adding it to achievements i feel is a little much

Again, advertising should be tasteful, if the game is in a world that is realistic in some way or other (good example, all the Soap Shoes promotions in Sonic Adventure 2's city levels, as well as putting them on Sonic himself)

Yuch.

"21. do u guys now how much it cost now to makes games now they should be charging even more but they wont cause it wont sell they have to find any way to make money"

Do you know how much the cost of manufacturing has decreased? The only reason games originally coast around $50 was because the circuits boards and chips in those carts were incredibly expensive back in the 80's. But now, a disc plus packaging only costs a few cents to manufacture.

The increased cost of manufacturing and inflation are offset by severely decreased cost of manufacturing and increased sales (videogaming is more popular than it used to be).

BTW, Please learn how to use a period.

Ok, you know what? I just re-read my own post and realized I have no right to correct anyone on spelling/grammar. The corrected version:

29. "21. do u guys now how much it cost now to makes games now they should be charging even more but they wont cause it wont sell they have to find any way to make money"

Do you know how much the cost of manufacturing has decreased? The only reason games originally cost around $50 was because the circuit boards and chips in those carts were incredibly expensive back in the 80's. But now, a disc plus packaging only costs a few cents to manufacture.

The increased cost of development (but only in the case of certain games, as Jose #23 pointed out) and inflation are offset by severely decreased cost of manufacturing and increased sales (videogaming is more popular than it used to be).

BTW, Please learn how to use a period.

As long as the advertisement is passive, like this is, or fits right into what you would expect from a game, like NASCAR ads everywhere, I am all for this. I want devs to make money, even EA. It will result in us getting more good big budget games. If they can make a few bucks doing something like this that doesn't hurt my experience, then go for it.

Incidentally, I drive a Pontiac and use Old Spice Red Zone deodorant. Maybe I'm just a biased fanboy.

No no no, there are enough places to advertise on, i don't want to see them in my achievements. I'm not going to see a cut in the prices of my games now that every facet of video gaming is going to have an advertisement attached to it. This whole guinea pig and micro-rape-ment era of videogames is really annoying me, and if this is a sign of things to come i'm quitting gaming!

All I have to say to this is: UGH.

This means nothing about the future of gaming, it just shows that the idiots that buy the 45th iteration of Madden (or whatever they're calling it now) don't know shit about shit.

idc about using periods its the internet

if the price of games won't go down because of advertisers. the price of XBL should.

after all, Achievements are a part of XBL. and there's no where on XBL now you can avoid an ad.

.

Advertising has been a part of video games for a couple decades now...and why wouldn't you want them to be? Do you want your character to drive past fake company billboards, reminding you that you're in a false environment, or would you prefer that it be as true to life as possible?

I hate watching a movie when the characters are drinking an obviously fake brand of soda or beer...i hate it just as much in a game.

To those who think it's going to ruin gaming...I highly doubt that EA is going to have Frodo wearing a FUBU hoodie in the next LOTR game...relax.

And if my "red zone" achievement in NCAA FB makes sense (and considering that Old Spice sponsors the red zone during real games, i think that it does make perfect sense), what do i care?

also...Abscissa...what gaming company, making next gen games...is spending LESS money to develop and market games than they did even two years ago? You sir, are on the reefer.

more reason that EA is a heartless money grubbing machine

at least I never look at my achievements, so on the very rare chance i even buy an EA game, I won't even see these ads

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Advertising coming to Xbox 360 achievements

Reader Comments (40)

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