http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/plug … es/1410897

Well, hopefully publishers and advertisers have that sense,

and most of the games featuring ads are EA games, e.g., Madden or NFL, in which advertising is featured in the real world, but Alan Wake? They could just as well put ads into, say, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, or hell, even Devil May Cry...those're all set in our contemporary era, though in fictional places. Any place where it makes sense to have contemporary era billboards and advertisements...

What's next? Answering marketing surveys in-between missions of the latest $60 game?! Or how about ads in your instruction manual for stuff not even related to gaming, much less the game itself? Or ads flashing before the title screen?

More and more, the 360 and PS3 are looking all that much more unappealing to me. After all, I hear FFXIII was a complete wash...

I don't really have a problem with product placement in itself, as long as it's not obnoxious.
Alan Wake's battery thing never bothered me for a single second, but that's largely because I wasn't aware it was an actual brand...

When the game starts having actual commercials in it for actual products though, that's where I draw the line (didn't Alan Wake have those too?). I can deal with some billboards along the side of the road, but actual commercials are a bit too much.

It's kinda interesting in Crazy Taxi, since it's basically a modern day city.

Of course the PSP port replaced everything with generic names...

There are a couple of problems associated with it. Firstly, where to draw the line. Some big movies are ridiculous and shots of the front of a car coming right up to the screen just to show me a logo take me completely out of a movie. Men In Black 2 and I Robot jump to mind - I can't even remember what was in either movie but I remember being more horrified by the blatant product placement than anything else in the movies.

The other is when advertisers start calling the shots. Gran Turismo is a messy one in terms of licensing but it's an example where (if the official story is to be believed) the license-holders would not approve any damage features on the cars. Big companies dictating content. That's a problem in other media, even down to news stories being pulled in order to satisfy particular advertisers, so there's no reason to think it won't come up in gaming.

Personally, I could very much do without it. The amount of advertising in our world has gone way beyond ridiculous as it is.

I like fake ads in video games, like the stuff they put into GTA Vice City. It makes the world more alive and cohesive. But putting ads for real companies in fake words just doesn't bode well with me. We just paid $50/$60 for a game; do we really need to see ads while we're playing? Answer: no. Also, go eat a bag of dicks.

However. There are exceptions to the rule.

One of the worst offenders in this category has to be Twisted Metal III and 4, which ended up being an advertising vehicle (literally) for Rob Zombie. Don't get me wrong, I like Zombie but by the time they have him his own car in 4, I grew tired of it.

Still, if you're going to talk about advertising/promotion in games, I think you need to talk about self promotion. Capcom is famous for this and they (usually) know how to balance it so it's not a cry for attenton. A few examples:

Mega Man X4:
The buildings in the background of the Sky Lagoon flash CAPCOM
Mega Man Legends:
The girl hanging outside the computer programming school says "she wants to learn how to make games like Resident Evil!"
In the toy store you can view "that new game called Mega Man Legends. It looks pretty interesting!"

Additionally, I always thought the Pizza Hut Logos in the TMNT games were pretty clever.

Exactly.
If they're going to throw real ads in there, at least they should have the decency to make the games cheaper.

Or, maybe games ARE so insanely expensive to make, that they need to get sponsors on board, besides just making us pay $50-60 for them...

I'm fine with it as long as it makes sense in context.  For example, sports and racing games.  Also, the product placement in Alan Wake, while a bit too noticeable, is still logical (or at least it was in the first half-hour of the game that I played).  I definitely don't want to see real world ads in fantasy or surreal games.