OrtizGames

Still working on the SPORE review. Expect it at some point this week/weekend.

In other news, I was reading the blog for Braid (which I can only assume must be written by Jonathan Blow) when I came across this post, which pointed me to a sound byte of two annoyingly-voiced teenagers griping and a Youtube video of David Lynch being David Lynch (beware explicit language).

No disrespect to either Jonathan Blow or David Lynch, but I was really rather disgusted by their obstinacy.

Here’s what I had to say–and say it I did on the blog post comments.

I think it’s absurd to believe in-game advertising cannot be beneficial and should be removed entirely. Developing a game is expensive. Making a game is expensive. You have to pay people, you have to pay budget costs, you have to pay engines, you have to pay publishers and production costs, you have to pay shipping and distribution. And in the end, how much does your game sell for? Sixty bucks. Fifty. Forty. Ten. Then it’s pirated. Sold as Used in Gamestop. Less money made by the developer. Revenue lost. No profits. Studio closes down. Endgame.

Any money a game can make before it’s actually shipped that is not a debt can be incredibly beneficial for the developer, allowing them to produce more of the same quality work they produced with that first “added” game. As long as the ads are not blatant and a hindrance to gameplay, I can’t really complain. Yes, they seem to destroy the essence of a game at times. But would you rather have something pure or would you rather see your favorite studio shut its doors permanently? I want to see my game developer favorites stay afloat.

You can’t escape advertising. You can’t ban it. It’s everywhere. On your clothes. On your car. On the street. Billboards, shop signs, logos. TV shows, radio programs, music and jingles. Your mom’s stories. Your best friend’s opinion on what game you should play. It’s an AD. It’s selling the qualities of a work in order to obtain the exchange of money. Going out and posting about a game on a forum–it’s an AD. News about a revolutionary game called Braid–it’s a fucking AD.

You NEED ads. You need to advertise. Sometimes games would never see the numbers they raked in without ads, have you thought of that? Some extremely beneficial TV shows like 60 minutes get an absurd amount of revenue from ads.

If the main character in a game is drinking from a Coke can, are you seriously going to complain?

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