Big Mac Attacked
Belief:
What if People Actually Treated Religion as Just a Metaphor (Like Trekkies and Secular Jews)?
Greta Christina
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace:
15 Signs American Society Is Coming Apart at the Seams
David DeGraw
DrugReporter:
When It’s Crunch Time at College, Students Turn to Adderall
Erik Hayden
Environment:
20 Weird, Crazy Ideas for Helping the Earth
Food:
The War on Soy: Why the 'Miracle Food' May Be a Health Risk and Environmental Nightmare
Tara Lohan
Health and Wellness:
Pharmaceutical Giant Paid $500,000 to Psychiatrist Who Used Chicago's Poor as Guinea Pigs
Christina Jewett and Sam Roe
Immigration:
Dobbs' Resignation Was Long Overdue
Janet Murguía
Media and Technology:
Is Right-Wing Media Hustler Trying to "Blackmail" Obama's Attorney General over ACORN Videos?
David Edwards, Muriel Kane
Movie Mix:
The Yes Men: Pranksters Out to Fix the World
Mark Engler
Politics:
New Right-Wing Craze: Using Bible Quote to Pray That Obama’s 'Days Be Few'
Amanda Terkel
Reproductive Justice and Gender:
Hey Guys, Don't Want Kids? A Vascetomy Is Probably the Way to Go
Anna Clark
Rights and Liberties:
Economic Crisis Is Getting Bloody -- Violent Deaths Are Now Following Evictions, Foreclosures and Job Losses
Nick Turse
Sex and Relationships:
How Abstinence-Only Programs Perpetuate Dangerous Stereotypes
Martha Kempner
Take Action:
G-20 Meetings: Nothing Much Happened in the Suites, and There Was Too Much Punch in the Streets
Laura Flanders
Water:
Poseidon's Financial Shell Game: Why Is a Private Desalination Plant Asking for Public Money?
Peter Gleick
World:
Army Sends Mom to Afghanistan, Infant to Protective Services
Dahr Jamail
Remember when movie theatres only showed a few previews before a film? Remember when they added commercials to the mix? Videogames were advertisement-free once, too. Long lusted after as a vehicle for commercial messaging, games have finally joined the ranks of the rest of the entertainment industry.
In the soon-to-be blockbuster The Sims Online, players could find it difficult to avoid getting their fingers soiled on virtual McDonald's hamburgers. A deal struck between Sims publisher Electronic Arts and the fastfood mega-corporation allows Sims players to open up their own McDonald's kiosk and improve their game stats by consuming McD's greasy goodies. While news of this groundbreaking sponsorship deal fades quickly from memory, failure to address this latest barrage in the war on ad-free gaming could result in a super-sized sandwich of misery. Based on the success of previous Sims offerings, The Sims Online is an ideal high-profile backdrop in the war against "advergaming." The McDonald's kiosks that dot the imaginary battlefield are mere burger bunkers to be ad-busted in an anti-advergaming mission that could go down in the annals of gaming history.
The Sims Online website crows, "Let your imagination run wild. Choose your online role and play your way in this unpredictable, infinite, online world." Your online role, should you choose to stand against advertising in games, is that of Revolutionary.
Your motivation is simple. Product placement weakens the overall aesthetic of a game in ways more insidious than movie- or television-based placement -- moving from passive directly to aggressive, from inactive to interactive. It used to be enough for advertisers that we merely observed their product. Now, in an increasing number of games, becoming immersed in a company's brand is integral and inevitable. What benefit do we reap from this immersion? Our gaming experience is cheapened, but game titles are no less expensive. Publishers have already set the price of a computer game two to three times that of a new DVD movie. Will games with integrated advertising be any less expensive than games without? Not bloody likely.
Know this, future rebel: Deeply-integrated marketing is a double-edged sword. Once the strategic sponsorship deal was signed, both parties were locked into a digital dungeon of their own devise. Shakes, fries, and pimply-faced employees are irrevocably etched on to every CD of The Sims Online.
In an online world with no way to address challenges to their brand, we've got McDonald's right where we want them.
The ad-busting revolution needs clever soldiers, able to use their Sims avatar and the entire world of The Sims Online to their advantage. These anti-corporate activists must play within the rules of The Sims Online, but push the boundaries to the breaking point in order to get the attention of fellow citizens and the real world media. It's been reported that eating virtual McDonald's hamburgers will positively affect your "Fun" and "Hunger" game stats. But what if you're a vegetarian? What if you're an eco-activist? What if you think it's more Fun dining at Biff's Family Restaurant? Although the game hasn't hit the stores yet, the free public beta is open. The time to act is now. Log in, Revolutionary, and fight the good fight:
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15 Signs American Society Is Coming Apart at the Seams Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace: Are we nearing a tipping point as rapacious elites push a heavily armed populace too far? By David DeGraw, Amped Status. November 21, 2009. |
Naomi Klein: 'No Logo' Revisited In the new introduction to the re-release of her classic book, 'No Logo,' Klein explores how ad culture has thrived and adapted in the past decade. By Naomi Klein, Picador Press. November 21, 2009. |
Is Right-Wing Media Hustler Trying to "Blackmail" Obama's Attorney General over ACORN Videos? Media and Technology: Andew Breitbart appears to be threatening to release more ACORN smear videos to avoid a serious DOJ investigation. By David Edwards, Muriel Kane, Raw Story. November 21, 2009. |
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