Advertising Standards: pre-rendered trailers "misleading"

[Varsity]

From GamesIndustry.biz (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=14891):The UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld complaints from three television viewers that adverts depicting scenes from Activision title Call of Duty 2 and its current generation console counterpart CoD2: Big Red One were misleading, and declared that they must not be shown again in their present forms.

The adjudication, published today, is likely to send shockwaves through the industry as it focuses on the question of whether pre-rendered footage is an acceptable representation of a computer game - in its defence, Activision didn't argue that it was, but rather that using pre-rendered footage was "common practice".Source & full story (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=14891)

'Good' is all I can say.

[Sion]

I still remember the stupid rednecks who started bitching that FFVII didnt look like the ads.

[Zeal]

I also heard that Halo 2 didn't look like its ads.

[Bushido]

Stop the madness! enough of the bullshit and lies.

[TheKeck]

It can be confusing. My dad was totally excited about how Brothers in Arms looked on a commercial he saw. When I saw the commercial I had to break it to him... that's not the game.

[GunnyMo]

All this means is that marketers will add a "Not actual game footage" tag somewhere in the ad. Big whoop. Showing cars flying and going underwater hasn't stopped Ford and Jeep from making those commercials. Disclaimers are wonderful things. No shockwaves just ripples on the surface.

[Zeal]

Stop the madness! enough of the bullshit and lies.

I have forwarded your request to Bungie.

[Mozgus]

This shit does need to stop. Nintendo has always been great about their ads. They usually just do some live-action parady of some event in the game, then it shows 10 seconds of gameplay, and finally a Nintendo logo. Sony also tends to do this with their Jak series, and some others.

There is absolutely no fucking reason why ALL of the ads (that I have seen) for the 360 were pre-rendered. Isn't this supposed to be the most powerful console? Or do the visuals only offer a slight improvement over last gen?

[Reanimated]

Looks like Fony is fucked. What will they do when they can't show CG trailers of Killzone?

How will they sell the sequel to a pile of shit game without the assistance of bullshit hype?

[Zanzibar]

I saw our game, Madagascar, pre-rendered in high-res on TV and went 'Uhhhh....' It was really odd. The characters were doing the same moves that our in-game characters do, but they just rendered it with correct lighting and so forth. Just nutty. This definitely needs to stop.

[Grimmjow]

I saw our game, Madagascar, pre-rendered in high-res on TV and went 'Uhhhh....' It was really odd. The characters were doing the same moves that our in-game characters do, but they just rendered it with correct lighting and so forth. Just nutty. This definitely needs to stop.

i agree i saw it also...i oftenly mistaken our game "call of duty 2 for the call of duty: big red one" when i happen to walk in or switch a channel BUT if anybody knows about games the nthey should know thaty most companies do the same thing and that there is no system in this day of age that can make a game play like that

[Grimmjow]

Looks like Fony is fucked. What will they do when they can't show CG trailers of Killzone?

How will they sell the sequel to a pile of shit game without the assistance of bullshit hype?


didnt know we was talking bout sony here :D

[The Continental]

didnt know we was talking bout sony here :D

Its customary for every thread to degrade into a fanboi debate at some point, you should just assume it will and be ready for it.

[Watership]

I have forwarded your request to Bungie.

I don't recall Halo2's ad campaign.. was it full of art and CG that wasn't in the game?

[kanzaki]

Reminds me of back in the days, when you had in ad in a comic book with labelled screenshots from every system... it worked well, and it sure as heck sold a lot of Colecovisions when you saw them next to the Atari and Intellivision counterparts.

[Pluvious]

Good.. its about time someone was held accountable and gets called on it. Everytime I see video of games now, I suspect prerendered first thing. Killzone, MotorStorm, and KillingDay are BS. Who do they think they're kidding?..

[KhitomerRouge]

Looks like Fony is fucked. What will they do when they can't show CG trailers of Killzone?

How will they sell the sequel to a pile of shit game without the assistance of bullshit hype?Sony isn't advertising Killzone, so they don't fall in this category. SCEA commercials tend to be much more representative of their products than most *cough* EA *cough*.

[KhitomerRouge]

Good.. its about time someone was held accountable and gets called on it. Everytime I see video of games now, I suspect prerendered first thing. Killzone, MotorStorm, and KillingDay are BS. Who do they think they're kidding?..So you've actually played all these games and are more than qualified to tell us what they look like, right?

[Pluvious]

So you've actually played all these games and are more than qualified to tell us what they look like, right?

Have YOU seen the videos from last E3?.. I saved them on my rig. They are NOT going to reflect actual gameplay. No way. Google them..

edit: Here http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/driving/motorstorm/download_ini.html?sid=6125053&mode=gameplay

[Taco]

There is absolutely no fucking reason why ALL of the ads (that I have seen) for the 360 were pre-rendered. Isn't this supposed to be the most powerful console? Or do the visuals only offer a slight improvement over last gen?

Sony and MS know they can never live up to the hype their marketing machines create, so they wok to avoid shattering that illusion until they have your money. Simple stuff.

[Deadend]

I am against the pre-rendering of footage that is supposed to be GAMEPLAY. That doesn't mean cut-scene shots thrown in, that means what the game is supposed to look like, and it is being faked. Even though there will always be a little bit of touching up, which isn't that bad, with HD-TV. Even though I hate when I see un-cleaned up game footage on the movie screen trailers, nothing makes a game look quite as bad as streaching it super large.

[outontheporch]

Seriously, needs to stop. For people who aren't on the internet every minute like us, parents for example, when they see a commercial it's all they have to go on. It's deceiving.

[MrMeatshake]

definately is deceiving. in-game FMV being used in advertising is pretty bad, but specially created FMV is just purposefully deceiving.

these days there seems to be less pre-rendered FMV sequences in games, and more in-engine ones, which is much better for the games, but worrysome in that the advertisers might go back to just creating thier own promotional videos. i think there does need to be a message that showing something you can never even see on a console in an advert for it is just fucking lying.

does remind me of the old days where you couldn't even see a screenshot on the boxes of some games, it was all just artwork...

[Demize99]

I like how their defense is "everyone does it!" Shit, next time I get a speeding ticket I'm gonna try that.

[bboy]

The only game that flies in the face of this is.......Resident Evil 4 for the Gamecube. Sure it looks like the commercials are all cutscenes but that's the game baby...didn't need to no stinking CG garbage to lie to us!

Best graphics, hands down! No FMV needed. Cut scenes all rendered by the game engine in realtime. =)

[Shifter]

**Sarcasm set to high**

Marketers doing what they can to promote or create interest for a product in a highly competitive environment? Oh nos!!

Looks like we'll have to start telling the beer companies not to show hot chicks hanging out with normal-looking guys, the car ads showing miles of empty highway or high-speed desert flats, the drug companies showing nothing but happy well-rested people, the snack companies showing flashy animated characters interracting with small children, etc... etc... etc...

What do you mean my insurance isn't going to be sold to me by a talking Gecko?? What, my Budweiser isn't actually delivered to me by prancing Clydesdales??

Using a pre-rendered movie to illustrate the action, plot or theme of a game is simply a tool just like any other to create enthusiasm and hype. And it works. Look at us talking about it right now...

Sooner or later though the game comes out and it has to stand on its own.

p.s. i'm not a publisher or anything, it's just my point of view.

[Taco]

At least car and beer companies show the actual product.

[TheHulk]

If we had something like this in the US they wouldn't be able to show any commercials for EA Sports games... I don't think I've ever seen a Madden commercial with actual gameplay footage.

[TheFlyingOrc]

One of the biggest problems is that a lot of the 360's appeal is in the form of it's HDTV compatability, and you CANNOT show HD graphics on a standard def TV advertisement. To make their games appear pretty, they have to BS pre-renders, or you can't tell the difference.

[Beelzebud]

I had to explain to my nephews that the Call of Duty 2 ads were NOT in-game footage. They thought the game would look just like the commerical.

It's deceptive advertising. Plain and simple.

[defcon311]

Well, yeah, deceptive with a disclaimer. I'm not saying that makes it all better, though.

As for beer and cars, Taco is right (most of his posts are so quirky!). His post also made me think that I would have never needed an ad for a hot sportscar to make me think that I could do really stupid stuff in it and get hot chicks. Besides, all sorts of 'normal' guys get gorgeous girls. Attraction is not purely sex-based, although having a horse wang probably helps.

It would be nice if there was a change in advertisements just so that I could see more game and less fluff. Financial penalties aren't completely necessary. A good company has good ads, and worried companies have 'fixed' ads.

[Logik]

Call of Duty 2 was a particularly bad ad, given that they made it appear as though it was in-game footage by showing you the same FPS point-of-view you'd see in the game. That kind of stuff is misleading for sure. Ads like the one for the new XMen console game, where all in-game footage was replaced with really corny CGI action sequences, are obviously showing stuff that has nothing to do with the game itself.

[HardScores]

Well, I think it was King Kong (not going to put the totally ridiculous title here) that had "ACTUAL GAMEPLAY FOOTAGE" at the bottom during the ad, mostly because it looked awesome on 360.

Other than that, yes, CG ads need to go. Unless we are aware of it beforehand. However, keep in mind that not everyone who buys games knows what they are looking at is CG or not. This movement isn't for us, it's for 8 year-old kids that can only buy pretty much one game a year or parents buying christmas presents.

It's like watching a Star Wars trailer featuring lightsabers, except in the movie all the lightsaber battles have been removed. Wouldn't you be pissed off?

[Mr. Lake]

God forbid consumers know what the game REALLY looks like before they buy it. Oh, wait, that's exactly what God forbids.

[Beelzebud]

A lot of you are going at this issue only as an adult. Do you have kids, or does anyone around you have kids?

Do you really think kids read disclaimers, in tiny print, on the bottom of the screen? They don't. By the time that disclaimer comes up they are too busy freaking about how damn cool the game looked.

[HardScores]

That's what I said! It's like when 90% of the commercial is the cartoon/anime it is based on. Kids think it's awesome, ignore the 10% sucky gameplay footage.