Via Clickable Culture comes this CBS news/Gamecore story (and a critique of the story) on advertising in videogames. I’ve not played these games yet so I’ve not seen the ads, but have to admit I’ll be diving in soon. However, in the meantime I suspect Clickable is on the mark in its critique. After all, isn’t the whole point of advertising to get noticed? Seems to me someone like a McDonald’s executive would pay good money to get their golden arches into a futuristic game like the Mars colony based Doom3 – it’d imply that their company will be around a long time and be a great long-term investment. What other kind of advertising has such potential? You could even have the bad guys hold “future” corporate executives hostage (bet they’re still caucasian males). If we’re lucky we can just shoot them too and end the standoff with the baddies. Hey, some of us aren’t interested in gameplay interruptus.

Maybe someone should show a proper example of “subtle and inconspicuous” advertising. We could start with branded litter on the streets of Grand Theft Auto (oh look, an IGN website).