With less than a month to go to the scheduled release date, Electronic Arts have announced that they have finalized a multi-million dollar deal with McDonalds and Intel. Hailed, by many, as a breakthrough move, the deal involves product placement within the Sims Online game.
Product placement, until recently, had been monopolized by Hollywood blockbusters, with movies such as Minority Report generating millions of dollars of revenue from them. The deal achieved by E.A. indicates that the advertising market is beginning to recognize the potential of the, USD 30 Billion, international gaming industry.
Details of the deal have not been released yet but it is expected that Intel logos andPentium 4 based PC's will appear within the game, while McDonalds kiosks will allow players to trade in the company's infamous products and earn some, hard to come by, simoleans. It is also expected that eating McDonalds' products will improve a players standing in the game, something like a health bonus if you will. Whether or not this is the message we want people playing the game to get, is not as important as the realization of this deal.
While you would expect Intel to feature in some game or other, the presence of McDonalds does signify a potential mainstream breakthrough for the market. Sceptics claim that this deal and the others expected to be announced before the games' release, are due to some of the games unique characteristics, most importantly, the even demographic distribution of its players. It is a well known fact that, unlike most PC games, The Sims feature a 50 percent female player figure and the overwhelming majority of players are young people, an obvious target for the burger company.
It seems that if regulating authorities are so eager to give a rating to games based on violence, it should become even more important to give games a suitability of content rating based on the messages those games are trying to pass. It is unlikely however, that any such move will be made.
