I love Alan Wake. The game's creepy atmosphere, engaging gameplay and awesome visuals hooked me, but what impressed me most was the carefully crafted story. It's a story that you can take seriously--at least at first. Check out our Alan Wake review for more.
In Episode Four, though, there's a piece of product placement that's so jarring, so nonsensical, and so downright bad, it's the fictional equivalent of a game-killing glitch. Check it out below the cut... (Spoiler warning, of course.)
Keep in mind, at this point in the story, we're unsure if the insane asylum which Wake is escaping from exists in real life and is haunted, or is some twisted figment of his imagination. Either way, why would there be a commercial on TV? The electricity is being controlled by the swirling darkness outside. Does the evil force want Wake to buy a Mustang? For that matter, why would Alan stand there and watch?
This is way different and way worse than a billboard in the background or a TV commercial in the "real" world -- those can be justified within the fictional universe. To add insult to injury, you even get an achievement for sitting though Verizon's pitch. The argument about whether games are Art is ridiculous in the face of this kind of evidence -- it's obvious games are commerce.
I like to think the character of Emerson, a video game designer driven mad by the pressures of his industry, is a sly response to the money-over-art mindset that put this commercial in the game. Check out Emerson in the video below:
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Selkes
Overreacting is overreacting.
Seriously...it wasn't THAT big of a deal. It doesn't "kill the immersion" like some say. If that really is the case then you must be using some sort of medication. The game doesn't put you in a trance so I just don't get it.
esjay
... he said as G4's pre-roll ads played before the in-game videos.
Someone will have to explain to me how real in-game commercials for real products appearing on the TV are less realistic than in-game commercials for fake products and fake shows in Max Payne.
Say what you want, but Remedy broke up all of the scary stuff in both Max Payne games with humor inserted everywhere. It didn't need to fit the mood of the game, and that's why it feels so natural.
Cathartic Denoument
WTF.??
Thats just despicable.
Was that commercial suppose to "relieve tension"?
[[Sigh]] Well, at least, now, I know to look out for it, so I can skip it entirely.
HAH! Thanks for doing me a favor, G4!! (^_^)
prol33tariat
you better hope that real soon, talented people start drawing the line in the sand, and turn their backs on money, to INSURE THEIR PASSION has integrity.
Coders need a union, Beta testers ( there are 100,000 in america alone) need a union, we are a huge resource, that get peddled through third party temp agencies and thrown around like trash, we have families.
people whom work on video games, are not just a game. Grow some self respect.
superdeeduper51
Alan Wake certainly is one of the worst cases of product placement I've ever seen, but it doesn't really bother me that much. It does seem to get more and more predominant as you make your way through the game. It starts off subtle, like the word Lincoln being proudly brandished across the rear of Wake's car and then it starts to become much more "in-your-face". I do find it incredibly distracting when I'm trying to get into the storyline of the game when Wake suddenly looks at his cell-phone which happens to have Verizon Wireless shamelessly branded on it, or when during another one of the cut-scenes we find that Microsoft's Synch system is the center of attention. It's not a huge problem, but it does end up hurting the overall experience in the long run.
H2OGoliath
What I don't seem to get is, why is this such a big deal. I LOVE this game. I'm not gonna let something as stupid as a subject like this make me not like this game more than I already do.
ScreamingFalcon
Ok, enough about this game!!! Or am I the only one that remembers that the "venerated" Pikmin 2 from the GameCube (oh yes, I'm ripping into the all-mighty Nintendo here people!) was nothing BUT Product Placement ads for all the crap you picked up with your Pikmin?!?!?! Seesh!!!!
All this because of an achievement for starting an ad? All you got to do is start it, not sit there and watch the stupid thing! As for the battery and car crap, I like those because it draws a bit of "reality" into an otherwise out-in-left-field concepted game.
And as for Emerson, I feel he's there for the developers to have their representative in the asylum (or sanitarium, as they like to be called these days) to voice their own frustrations over the nasty development process that they have to deal with these days. Not only do they have to deal with we the (often insane) gamers and the (sometimes insane and usually corrupt) critics, they have tons of pressure from the corporate big-wigs breathing down their necks to make something that will make them money and often wind up losing their families and friends due to the immense pressure. I mean, it took 10 years from concept drawings to disc in your hands, that is alot of time to make something and then subject it to nitpickers complaining about a few tiny bits that they threw in as something to make you think or to break the tension a bit.
As for me, I think the game's great! We'll have to see what the boys at Remedy can do next, they've actually managed to top Max Payne 2!
SexualHobbit
video games can have advertisements in them, but there's a distinction to be made when the ad works against the game. If i were to pick up batteries and use them in game and they are actual energizers, the game isn't worse for the wear. But that whole sequence is supposed to be unsettling and scary. When you put an ad like that, like many people said so far, it pulls you out of the game. You get angry, you laugh, you do anything but feel unsettled when you see a Verison ad.whether you think video game advertisement is viable in a game or not, it was still a stupid way to implement it.
TAYREL713
Seriously the achievement for "watching" the commercial pops as soon as you turn the TV on, you don't have to watch anything. This advertising is no worse than anything you seeing movies or television. Gamers as a whole have become a bunch of grumpy old men pining for the good old days and wringing our hands over an old film critic liking us. How bout, and this is going to seem radical, we just play and enjoy the games we want, leave the kvetching to old ladies playing canasta in Florida.
MPSai
I found this ad later in the game, at the time I had no idea it was a real ad, I didn't watch it to the end. But I had already found the blatant Energizer product placement a bit distracting, and during the last level every goddamn billboard said "Verizon" on it.
jjreinem
As someone with a career as an artist (At least I think so. Last I checked there weren't any film critics saying that novels don't count anymore.) I take issue to the statement that art and commerce are mutually exclusive.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but most of the people I've known who believe in the whole purist "art for art's sake" spiel aren't artists. They're people who don't have to depend on their creative output for their next meal. The truth is that while people like to pretend that artistic expression is something that transcends the reality of economics, art has always had a commercial element to it. And believe it or not, that hasn't stopped people from creating great art in the past. In fact it's allowed them to create more art, as a professional artist has the luxury of being able to devote far more time and effort towards improving and refining their craft.
Now, does that mean that occasionally you have to make some concessions in your artistic vision in order to produce something that will actually sell? Yes, it does. But that's not always a bad thing either. Frankly, a lot of the time those concessions are elements that really only worked inside the artist's own head to begin with. And while it does hurt when that isn't the case, eviction and starvation hurt a whole lot more.
Profesional artists have to make a living, just like anyone else. And that means adapting their creative output to accomodate commercial realities. Is it annoying to see product placement in games? Yes. But does that mean they automatically lose their imaginary "artist license" for allowing a largely optional bit of advertising to intrude on your experience? Absolutely not. The presence of a Verizon commercial doesn't erase all the writing, acting, and design work that went into making the game what it was. And if the reminder that artists have to eat too is unpalatable, that's not their fault.
Alan Wake was under development for the better part of a decade. That's a pretty hefty payroll to have to meet every month. The odds are that without the money brought in by the product placement, it would have been much more difficult for Remedy to continue producing the game at its current level of quality. I'm sure Microsoft invested a lot as well, but that's a risky gamble to be taking on a game that a lot of people considered vaporware. And all those investors do expect to make that money back somehow. Would you have preferred if they passed those costs on to the consumer and charged $100 per copy? And would it have served anyone if they produced an "artistically pure" game experience that no one could afford to play?
William Shakespeare's historical plays were largely indended to portray his patrons' ancestors in the best possible light. He turned villains into heroes, enobled peasants, and even went for cheap laughs all in the name of ensuring a full house every night. And today they are rightly considered to be some of the greatest dramas ever written, despite their commercial motiviations. And if we have somehow lost our ability to look beyond a few logos and billboards to see the artistic value of the experience they helped fund then the failing lies with the player, not the game.
Kagehiru
Please, games as art? Who are you, Roger Ebert? Of course games are art, and just like the various mediums before video games, artists bowed down to their corporate sponsors. You might have heard of a few of these guys... Michelangelo, Shakespeare, and Spielberg? All recognized as masters in their craft and all of them, at one point in time or another, have played to their sponsors. Alan Wake is no different.
rawrawjonisaur
help me, i just baught 300 energizer batterys, a seesee tevo TV and a LEXUS!!!
rawrawjonisaur
help me, i just baught 300 energizer batterys, a seesee tevo tv and a LEXUS! help!!
g4faster
Stephen, you're tilting. Artists have been making money through paid commissions for hundreds and hundreds of years. Sometimes they were resentful about the necessity, as you can see Bruegel's "Painter and the Connoisseur" http://www.humanitiesweb.org/g allery/182/182.jpg The thing is, we view these commercially painted things as art. Advertising works a bit differently, to be sure, and the argument as to whether advertising can be art is likely not to be settled, except that a lot of old advertising will be considered potential art. Old car and alcohol ads, drawings by Latrec, and concert posters already enjoy this status.
I think the way they inserted the ad was a mistake, however, it would probably pleasantly date the game if someone were to play it 10+ years from now.
Also you said: "we're unsure if the insane asylum which Wake is escaping from exists in real life and is haunted, or is some twisted figment of his imagination. Either way, why would there be a commercial on TV?"
Why would there be a commercial on a TV? Are you daft? TVs show commercials. It's no stranger for a electricity spirit to allow a TV to be on than to allow a table lamp to be on. The real question is, why does the TV just turn off after the ad? It would have made more sense for a generic TV show to come on, fade to static and then the TV explodes.
Spybreak
You know GTAIV had FAKE ads and they worked. Now you don't get paid by fake ads but then again that's one main reason it was only in a select few like GTAIV.
Kotiya
Regardless, one of the greatest appeals of video games, particularly the modern, sophisticated ones, is being able to immerse yourself into a fantasy world and for a little while get away from all the crap in the real one. Having a Verizon commercial (which are the most annoying of the cell phone ads) suddenly blare at you is just cruel and NOT cool, something that would make Verizon customers count down the months until they can get out of their contract and annoy any sensible person into considering T Mobile, etc. instead.
I much prefer, say, the mock-ads in Fallout 3, which were art in themselves and added to the feel of the story and setting. At the VERY least modify the ads to match the story setting. They could have taken a LOT of artistic initiative with the ads to make them creepy or entertaining. Make the energizer rabbit gradually take on a sinister, Frank the Bunny-like appearance throughout the game, or have his wife's voice or specter in the Verizon commercial. They were just being lazy. It would have at least tailored the ads to the audience, typically MTV-generation males who like a little darkness in their media.
wooo chatty cathy over here...
Kotiya
Meh...It's sad and tacky, I mean I hate ads and they ruin art, unless they are fictional parody ads that enrich the setting and mock our own annoying blight with commercials. However the recession is hurting the video game industry and they may have had no other choice to get this game released. Just try to work with it. Laugh off the absurdity of it, remember being a little kid and if there was a commercial on the TV in class all the kids would start laughing?
So he may or may not be in a dream world. Maybe his subconscious mind has been thoroughly polluted by years of obtrusive ads, and now they even haunt his dreams, maybe every so often he gets a PTSD-flashback of a commercial if he glances at a TV screen. He's a writer and they're pretty crazy anyway. Just throw in some social commentary and it doesn't ruin the mood of the story so much. Maybe it's Verizon following him around everywhere that is making him lose his mind or what ever, maybe he is brainwashed into seeing every battery as an Energizer battery even if they are rusty off-brand ones and that's why he goes through them so quickly. It's totally okay to flex your own creative muscle and use some imagination in the game, you're supposed to "be" the character after all.
YongToo
OH wow, most impressive dude, I like it.
Lou
www.complete-anonymity.at.tc
ChomskyKnows
eff verizon
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