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But why in-game? I look at Oddysee as a piece of art. New n Tasty could be the same way, but the advertisements plainly devalue that art. You don't see a handful of half-page ads printed in great novels, and you don't hear "try the new breakfast sandwich at Subway" in classic songs.
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No, you get a list of similar books from the publisher at the back. And albums frequently credit artists who inspired them in the liner notes, or what snacks kept them going.
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It's just kind of shocking that JAW... actually decided to throw product placement in to make some extra cash. Unless you did that completely pro-bono, there's no excuse.
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They did. Are they excused?
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I feel disrespected as a fan.
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I feel indifferent as a fan.
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Call it an overreaction, but it isn't.
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"Have an opinion, but you're wrong if you do".
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Thinking "eh, I don't like it, but it's not THAT bad" is the kind of mentality that allows for this trend to continue and to grow.
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Grow!? Oh no! Because right now, indie games being promoted for free is absolutely the worst form of product placement we've seen in a video game.
Who knows where it could go from here
We've already seen how bad things can get, in the triple-A tiers, with money changing hands. OWI are demonstrating
restraint by keeping the ads benign, unintrusive and charitable. They're not showing indies how to be worse, they're showing the big guys how to be better.
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I sincerely hope you understand my being upset.
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Because you're an overly-entitled hipster who defines their self-image by the enjoyment of a video game too stubbornly to appreciate that it was made by talented human beings with goals and motives of their own?
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Imagine if there was an advert for Sharknado in the background halfway through Pulp Fiction?
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>Implying there's no product placement in movies
And for those lamenting this as a failure of Oddworld's anti-corporate philosophy, it's actually quite the opposite. In one of his interviews, Lorne went on at length about how "trust is the new currency". He believes people are starting to see through the smog of ads that surrounds them, and assign more value to a passing recommendation from a friend than they do to ad placements that cost millions of dollars. It's a good direction for the world to be going, and this is his way of helping to usher in that new, post-internet mindset.
"We don't have loads of money, or loads of power. But we make this thing you like, you like us, and these are the things
we like. You might like them too."
Just for the record, I do still think the ads break immersion, and would rather they were just in the menus. But it's reeaally not something I'm going to be losing sleep over.