Cultural Currency

This recent Gamasutra feature discusses the use of brands as "cultural currency" as they relate to the issue of in-game advertising. The author suggests that designers can in fact think of brands as tools in their toolkit. As he writes in his conclusion:

You can use advertising to exploit cultural preconceptions about known items that then serve as a kind of shorthand for aspects of your game world. And that sort of attitude turns the tables on in-game advertisers, making advertising a tool in the hands of the designer, rather than one in the hands of the brand, agency, or network.

While this sounds great in theory, in practice I am relatively confident that players will still view in-game advertising as exactly what it is: something to enhance the bottom line, not something to enhance gameplay.

However, I do think there are creative ways to bring advertisers to your game, and this is a point of discussion for our team as you read this!