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Episode 99 of The Instance included an interesting news item regarding an interview with Activision CEO Robert Kotik.

Electronic Arts has already announced that they are developing a new version of their ‘battlefield’ series: Battlefield Heroes. In a way that has worked out well for them in the asian markets, this version of the game will be free to download, and will generate money both through in game advertising and ‘micropayments’ for items. The indication is that Blizzard (or Activision Blizzard) are looking to do the same in their products.

Naturally, people are worried that they will soon be seeing ‘Coca Cola’ potions in World of Warcraft.

A strong argument against in-game advertising is that it feels out of kilter with the world in which the game is set. Granted, in a fantasy roleplaying game, an advert for a computer manufacturer would look out of place – but what about a game based on Blade Runner – would anyone even notice the glowing neon Atari signs? What if they were Apple iPod logos? The two companies are not that dissimilar in the view that they are household names, albeit 20 years apart.

In-Game advertising and sponsorship is not a new idea, we have seen more and more licensed products in computer games as the push towards realism continues. The first version of Geoff Crammond’s Grand Prix featured the coloured liveries of the F1 cars, albeit without any logos or names on them. Despite this, the distinctive Marlboro McLaren was easily recognisable with it’s Marlboro Flash on the nose and wings. By the time Grand Prix 2 was released, graphics had improved to the point where actual sponsors logos were displayed on the cars. Game modders even took this one stage further, replacing the censored cigarette logos with the real logos to make the game more authentic.

Sports games have probably pushed in-game sponsorship the furthest, as their real-life counterparts also rely heavily on sponsorship. From John Madden NFL to Tiger Woods Golf, where you can even play with Nike balls (complete with Nike swish).

However, sports games are not the only genre to feature commercial tie-ins. In the UK, The original Theme Park game was sold with a tie-in with Midland Bank (Now HSBC) and their LiveCash accounts, aimed at the teenage customers that would also buy the computer game. In-game branding included the Midland logo on the title screens and the year-end statements displayed as “LiveCash” statements.

Quite how successful this was in attracting new customers to Midland Bank is hard to measure, but it is interesting to note that the branding was missing from the port to the Nintendo DS.

EA have stated that in addition to displaying advertising (although apparently not during gameplay) they will allow players to purchase cosmetic upgrades to their characters. These upgrades would apparently not provide any advantage to players.

It is a fine line that game manufacturers tread, particularly in online multiplayer titles. If players are allowed to purchase upgrades to their online presence, there is a risk that a game will get dominated by the rich. MMORPGs have been plagued by ‘gold sellers’, who allow the purchase of virtual gold and items by paying real-world cash for them. Ignoring the ethical arguments around this, it places players with more disposable income in a position where they can gain an advantage over their peers. The only reason gold sellers exist, is because there are at least some people who are willing to take this advantage.

If the only upgrades I could get for my avatar were cosmetic, why would I be tempted to purchase them? If we don’t purchase them, then the profitability of a title goes down, EA will seek to gain more revenue through advertising, and advertising becomes more intrusive, which again puts people off.

If in-game advertising is to work, its success would be in its non-intrusive nature. If all of a sudden the reward for completing a level was a ‘mission complete’ screen with gaudy sponsorship plastered all over it, you would be less than impressed, and the game reviewers would slam the game, accusing  the developers of selling out.

However, what if you had completed a tricky song on Guitar Hero, what if there was a web link where you could download that song directly to your XBox, DRM free, so you could copy it to your iPod? What if after completing a movie-tie-in game, you could download that movie to your Media Centre? What if a discount was offered over the standard DVD or download price? At that moment of elation, you are more susceptible. That is when the advertisers want to pounce. Once you leave the game environment, your attention starts to waver, and you lose interest.

I’m not saying that model will work for everything – a musician in the World of Warcraft Brewfest event would probably not be able to entice you to pay to download an album’s worth of music, and perhaps there are some game genres that could never be seamlessly integrated with advertisements, but do we not already have in-game advertising, and the next step is to make it interactive?

Formula One will be returning to the BBC from 2009 onwards. This has already sparked a huge debate on Radio Five Live, the most popular question being – will they use ‘The Chain’ as the theme tune again?

The ITV theme tunes have been mixed to say the least. The theme for the first couple of seasons was written by Jay Kay, better known as ‘Jamiroquai’. As a huge motorsport fan, I’m sure he jumped at the chance – however his theme tunes did not have the excitement of the bass riff from ‘The Chain’. The tune they’ve been using in more recent years, a kind of tribal chanting theme was an improvement, but still doesn’t have the build-up that ‘The Chain’ has – from the opening Bass Riff to the guitars.

Another strong debate is why F1 should even be shown on the BBC, when they have lost the majority of football, and the cricket. Given Bernie Ecclestone’s notorious business strategies, Formula One would not come cheap.

F1 is not as popular in the UK as football, cricket, and at the moment, possibly even rugby, but I do wonder if the fact that we now have a British driver who is a consistent winner, and probable future champion has influenced the BBC’s decision to get back into the F1 game…

My only hopes are that:

1. They do actually use ‘The Chain’ as the theme tune
2. They keep Steve Ryder as the anchor (Jim ‘The Football’s on in a minute’ Rosenthal really showed how much better Steve Ryder actually was!)
3. They manage to keep Martin Brundle (The best pundit in F1)
4. THEY LEAVE JAMES ALLEN AT ITV!

Formula One’s politician has now threatened that the future of the Australian Grand Prix is in doubt unless the organisers agree to run the race at night in the future.

Bernie Ecclestone often makes threats like this – the British Grand Prix at Silverstone is regularly under the axe, but FOM have only once actually carried out one of its threats, dropping the Belgian Grand Prix from the 2003 calendar. However, this was more to do with commercial rights for tobacco advertisers than any indication that the circuit (one of the best in the world) was not up to par.

Night races are an unknown commodity in F1 – this year sees the first one in history, held at Singapore. The biggest concern is of course, safety. In an enclosed arena where it can be easily floodlight, safety is not so much of a problem – for example, NASCAR often have been holding night races since 1978, despite the fact that like F1 cars, NASCAR don’t have headlights. However – it would simply not be practical at a circuit like the old Hockenheim to place floodlights, as 80% of that circuit was out in the woods.

The old Hockenheim is a prime example of why you shouldn’t do night races – in 2000, it saw a protester marching down the side of the track after scaling the surrounding fences – a job that would no doubt be easier in the dark.

The idea of holding night races is so that they can be screened during prime-time television in Europe. My interest in F1 has waned over the last few years so I no longer wake up at 4am to watch the ‘flyaway’ races in Australia, Japan and now China (and Singapore this year).

This year’s Australian Grand Prix start was also delayed by 90 minutes so that it started at a better time for the Asian market. However, I doubt that an hour and a half would make a noticeable difference to the Formula One fan – only to the TV schedules – delaying the start means that the race falls into a more lucrative TV slot, meaning FOM can charge the advertisers more.

Despite being a global sport, the focus of F1 is still in Europe. The majority of the teams are based in England (even ‘Team Force India’), the majority of the drivers are European and the majority of the races are also held in Europe.

FOM have tried to address that balance, by introducing more ‘flyaway’ races, but I don’t think we’re in any danger of seeing a switch to holding night races in Europe any time soon to provide more convenient TV scheduling for the Asian market. The problem with any global sport, is that it’s always 5 o’clock somewhere, so F1 races will always be held when there is maximum revenue to be made.

Tomorrow, I’m going to be attending the UK launch of Microsoft Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008. I’m quite looking forward to it, some of the innovations in Server and Visual Studio are looking particularly interesting.

As an experiment, I’m hopefully also going to be microblogging from the event using my iPhone, adding Tweets to my sidebar and pictures to the flickr badge there.

I’m not sure how successful it’s going to be – it’s not as if people will be checking on this blog on an hourly basis, unlike the unofficial Apple iPhone launch site, this blog doesn’t have that much of a following, nor a subject, but I’m hoping my little microblogging experiment will provide some interesting footnotes to what promises to be a very busy day…

If you grew up in the 1980’s, you would probably remember the adverts for Stranger Danger. The media focus on child safety was extremely prevalent, yet with the recent focus on children going missing, there is a notable absence of warnings cautioning children, or heightening awareness of the dangers.

This became very apparent to me last night as I was walking my dog. On our walk, we encountered a dog who had escaped from it’s owner, a young girl who was running after it.

It was also apparent that this girl (who couldn’t have been more than 8 years old) was on her own walking the dog. Eventually we caught the dog, an hour after I joined in the chase, and three hours since the dog had broken away. Still this young girl was on her own.

She mentioned that her dad was looking for the dog in another area, so I offered my mobile for her to call him to come and find her. She didn’t know his number. I then suggested she called home to see if her mum knew her dad’s mobile number. Again, she didn’t know her home phone number.

By this time it was dark, so I suggested that she went home with the dog and hopefully contact her dad from there. It turned out that she was at least 2 miles from home, and the park was very dark, so I walked her back towards her house. Thankfully, once we arrived at the main road, her mother came by in the car and picked her up.

I made sure she got into her mother’s car OK, and her mother gave me a very dirty look. It bought into sharp focus how the situation looked. This girl had implicitly trusted me, she told me her name, her address, where her parents were… All the things I was told not to tell a stranger. To her mother, I was dangerous, because I was a stranger. I would probably feel the same. However, as a person, I was not prepared to let this young girl walk through a dark park on her own.

None of this was the girl’s fault. Firstly, the parents should not have let her walk the dog on her own, particularly as it was a strong dog (looked like a greyhound cross) and several times once we had leashed her up, she pulled the girl very hard, causing her to almost lose the dog again.

The dog could not be recalled. This is an important part of dog training, and while my dog isn’t perfect on his recalls; he loves to chase other dogs and cats – he will return, or submit if I catch up to him. This dog wouldn’t (although I imagine in this situation the dog was quite scared).

The father should not have split up from the girl, and while they would have taken longer to find the dog, at least she would have adult protection and company.

There is a strong focus on Internet stranger danger, and how it is very easy for someone to impersonate someone else particularly through chatrooms and social networking sites – but have we lost focus of the basics?

The 1980’s sereotype of the middle-aged man in a raincoat offering a bag of sweets out of a rolled-down car window may have been replaced by the sweaty, balding man sitting in front of a computer monitor, but the danger is still there.