Let's say you've just hooked up with a set of TaylorMade golf clubs at the local pro dealer, r7 grade drivers, fairways, rescues, that sort of thing. As you're wrapping up at the counter, practically smelling the double eagle you'll pull on your golf pal this weekend, the salesperson asks whether you play video games.
"Video games?" What, you think, did I wear the wrong tie today? Glasses? Shoes?
"Yeah, you know, like an Xbox or Nintendo Wii," he says, smiling. His teeth are almost too white...like golf balls.
"Uhh, my kids have that new Nintendo thing. Yeah, I've done the...you mean the thing with the--" You swing your arm to indicate.
"Mmm-hmm, okay, let's see..."
He reaches into a drawer behind the cashwrap and pulls out a small card the size of the kind that slide endlessly from magazines. He hands it to you and you glance at it--something about Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2009. A video game. Great, you think, another twenty bucks off deal I won't be using. Much to your dismay, your kids hate golf.
"Okay," says Mister Sales Guy. "The way this works is, you buy the game, you get a discount, and then you take this card and punch in these numbers here." He points to a long code that looks vaguely like the kind you always fat finger three or four times installing Windows.
"You put that number in," he continues, "and bada-boom, those r7s you just bought? In the game. Special. Just for you."
"So...you're saying I go buy this game, and put this code in, and it gives me special clubs?"
"You get to play what you just bought. Your new r7s here. TaylorMade and EA put 'em in the game with special swing bonuses and stuff, for guys that buy the real deal. Make sense?"
"Yeah, I think. Uhh, thanks." You finish paying and leave, a little baffled, certainly undecided about buying and goofing around with a video game. But most importantly? You're almost intrigued.
That's more or less the skinny in Adweek's "InPrint" column today, which examines the idea of a tightly integrated brand-aware interactive entertainment industry that blurs the line between what you do in games...and out of them.
The quintessential example of integrated game branding remains Lego Star Wars, an action-adventure romp that marries the nostalgia induced by George Lucas's franchise and a legendary kiddy toy. In essence, you don't play Star Wars so much as build toys, collect toys, and, well, unlock more toys...which can also be purchased as standalone figures, vehicles, etc. What's more, the very idea of building/dissembling simple things that makes Legos popular with millions, sells the gameplay in Lego Star Wars hook, line, and sinker.
For instance, at one point while playing co-op with my gaming compadre Jaret, we hit on a sequence in which you have to build something from pieces to advance, one of those deals where you're not entirely sure what it is (ah, the intrigue!) and suddenly he cries "Holy crap, we just built our own boss monster!" We weren't building an escape vehicle, you see, but rather a full bore two-legged laser-toting AT-ST. (We promptly hit the dirt.) His eyes? Wide as moons. And oh by the way, would you like to buy one?
For good or ill or anywhere in between, the synthesis of interactive entertainment and integrated branding is out of the gate. Question is, do we respond yea, nay, or "who cares"?
