Advergaming: Sneak King
Last weekend I attended >play, the digital media conference put on by the Haas School of Business. It was OK, but during the games panel, I heard some insulated gaming industry folk chit-chat. One of the more sinister phenomena talked about was “advergaming.” I’d heard of America’s Army, a shoot-em-up network game that’s designed to be a recruitment tool.
But I’m torn over “Sneak King.” The terrifying King of Burgers has a way of sidling up unnoticed (NOT a Seinfeld reference). In this game, you are supposed to sneak up to hungry people, and then jump them, giving them Burger King food. I just think that paying $4 to play a game in which you wear a mask and force-feed triple Whoppers to innocent strangers is horrifyingly (deliciously?) hilarious.
Is this just the natural progression from Joe Camel and Count Chocula? Advertisers know what kids want. Kids didn’t want to stop watching cartoons to learn about cereal, so Toucan Sam and Tony the Tiger were born. Is the media literacy and critical thinking of most kids (and some adults) too weak to withstand the wiles of advertisers anymore? Should we protect them? If tobacco suits caused Joe Camel to ride into the sunset, is there any case for censuring Ronald and the King?
I guess I should let the trailer do the talking:
Speaking of Count Chocula, some of us had speculated on his brothers, and Franken Berry was particularly easy to remember. Others in the bunch are Boo Berry, Fruit Brute, and Yummy Mummy.
I don’t think it’s matter of atrophying critical thinking skills. Sneak King seems like a game someone might have made to mock aggressive advertising practices, and by releasing it, BK is (ingeniously) parsing the absurdity from the message in this form of satire. I think we’ve become so saturated in satire that we love it for it’s own sake, regardless of its message or the identity of the messenger. We know BK is trying to manipulate us with this kind of advertising, but we don’t care, because it’s funny, and it only costs $4.
If Fox News fielded someone as witty and biting as Stewart or Colbert, would apolitical 18-35-year-olds watch?
Ken-ichi, I don’t disagree with anything you’re saying. But the key word in your point is “we,” as in you and me and other highly-educated adults. Surely the curators of a fine blog, such as this one, possess the media literacy and critical thinking to see the workings of Sneak King.
However, I’m getting at the basis of why the Joe Camel campaign was condemned in court. Surely a 2-D image shown at the corner of a 7-11 seems harmless, given the sophistication of current persuasive messages. But the cognitive abilities of a 6-year-old have not scaled. Prior to a certain age, children lack the ability to put themselves in someone else’s shoes. A child simply cannot feel that skepticism towards persuasive message. And that’s a good thing (imagine kids at recess having cynical discussions about political advertisements). Except when a corn-syrup pusher is using advanced mind tricks on that child.
The hottest front in combating obesity has always been our children.
I remember begging to go to Pizza Hut because they had those awesome “Land Before Time” puppets. The fact that the pizza was deliciously greasy didn’t hurt things.
Then comes the reality that one of the most powerful commercial forces is the nagging child. Toy packaging allows children to grasp and play with the toys at the store, even as the child is sitting in the shopping-cart-seat. Sugary cereals vie for the shelf position right at kids’ eye level. Hell, there have been times that I’VE been tempted to buy someone else’s kid a toy, just so the kid would pipe down.
So combine the inability of a child to resist the wonders and joys of a video game, with the inability of an adult to hush that child. And you get significantly more trips to BK than if you had never introduced the game. Consequently, you get more teenagers and adults who love triple whoppers in the coming decades.
Does that scare you at all? Or am I being paranoid?
Are six-year-olds the target demographic for Sneak King? I feel like The King in general targets people capable of appreicating irony. If I were six I think I’d find him terrifying. But then again, I’m not six.
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