Video Games Could Have Movie-Style Product Placement to Counter Rising Costs, Ex-Dragon Age Boss Says
As big budget video game development gets more costly, including TV and movie-style product placement could help make up the shortfall, BioWare's former Dragon Age boss Mark Darrah has said. In a lengthy video discussing the future of video game monetization, Darrah noted the rise of AAA games including live-service elements to ensure owners kept playing — and paying — long after release. Many video games rely on post-launch content or live-service elements to ensure projects earn back the huge sums of money spent developing them in the first place, with big budget games now regularly costing hundreds of millions to make. But not every game can succeed with these models, Darrah said, meaning that there needed to be other ways for developers to pay the bills. "My understanding is the live-action Smurfs movie paid for itself entirely through product placement," Darrah said, "so the movie was effectively made for zero dollars simply through the sale of product placemen...