Some more pet peeves, again sort of following the ones I mentioned in this article: While on the subject of gaming stupidity-XBOX Live stupidity.

Before I get too far ahead of myself here, if you don't like what I'm saying, you're free to move on to the next article/message thread and ignore my ranting here. Or, you can speak up and offer a counter opinion of your own and tell me I'm full of it (provided you have the stones to do it). You see, I really don't care which approach you take, though I do give credit for having the cajones to speak up in places like this where you get on the record with your thoughts as opposed to sitting on the sidelines and keeping silent on the issues.

Anyway, this rant and pet peeve is in regards to product placement in video games. Taking lessons from their friends in movies and television, video game companies have been learning to use product placement to their own advantage (read: for income) and have increasingly been selling out by adding more and more paid content to their games.

Rainbow Six: Vegas includes several obvious (though not well acknowledged) product placements for things like Dodge and Chrysler vehicles. As you go through the streets surrounding the Casinos in Vegas you see obvious images of Dodge vehicles. How nice to try to convince me that entire world must be driving Dodge.

A more obvious example: 2KSports' NCAA College Hoops 2K7. Power Bar seems to have sponsored all of the replays in the game.

These are just a couple of examples, but more and more of these companies are resorting to getting product placement deals so that they can make extra income on their products even before they start selling them to us (their customers) in the stores.

Perhaps it's not a horrible thing, assuming that 2KSports is using the product placement income to keep their game prices down, but then again they seem to only keep the game prices down for their last generation products, not their newest stuff. If you own an Xbox 360, or a Playstation 3, you'll be paying full frieght and you'll get the joy of seeing these product logos popping up repeatedly in the replays you can't seem to turn off. Fun. (NOT!!!)

This pandora's box was opened a long time back on TV shows, and it seems to be something that will never be changed back. As I sit and type these words, FOX Sports is reminding me of the Fed-Ex Orange Bowl and the whomever BCS standings and such. In TV network shows (like Alias, 24 and others) Ford, Toyota and other companies paid big money to make sure that we saw their vehicles driven around prominently with the logo's very proudly displayed. Dell computers, HP and Apple work hard to make sure we see their logos throughout most shows we watch, and in popular movies we also see. Video gaming is just the next frontier for this practice.

While it may not be a matter of life and death, I dislike these practices because I really don't like having these products rubbed in my face. I don't mind that commercials on TV shows are the cost of doing business or the price of admission for the shows, but I don't really need the extra unannounced commercials that run within the shows, and I really don't want them in my video games either.