Rocket League, the soccer game where you play as rocket powered cars, has a couple of people asking questions as some advertisements have begun showing up in games. These ads were first noticed by Reddit user JamesDaGames in a post on r/RocketLeague where he was trying to ask whether this had occurred to others and then later another post in r/games commented on the same thing.
The advertisement shown is for Alienware but it hasn't been shown if this is the only ad that could potentially appear. It isn't uncommon for us to see ads in video games nowadays, mostly in free to play titles as a source of revenue but seeing it in a full game like Rocket League struck people as being a bit odd. It wasn't too long before one of the developers appeared in the original post to give the following statement.
We're surprised that these would still appear in-game, as they aren't supposed to -- and if they are showing up for you, it isn't intentional (we're researching how it did).
Specifically, those ads were remnants of something we set up prior to the release of the game as a possible way for us to pay for server expenses/ allow for sponsored events and tournaments/ advertise our own stuff like the Rocket League soundtrack, new/ upcoming DLC, Rocket League-specific merchandise, etc.
We still plan on allowing for partnered events and/ or tournaments (like an eSports final, for example), and we still plan on eventually promoting our own Rocket League-related goodies like those mentioned above. However, full-on outside-ad campaigns are NOT part of the game's roadmap and this is just an outlier. So if that ad bothered you, you have nothing to worry about. =)
At the time of this posting it is still unsure what exactly is the cause of these advertisements popping up in the game but you can expect as soon as Psyonix figures out what is the cause that a patch will be applied.
What do you think of advertising like this appearing in Rocket League? A lot of Reddit users seem to be supporting this, would you care if a sport game like this made a bit more on the advertisement of other products? Do advertisements like this just add to the authenticity of a sporting event?
