Advertisement Profiles Rule Clarification (STAFF ONLY)

[Agnaa]

Recently a user attempted to make a profile for The Burger King from an official video game. In defending it they referenced the following editing rule:

Corporate mascots and advertisement characters are not part of fictional storylines, regardless of feats in commercials and similar. It is preferable to not allow any incoherent figments without substance to be featured here. However, if they have officially published comicbooks, games, etcetera to scale from, they can probably be included.''

The profile's now been deleted after a brief discussio, but the rule as written now seems to imply that a profile like this, or profiles for the Old Spice video game would be allowed.

So, does this rule need to be clarified? And how can it be done in a way that doesn't dismiss legitimate verses like Transformers that can be argued to be advertisement characters?

 

[Wokistan]

Its one of those things that feels easy to tell but is in paractice really hard to get into writing an exact guideline. Some verses gamrs are clearly just cash grab ad stuff. A lot depends on context and how stuff is portrayed, j would say. Like with transformers. They aren't exactly thought of as just some ad mascot, their other media is much more prominent. Then we got Burger King.

 

[Antvasima]

I would prefer if we improve on the definition so we avoid similar joke profiles in the future.

 

[Robot972]

I'm actually just going to link this quickly, since possible mascot profiles were mentioned briefly, before disappearing from the Staff Only.

 

[Andytrenom]

You would need to lay down the core reasons of why advertisements are disallowed in the first place, and either outline why they apply to advertisements as a whole, or accept some cases where they don't apply being let in, whichever one the site prefers

The current justification I am not sure if it's like that since you could very feasibly contain your ads within a fictional storyline

Not being coherent is also dubious since the ads may choose to give consistent rules to to what happens within it

I do not really know how to fix this but this at least I can point out what I think the problems are

 

[Antvasima]

Should I place a link to this in the highlights thread?

 

[Andytrenom]

Sure

 

[Antvasima]

Okay.

 

[Sera_EX]

Coherency may be the wrong word. Ads are just promotional material. What happens inside them is inherently "outlierish" (I won't say it's "nonsensical" as to avoid being seen as bias against ad profiles). Basically your bound to see all kinds of hyperbole and outliers throughout these things, especially in a post-modernist society that rather than just sell their product honestly, create the most pretentious and hyperbolic expressions in their media.

However, some video games in the past have been made to act as "extended ads" and this by itself causes much confusion.

McKids, Yo Noid, and Cool Spot are all NES games but are just advertising vehicles. They sit in between Super Mario bros. and a commercial for food products. I could make profiles for all three of these games but as with Atari games, it's very hard to justify their existence due to the inherent flaws that come with them.

They may be a step above the Big Rigs truck, but they sit between that memetic truck and classic Sonic the Hedgehog.

I'm not sure what to do here, it's even more controversial than the YouTube thing because these are real characters.

However, as an art student that minored in marketing, I'm fairly knowledgeable about advertisements in general, so if I can be of help with that I don't mind info dropping when necessary.

 

[Andytrenom]

I mean, if they are vehicle for ads in just the sense that "they exist primarily to sell products" then I wouldn't have much problem because you can create a perfectly standard show or games for the primary purpose of marketing. If they actually come with the same problems as the short commercials between programs then I could see the reason for removal

 

[DMUA]

Yeah I'm not sure how we'd reword and reconsider this

 

[Sera_EX]

I think the outliers are the problem. The profiles certainly don't fit our alternative canon guidelines, especially since the original "canon" doesn't exist, unless we claim the commercials are the original canon. Ronald McDonald has a 4-C in a commercial, a 5-C feat in an old advertising comic from the 70s I believe, and a 4-A feat somewhere according to Darkanine. Which is the base and where do we go from there?

 

[Andytrenom]

If I am to be honest I'm not sure if "being outlierish" being the problem makes such sense. Outliers are basically "this feat doesn't make sense given what the person is shown to be capable of in every other instance", it's a heavily context dependent thing so I'm not sure how an entire category of verses (..Videos?..things?) can be considered to inherently have an outlier problem

 

[Sera_EX]

Because there's no established canon. Let's use McDonalds for simplicity's sake. What is McDonalds' primary canon?

Dragon Ball for example, is one verse. Dragon Ball Heroes is not a verse, it's a spin off/adaptation. We can work with it because while it has higher or lower tiering than the main canon, it follows the same basic rules established by the original work (except DBE maybe...)

How can we do this for McDonalds and Ronald McDonald if there's no basic rules to set up a foundation of sorts? It's in the same realm as fan fiction by that logic because "anything goes".

Sorry if I'm not making sense, I'm pretty tired.

 

[The_King_of_Prudence]

So, if they have coherent canon, then profiles are fine? Bare in mind that the author of One Piece can make his characters planet level whenever he wants to.

 

[Sera_EX]

W...what does One Piece have to do with this?

Yes, if it's adapted from a verse with a canon it is permissible. This obviously doesn't affect original standalone games or movies. Their canon is the narrative itself.

 

[The_King_of_Prudence]

It was about your fanfiction comparison, I apologise if it was inaccurate.

 

[Antvasima]

I think that Sera makes sense.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

There's also Pepsima, who's based on his video game versions.

 

[Dargoo_Faust]

Oh goodie, another thread like this.

I'm getting a strong feeling of deja-vu, where video game versions are being using to circumvent us not allowing certain kinds of profiles. Not sure where I've seen that before.

I obviously support not hosting video-game versions of advertisement mascots; with stuff like Transformers and He-Man to a lesser extent being exceptions.

 

[Sera_EX]

Well get ready because after this there's the "toon" characters controversy thanks to the return of the Barney profile.

 

[Dargoo_Faust]

 

[Andytrenom]

There's no controversy going on with the Barney thread, unless you meant that as a joke.

 

[Sera_EX]

If there isn't, then there shall be.

 

[Andytrenom]

Have a little optimism please

 

[Sera_EX]

I'm talking about from me.

 

[Andytrenom]

>_>

 

[Sera_EX]

<_<

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Um, stay on topic please?

 

[Andytrenom]

Sure

I don't really agree with removing games based on ads, only if the problems that inherently apply to commercial also inherently apply to games based off them should they be deleted. Being percieved as loopholes to a rule means nothing, unless they verifiably cause the same problems the rules prevent

 

[Wokistan]

Again, it's an issue of what's the main focus. I don't think games of characters who are predominantly ads are good for usage but if it can stand on its own and is more prominent than its usage as an ad than yeah.

 

[Antvasima]

I think that Wokistan seems to make sense.

 

[Robot972]

I just want to ask then. Of the characters discussed on the thread I linked prior, would DC Colonel Sanders then be the only viable profile? He's his own story and character separate from the real Colonel Sanders, though still revolved around KFC.

 

[Sera_EX]

Nothing wrong with DC Colonel Sanders just like there's nothing wrong with DC Yahweh.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Agreed with Sera

 

[Dargoo_Faust]

only if the problems that inherently apply to commercial also inherently apply to games based off them should they be deleted

Sure.

The tired-old argument I hear regarding this (came up on the YT thread as well) is that "advertisements lack consistency, the games have a single coherent plot".

Thing is, a surprisingly large amount of more traditional ads don't lack consistency. Old Spice will call back to previous gags, some ads like that one Chipotle animation has a self-contained story that is entirely independent of the ad, et cetera et cetera. So clearly, if it isn't consistency that we're hung up about, it's the advertising icons themselves that we take issue with. Which we shouldn't turn a blind eye to when the medium changes from film to video games.

Some of these games that don't have an explicit story and are just themed shooters have even less of a plot/consistency than the advertisements themselves, so the argument is moot on both ends.

And most people here are forgetting many of these video-games are just straight-up regular advertisements. Cereal-box promotions where you can play a cereal-themed game, for example.

Context matters of course. We can tell that nearly any children's animation can be taken as advertisements to buy plastic goodies. HOWEVER, I propose a general rule of thumb that can make this line a lot less blurry, and can have exceptions.

If it's an original game that was made to sell merchandising, it's fine. If it's a game that revolves around existing advertising icons for stuff like fast food and cereal boxes, then it's clear the game doesn't stand on its own two feet. Easy to understand, can be thrown onto our rules pages in a quick edit, solves most of the issues on this thread and we can move on to more important stuff.

 

[Sera_EX]

@Dargoo

That doesn't mention, for example, DC Colonel Sanders or Marvel Kool-Aid man. By the proposed standards they aren't allowed because they're just on a different medium (in this case, comics).

 

[Dargoo_Faust]

That doesn't mention, for example, DC Colonel Sanders or Marvel Kool-Aid man. By the proposed standards they aren't allowed because they're just on a different medium (in this case, comics).

I did in fact address this in my proposed rules, although I probably need to make it more clear.

revolves around existing advertising icons

Marvel Comics isn't a comics series about the Kool Aid-Man or Colonol Sanders, for example.

That put, I think DC Sanders/Marvel Kool-Aid Man should be removed as well, but I'd prefer tackling the video games first.

 

[Antvasima]

Bump, as this seems like a rather important thread to finish.

 

[The_King_of_Prudence]

As long as there's a coherent cannon, we should be able to make profiles for them. I wouldn't be surprised if some others qualified for a composite profile.