Forcing animated splash screens before every game load.

June 10, 2008 7:50 PM

What is the benefit to game publishers and developers such that they force their animated logos to run every single time their game loads?

Note that I'm not talking about the advertisements that often run during the same cycle, such as those for video cards. And yes, I know that with some games there are ways to turn them off. I'm just curious if there is a well-known benefit to the pubs and devs above and beyond making me want to punch faces.

posted by TheManChild2000 to computers & internet (13 comments total)

Why do production companies show their logos before a movie? Because you consciously or subconsciously associate that company with a product you (hopefully) like, thereafter.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:04 PM on June 10

waaayyy back in the day, when memory and hard drive space were at a premium and 3d cards didn't really exist, the time that the intro was running was used to hide the pre-calculation of trig tables and other processor intensive things.

I have no idea if they've just carried over, or if they actually do something with this time.
posted by ArgentCorvid at 8:06 PM on June 10 [1 favorite]

note: I just think I remember reading this somewhere. I have no idea where. It might be a product of my overactive imagination.
posted by ArgentCorvid at 8:08 PM on June 10

Top of mind recall. It's a major metric in marketing--whether positive or negative. If Average Jane recalls your product without prompting, you are halfway there. Just make the association positive, and you have justified your bonus. Top of mind recall justifies your salary.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 8:19 PM on June 10 [1 favorite]

EA Sports--it's in the game!

Branding. (Though I wouldn't be surprised if ArgentCorvid's load-time theory had some validity as well.)
posted by box at 8:21 PM on June 10 [1 favorite]

One of the major directives of successful marketing is repeated messages. The same message, over and over, sticks with people long term, and creates a brand association.
posted by SpacemanStix at 8:29 PM on June 10

Modern software still takes time to initialize and load all the things it needs. Splash screens give an instant response and distract the user while all these things go on in the background. If they could make their game load instantly, I'm sure they would.
posted by driveler at 8:56 PM on June 10

It can't always be the loading issue. All of the first-person shooters I've played (MoH:AA, CoD, CoD2, CoD4) have intros that can be disabled, and the game loads pretty much instantly without the intro.

Also, look at Guitar Hero III. What a nuisance! I have to click through five separate flashy intros, then I get the "Press any key to load" screen, click again, and watch a boring progress bar while it actually loads the game. If it was for the purpose of pre-loading game data, they wouldn't need that screen.
posted by knave at 10:14 PM on June 10

Lots of money and hard work went into making the game that you're playing, and the pubs and devs deserve to get their credit for that.
posted by gnutron at 11:22 PM on June 10

It depends on the game.

It could be a cover for background loading (menu, videos, etc), it could be advertisement/marketing on behalf of the publisher/developer (crediting), and it could be a contractual obligation to display a logo of a (software, audio, video, etc) product used in the development of the game that was created and the license sold to the pub/dev by a third party. Some contracts may require logos to be displayed for a certain amount of time, without allowing the player to voluntarily exit out of the display.

Likely its a combo of loading and ads/crediting.

Just because you can skip through to a level/gameplay loading screen doesn't mean all the things you skip past don't need to be loaded as well.
posted by kirstk at 12:32 AM on June 11

Oh, those things that are on the screen while I'm mashing X, X, START, START and muttering "yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah...." and hoping I can skip past?

Yup, I form a real great impression of those companies. Great branding work, guys.
posted by rokusan at 3:09 AM on June 11

Lots of money and hard work went into making the game that you're playing, and the pubs and devs deserve to get their credit for that.

That's completely appreciable but honestly, the unskippable intro logos are not a decision the developers make. It's a pure marketing decision and a poor one, IMHO. I know plenty of folks who work in the industry and nobody I've ever talked to has anything positive to say about those things. There are plenty of ways less obnoxious and ham-fisted to accomplish the same goals.

High-quality developers that aren't beholden to titanic publishers (e.g. Valve) usually make those logo skippable. Those that are (e.g. Crytek having Crysis published by EA) have these decisions made by the publisher's marketing dept. These are the same folks that thought putting commercials, sorry "pre-show entertainment," before theatre movies was an fantastic idea. Thus, pointlessly long and excessive marketing before the game starts.

end rant
posted by Nelsormensch at 7:36 AM on June 11

I have a similar question that was touched on earlier. I understand the branding/advertising ideas behind having the pre-game logos go by... but what is the design purpose behind having a "Press (button) to Begin" on the first splash screen of the game? The kind where the message sits there pulsing or whatever, and then you hit the button and it shows you the full menu "New Game, Load Game, Options" etc. Why have that "Press Button" message there at all? Why not just go straight to the menu?
posted by FatherDagon at 10:42 AM on June 11