Real Online Sponsorships

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Sven

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As I was talking about custom paint in the GT forums, I got to thinking about sponsorship decals in the game. You could actually get an in-game sponsor who would put a decal on the car, and you'd get paid more by them the better you do. This feature could even be carried online, where your rank there will further contribute to sponsorship payouts. Then this stunningly brilliant idea hit me. What if the online sponsorships were REAL? What if you were ranked in the top 100 in the online arena, and you got paid REAL money by REAL sponsors based on how well you were performing? And each top 100 car is available to be viewed by anyone, further expanding the exposure of the sponsor. Maybe if you were good enough, and ranked in the top 10 or so, you could get paid $100 for each race won, and literally make a living just by playing GT4 online.

The only problem is cheating. This would basically be an open invitation to start cheating online, so there would have to be heavy cheat prevention measures, or some other validation method, in place for this to happen.

What do you think of this idea?
 
Sounds interesting but who would want to sponsor it? Sony/PD I can understand and some other companies might with real sponsors. The bigger the success the GT4 is the bigger the chance is.
 
Who would sponsor it? Anyone really. If you can make your own custom decals, you could theoretically sign on with someone who didn't license themselves to be in the game, like GameSpot maybe (unless there's legal issues with that). And there's plenty of banners everywhere in the game that could be put on your car. You could get manufacturer sponsorships, oil companies, tire companys, basically anything that's in the game.
 
Sound like a cool idea, but like you said cheating would have to be extremely under control. Especially with real money involved.
 
All this is already happening already!
I have NASCAR 2003 on PC this game has an online section that is very intense, and yes the better drivers do have sponsers and everything else in fact like real racing except on err a computer:D there is a program in the game that enables you to design your own paint schemes etc... You can find sponsers or through your rankings they find you races themselves are also sponsered as well just as in real life.
The top drivers earn fairly large chunks of cash I think though not as much as the real life NASCAR drivers;) .
In GT4 though I doubt this will be a feature but depending on how succesfull the online part of the game is I reckon we will see this kind of thing in GT5:) .
 
I think we will certainly see this happening at the top of the GT4 online ladder. Top ranked players will probably get sponsored, much like in many other games like CS, or NASCAR as liquidyellow said.
 
Am I the only one who stops to marvel at the fact you can make money playing video games these days?

What an age we live in.

I have to admit I'm surprised companies do sponsor competitors like this... At least in racing games you can put decals on a car but I didn't really think that'd fall under the 'viable marketing concept' title for most companies. In FPS there's no room for advertising but I guess there's a claim to fame in saying "PlayerName drinks OUR cola!" or whatever the case may be. I'm all for seeing my name in the next Bridgestone or Shell commercial then.

I'd like to see cheating controlled really well regardless of whether we're playing for dollars or the next round of donuts.
 
Is that NASCAR game sponsorship stuff for real cash!?

For FPS games & stuff, you could have a sponsor tag, like Sven[COKE] or something.
 
It sounds like a great idea, but in reality i dont think it would be easy to do because of things like cheating, as you mentioned and also the costs involved in digitalizing sponsors logos and keeping the whole thing up to date. I think real racing is what sponsorship would go for (it has a wider audience). I think that i would find it hard to have to constantly play GT4 all the time and have the price on my head by big name sponsors to perform well........it would just take the casual fun out of GT4.

However, i'm not really a hardcore racer so i'm sure that maybe this idea would appeal to other people.
 
Hey I just got myself sponsored by one of me and my wifes companys, hmm wonder how much i should pay myself, is it tax deductable.

If paint shop allows text or logos, look out for the Black car with gold Tip To Toe logo, then youll know where to send all your ladies when they need to glam up.
 
It would be cool to have offline, like a Tiger Woods type sponser setup, but I can't see it happening online with real money.

Nice idea though
 
Originally posted by Sven
Is that NASCAR game sponsorship stuff for real cash!?

For FPS games & stuff, you could have a sponsor tag, like Sven[COKE] or something.
Click to expand...

Yes its for real cash not a lot I think, a few thousand dollars or something. But I think this will eventually happen with GT as I said maybe in GT games in a few years time I dont see why not after all R/C racers have factory teams etc.... but obviously as Sven says the cheating issue would have to be sorted. Is that possible even in GT???
 
The whole online aspect of GT4 could hold lots of surprises and I really hope that it does. I do think that as each year goes by the world will continue to be more and more connected through computers and the internet. Something that I think would be feasable for GT4 would be almost real time billboards on the tracks. Meaning that primarilary car and parts companies could have their current adds. Perhaps other companies like coke, pepsi etc. could have adds. Just think that it would be a way that the GT4 makers could earn more money from sailing advertisment space. Then perhaps this would offset some of the cost of their server equipment etc., therefore keeping all aspects of GT4 online free to the gamers. Might not happen in GT4, but in GT5, I could see something like this happening. As far as companies paying players to play, I doubt that will happen for GT4.
 
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