Alch, this was the reason why I said I had mixed feelings about this issue. I do agree that close to none companies will let the Devs integrate their product seamlessly in the game. They want it to stand out, and that will ruin it all.
Now, about your art view, you must open your mind. Yes, art has been defined my men through history as something much different from advertising, but that's all an ugly lie. The same lie as those that look at a painting tend to see and understand much more than the artist wanted to express.
I can give you an example: many of the paintings made through medieval to renaissance eras always had local prominent characters depicted in them, many times as godlike figures, as entities. It was a way the artists found to soothe the rich and acquire more customers, or to open the acceptance of a painting inside royal court. This was a method that preceded the "perfume" or "automobile" adverts.
Modern adverts are a product of art and psychology, and many designers and artists work at advertising companies.
As I have the pleasure of sitting on what in the english world would pass for an "arts and critique" major, which allows me to gleefully starve to death - althought I don't want to be making an argument of authority - I'll tell you I'm well aware of the political servitude art has been subjected to throughout history. That argument in itself, however, dosen't hold for long when used to uphold your particular position.
Turns out, calling advertisement "just another form of art" (not quoting you in particular but rather a certain Zeitgheist amongst advertisement designers who'd like to be seen as worthy contributors to the world's beauty) and treating it as such means to overlook many a controversial aspect of advertisement.
Let's first set the table by saying that, indeed as you mention, all art is political. Even artists who pretend that art "should" be absolutely autotelic, that it should serve no other purpose than being "art" and bringing beauty to the world, are stating that art shouldn't have to answer to anything, that it should be controlled by nothing, that it should be autarcic and that - incidentally - all artists should be freed from all political and all material constraints, are making a powerfully clear political statement. Let's not mention more "engaged" approaches to art. There's no way around it, everything expressed by an individual represents a way of thinking, a social position, and one form or another of agenda. The fact (as I said in my first post) that artists very often represent power, both as a means of subsistance and out of attraction (Power
matters historically and influences everyone, and therefore is a more interesting subject than uneventful things), does not suffice to establish equality between advertising and any other art form, even when artists represent - forcefully so - power under an unequivocally uncritical and laudative tone.
What difference, then, do we see emerging between "art" and advertisement? It's that, indeed, while some works of art propose a non-critical view of politics and seek to cotrol through emotivity and impulsiveness, some other works of art strive to promote critical thinking. Borges, for an example, or Nabokov, are writing in a way that undermines the very notion of percieved literature, they challenge the literary media itself, play with it, make it question its existence, force readers to reconsider their own involvement in the narrative, either by betraying narrative pacts or by putting them in charge of notions that should be cared for by the author. This breaks many illusions, but turns the reflexion about the media itself - critical and philosophical thinking - into an inherent part of art. Even the
Mimesis of earlier art forms would contain within itself, in its best forms, a critique or reflexion upon itself.
Also, a compromise between both possibilities was very often seen within the boundaries of art. Shakespeare is a prominent example of this : Althought all his plays were tailored for a noble audience and exalted many of its virtues, it would also carry deep existential reflexions, question the structure of nobility itself and show its shortcomings under the guise of tragic scenarization. Many people actually see his plays as a means for a very elevated mind to uplift the intellectual and political condition of a rather dull nobility (but that's a story for another time...).
If advertisement were to do the same thing, to provoke reflexion upon itself, to lead an audience to question its meaning, its relevance, how it works, to show its logical or narrative shortcomings and represent its limits as it strives against them, that advertisement would neuter everything that makes it "worth it" for a company, and ultimately would never be considered for broadcasting. To me - and that the essence of out debate, I think, the very definition of marketing (and advertisement in general) excludes true artistic endeavors, just like working in the gravel industry would prevent an artist to earn their life by practicing chisel-and-hammer stone carving and proposing their sculptures to their clients. Same goes with scientific writing vs literature - You can't indulge in aesthetic research while writing a science paper, you just go for the clearest, shortest text possible, and metaphors, puns and other rhymes aren't welcome.
No one creates advertisement outside of the boundaries of commerce - that is, no advertisement advertizes itself - meaning that it is never created out of "inspiration". It is solely and uniquely created with the purpose of selling an object at all costs, and never with the purpose of getting the audience to doubt the object's "supremacy", or even for the purpose of being witnesses
as is, as its own subject. And so, while art
MAY be its own justification - many literary works, or sculptures, or paintings were created for the sheer enjoyment of the artist and of the witness AND published and earned their author much popularity - adverts cannot attain success while being autotelic. To the "Ad market", ads have no intrinsinct value outside of their rentability and how much they increased a product's sales. More importantly, philosophically speaking, the notion of an autotelic ad is somewhat of an oxymoron. That makes advertizing purely practical.
Ad spaces are often rented or highjacked by people who undermine advertisement - from graffiti to those who'll just pay to slap a black screen onto an ad panel telling people to "Just Relax", no strings or logo attached, but that kind of behavior predates the emergence of marketing by centuries, and certainly isin't a "subdivision" of advertizing. It's "street art" or "installation art" or "environment art" or whatever else, critics be damned, but it's not advertisement. It in itself is defined by a refusal to seriously ponder its subject, much in the same way that, if you take a break to ponder the nature of a log, you're no longer doing some woodchopping. The reason I refuse to acquaint published and broadcasted (or publishable and broadcastable) advertizing with art is that Art will very often tear itself apart, whereas ads will never, ever do that willfully.
I'm not saying the designers and artists working in advertisement could not produce art, I'm not even saying it's impossible for them to create an "artful" ad... but I'm saying that the circumstances in which advertisement is published are circumstances in which, 100% of the time, artistic thinking will be cast aside because it would make the advert less potent and less profitable. The political, intellectual and formal freedom needed to create an artful ad would be destructive to the sales of the product it sells. Imagine post-modern aesthetics applied to ads... They just wouldn't work!
That a very good work of art like a movie could include product placement and still be a good movie does not mean advertisement
adds to its richness and value. The best you can conclude from such an experience is that, in some occurrences, it does not detract from them
in the eyes of most people. But you're still far, very far away from proving that art itself would benefit from integrating those things
without taking them on a second-degree approach, be it through satire or humor, which again, would not be acceptable for the artist's "clients".
TL
R : Advertizing is to art what being hit with a shovel is to gardening : You're close, but you're wrong. Correct tools, wrong use. And I'd rather not be hit with a shovel while docking my gawddam Beluga, thank you very much!
help! We've got to stop this!! I can't stop talking!
Hell I love that subject thought...
