Haha....

What does it say about me that this makes me more likely to buy it?

I love the king, I think this is awesome. I'm all for advertising, if it's good, and the king is good.

I just have one thing to say...

That dude scares me. Can't wait to punch him in the face. -nesdude

But he uses bare hands...

i second what nesdude said.

But... but he doesn't even have any other face expression.... I'm so scared.

As much as I want to say that I don't want to pay to be advertised to... That's kinda cool...

"the king with the wooper, boom!!!!!! it's a knock out!" I can see michael buffer say it XD

Well at least it isn't that subtle of an ad for BK. :P

I like ads because they add a sense of realism to games. I play Japanese baseball games a lot, and I love the advertising in the stadiums. We're bombarded with ads in real life, so games need ads to reflect real life.

I don't mind some fun subtle stuff that fits, like pikmin 2, but i'm not down with this. It's partly because it's a high budget ea game, but knowing that 360 owners will pay $60 for this with blatent ads is sad. I'm not saying that this won't be humorus, but we should be compensated (read: cheaper prices) for the ads.

Isn't one of the big things that developers have been complaining about the skyrocketing cost of making games? About how indie developers can't make something that's ready for the marketplace on their own budgets, and big houses won't take a chance on funding them unless they're making a known quantity? Essentially what I'm saying is: if in-game advertising defrays the cost of development, and the cost of development is one of the biggest problems in the industry today, then I'll put up with ads in a regularly priced game. We can't have it all ways.

That is my thought, but we all know this will probably be $60 for the 360, which is the current going rate. The game has ads, which should help defray costs, so it should be at most $50 on 360 and $40 for ps2/xbox/ngc. I'm not insinuating that they should sell it for $20, but when you have a certin number of ads (or in your face ads) your percieved value for dollar drops. It's worse knowing this is more or less a fighting game, and easier to make. (less content) We just shouldn't be expected to pay top dollar for ad loaded content.

How high can the development costs for a fighting game really be? It can not be at the scale of a LOTR aventure game, for sure. If the costs are "too high", then I'd say EA is doing something wrong. Come'on, it's a sequel, so they should've been able to reuse some code and assets. It's also a boxing game, which should make it a much more simple game to develop, because there're natural limits to gameplay. If they're spending $1M on sweat drops, hurray for them.

This isn't all that new. The Japanese version of Fighting Vipers for the Saturn had Pepsiman in it.

Maybe I'm overreading this post, but isn't the King just a static stand-up in this otherwise Burger King branded arena location? Cf this screenshot for example?

lol nice the Burger King. I want to see the next iteration with Ronald McDonald and the HamBurgler. :)

omg, is he playable?! hahaha.

If you looked at the graphics of this game for like, 2 seconds, you'd realize why the costs are high.

I don't really see it as an advertisement when it's an extra playable character. If there were BK ads you had to watch every time you started the game or in between rounds or something, that'd be different. You drive past BK's and Auto Zone's and other businesses in NFS:MW and IMO that makes the game more realistic than having some generic burger joint or auto shop. I've always thought it was amusing that in the Japanese version of Shenmue, Coca Cola was featured in the soda machines but in the US version it wasn't. I think those type's of games are better for having that kind of advertising when it enriches the in game world. And I'm sorry but being able to fight as the Burger King is just too funny.

The only way I would EVER buy this game (I never cared for the past games, and didn't care anymore of the 360 demo... personal tastes) is if they DID put Grimace in there. I've never had the pleasure of playing the whatever-he-is before and he's always overshadowed by that red-head. I'm sure putting the King in there actually will sell a few more copies, or at least rentals.