I was sitting in/on my reading room today perusing the October GamePro and ran across a couple of interesting ads. One of the ads says,"If you’re going to sit in your basement PRETENDING TO BE AN ELF, you should at least have some friends over to help." This is an ad for the pencil and paper version of Dungeons and Dragons, you know, what we played before computer and console games took over. While playing D&D is not what I’d call the real world, playing with real physical humans in the room with you is at least a step in that direction.
The second ad features a beautiful landscape image, trees, a lake, and distant mountain tops. In the foreground on the grass lies a game control with the words, "Maybe the last level isn’t." The controller is between the words "level" and "isn’t". This is an ad for for Outward Bound wilderness adventures. Now this is a direct appeal to gamers to get out and adventure in the real world. Though I suppose you could still play D&D on your wilderness adventure by the camp fire.
I find it interesting to see ads like this in a video game magazine because it offers another clue as to how much a part of the mainstream culture video games have become. There have been stories about how TV viewership among young males has fallen due to competition from video games. Companies spending money on ads to pull them away from video games is additional evidence of this.
I must admit though, that my adventures in the online world of Vana’diel and others has given me a renewed appreciation for adventures in the real world, even if there are no monsters to kill! And like the Outward Bound ad says, real world graphics are infinitely better. And there’s no load time! 🙂