Marketing plays a pretty big role in game sales these days, especially if it is aimed at the casual gamer, who doesn't really access websites that are dedicated to the gaming industry, and gets all of his information from the regular mass-media. That is why we see quite a lot of publishers investing heavily in ads because they want their titles to be known by any type of gamer.

But sometimes, in an effort to make the game look very good, some ads tend to show a very stylized version of the actual gameplay, if it depicts such a thing. This was the case recently, when big gaming corporation Electronic Arts released an ad for their golf simulator Tiger Woods 09, which portrays the famous golf player swinging a Wii remote, with his actions depicted by some gameplay footage.

Nothing wrong here, but, as an eagle-eyed viewer observed, the gameplay that was shown was from the Xbox 360 version of the game, which had better graphics than the Wii version. Such a practice is misleading, and the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) decided to make EA remove the ad. After the ruling, the ASA made public how the decision was made and the statements that EA brought in its defense.

“Electronic Arts confirmed that the footage in the ad was taken from the Xbox 360 version of the game. They said, to avoid any confusion, they added text to inform viewers that the game was available on all formats. They explained that Wii footage would not be of broadcast quality, and the originating agency had thought it preferable to use the Xbox footage, which was closer to broadcast definition, than to “up the resolution” of Wii footage to broadcast quality.”

It seems that, in an effort to show an ad that was designated for high-definition broadcast only, the producers preferred the Xbox 360 version, because it already met these requirements, to the smaller resolution one for the Nintendo Wii. Although such a claim might appear a bit useless, it will prevent a lot of people from spending their hard earned money and getting a game that doesn't look like the one from the TV ads.