Anti-drink drive ads for Live

By Robert Purchese Published 2 January, 2008

These people, cool are they?

The Scottish Government has decided to combat drink driving by appealing to young male adults through computer games.

Its fledgling campaign will cost GBP 10,000, according to the BBC, and produce billboard-style adverts to those of you playing Need For Speed Carbon, Project Gotham Racing 4 and Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 online.

During the festive season more than 150 drivers under the age of 25 were caught with too much alcohol in their blood, prompting authorities to experiment with new ways to get the anti-drink driving message across - clearly the telly with its destructive pub tables and weird multi-accented barmen is falling short.

And given that more than 70 per cent of 15 to 24 year olds in the UK apparently have a games console in their house, this seemed like an ideal place to start.

The adverts are said to be non-intrusive and subtle, and should be appearing soon to UK gamers.

Keep your eyes peeled, then, while obviously simultaneously concentrating on the in-game roads and not crashing.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (23) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Mox #1 4 years ago

    The Day Today reference: +5 points.

  • seasidebaz #2 4 years ago

    including the 15-17 demographic in the stats: -5 points.

    back to 0 then eg

  • zoidberg #3 4 years ago

    last pun was brilliant.

  • estoo #4 4 years ago

    /shakes head

    So in games like NFS, where you're actively encouraged to break the law in many ways will be saying "Just don't do it drunk, that's all". Interesting message that sends out..

  • DrDamn #5 4 years ago

    Presumably these will need Live to be actually working. We gonna get a news story on the the overall crapness of Live over the festive period then?

  • The_Inquisitor #6 4 years ago

    Drink driving is bad then while power-sliding and crashing is, er......good? Damn right!

    But, in the words of Peter Griffin "what do they expect me to do, take a bus?".

  • pjmaybe #7 4 years ago

    What Mox said. Stupid amounts of Kudos to Rob for the reference!

    Peej

  • mingster #8 4 years ago

    does this include drinking while playing driving games?

  • Quine #9 4 years ago

    /plans drink-driving game with extra-gory reality and trauma

    /secures govt funding

  • Carlo #10 4 years ago

    There's a thread about this (submitted by me) last week in the forum.

    http://ww w.eurogamer.net/forum_thread_po...
    Edited by 1 at 02/01/08 @ 11:24

  • Max_Powers #11 4 years ago

    "Presumably these will need Live to be actually working. We gonna get a news story on the the overall crapness of Live over the festive period then?"

    Why not report on that? I think this is a big story.

  • ruttyboy #12 4 years ago

    Because there hasn't been a press release to crib from silly!

  • Skooch #13 4 years ago

    "The adverts are said to be non-intrusive and subtle"

    Easily ignored then.

  • Remy #14 4 years ago

    It's cool to drive fast! Of course it's cool!

  • agparrot #15 4 years ago

    Presumably these will need Live to be actually working. We gonna get a news story on the the overall crapness of Live over the festive period then?

    "Why not report on that? I think this is a big story."

    Damn right - Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights Xbox Live time was totally borked - at least from a CoD4 point of view. Even playing other, single player games offline led to the console becoming a freezing stutterbox of annoyance whilst it was still connected via Ethernet cable.

    The last couple of nights it seems to have been possible to get some CoD4 games after about 1am - but what fricking use is this to most people?

    I won't launch into a diatribe about it being a paid-for service or the level of support that seems to have been provided over Christmas (next to zero), because there is a thread on the forums for that, but I will gladly register my interest in an EG News article about it, perhaps juxtaposing Major Nelson's comments about it being 'a bit broken but probably alright now' against the reality of staring at connection error, lobby closed and connection interrupted messages for about 80% of my night-time festive season playtime.

    ***holes.

  • NewbieZilla #16 4 years ago

    Hey, I know... Lets make the warning on cigarette packs bigger!

  • RedPanda #17 4 years ago

    Post deleted at 14:31:59 28-01-2012

  • ruttyboy #18 4 years ago

    No, 150 drivers were *caught*, given that the percentage of cases that are actually caught is infinitesimal you can extrapolate it to any large number you like.

  • SeesThroughAll #19 4 years ago

    Aaaah... It reminds me of those "Winners don't use drugs" ads back in the Speccy days...

    Yes, that really helped.

  • BBIAJ #20 4 years ago

    @ squarejawhero:

    The ads are appearing in 2006's NFS: Carbon, not last years ProStreet.

  • Kryon #21 4 years ago

    "Damn right - Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights Xbox Live time was totally borked"

    Did you take her for a drink on Tuesday? Possibly making love by Wednesday?

  • Slamhound #22 4 years ago

    24 comments and not a single one about 360s crashing?

    You guys disappoint me.

  • louyfitz #23 4 years ago

    I dont want that shit on my games!

    Hope ya can turn them off.