Here’s an interesting story, with some potentially far-reaching ripples for how games are packaged and sold: UK’s Advertising Standards Authority has ruled that Activision’s TV ads (primarily for Call of Duty 2), which show pre-rendered footage, do not accurately represent the video game they are selling.

The ASA’s investigation revealed that the Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre (BACC) understood the adverts to be made of scenes taken from the games themselves, although apparently no checks were made because it wasn’t until afterward, when contacting Activision about the complaints, that it was informed by the publisher that the computer-generated scenes had been produced solely for the ads. “They said they therefore immediately made the ads unacceptable for broadcast as they did not consider that this was common practice in such ads.”

Emphasis mine. This brings up the obvious question – would the ASA have objected if the pre-renders had come from Call of Duty 2’s Intro Flic? Showing intro flic screenshots in ads and on box covers has long been one of the more annoying traits of making and marketing games – and yes, devs hate it when we do it too. On the other hand, in some games, pre-rendered cutscenes are clearly a part of the experience, even if they do not provide gameplay – Blizzard’s Warcraft 3 and the Final Fantasy games come to mind.