grot HQ & consulting

welcome!

welcome to the official website of grot HQ & consulting hosted by gxbln, our CEO and benevolent leader of the greenskins.

she's here to share and update you on projects headed by grot HQ & consulting and its subsidiaries.

you can contact her at [email protected] and don't hesitate to sign the guestbook! (i am held at gunpoint please help)

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THE NEVER FADE AWAY WEBRING IS NOW ACTIVE!!!

about CEO

my name is gxbln (yes it is my government).
i'm a uni age trans woman (she/they) who's currently studying full time.

> writing

> goblins

> linux

> r.talsorian's cyberpunk

> ghost in the shell

hope you find my ramblings interesting and enjoy your stay :)

most recent post

2026-03-18 | Advertising in Cyberpunk 2077

Every day, we are inundated with advertisement. If you live in a city, your highways may be lined with billboards, or your subway walls covered with posters and screens. Otherwise you definitely see advertisement intergrated into your entertainment through product placement or sponsored segments, and through all the free services you can access across the web. It is very matter of fact in today's society that something is always being sold to you. Most of us probably think we ignore most ads, at least I did, but it's really not that simple. Even though you may not see an ad and immediately be compelled to purchase whatever it's trying to sell, the constant exposure to a product implants it in your mind. You may walk into a convenience store to buy a drink, and pick one because of a billboard of a soft drink you drive past daily. You didn't think of the billboard when you chose the drink, but your familiarity with the product and the brand compelled you subconsciously.

The classical depiction of a cyberpunk world often will include advertisements of sort, often neon signs or aesthetic billboards. Think of Blade Runner and the massive geisha billboard and the countless neon signs that litter the streets below. It tells the viewer that this is a world which prioratizes the corporations, but still allows for the soul of the people to shine through. Interestingly however, Cyberpunk 2077 almost breaks this decades long tradition.

The image of a persons head blown open in a mural of colourful gore, it's the advertisement for a food product in 2077. A vulgur, gory, and painfully brightly coloured image which breaks every convention the genre has created. And while a world like ghost in the shell would place the ads as pops of colour in a world of dull greys, browns and tans, the advertisements of Cyberpunk 2077 are placed in a cityscape blasted with color. It's almost overstimulating to drive through the streets of Night City. Even leaving the city, the advertisements follow you. Beacons shoot into the sky with a scrolling banner of advertisements that are seen from kilometers away.

In my attempts to create a world which respects the conventions of the cyberpunk genre, but break them in a way that shows the passing of time, I have come to the conclusion that the team at CD Projekt Red & R. Talsorian Games have done almost exactly what I strive for. A city where the neon is a dying breed on the verge of extinction, and almost every surface of the city has an advertisement on it.

A citizen of Night City likely has very little will of their own. When the entirety of their sightline is covered with advertisements that implant subconscious thoughts into the back of your head, how will they know that the choices they've made are entierly original or without influence. It is a perfect dystopia. Bright, colourful, commercialized, trying to sell you something. I envy the creatives that invisioned this world.