In-game Advertising

I am personally looking forward to seeing the Viagra and penis-size ads in-game rather than in my inbox.

I dont belive the money for advertising in games is going to do anything, hence it will be a waste of consumers time and money.

its not going to go towards development costs is it? i didnt think so, its only going to go towards some big suits. buisness plan is all about money, make more money see how we can make more money any ways possible.

this advertising is just for making more money. we dont see anything but advertisements. we dont see any help with development, we dont see better patches or a larger staff for making new games or patches.

this is where all the money should be put. hireing people that know better coding than someone else for one would be good, bigger staff would also be good too, patches that dont suck, or actually fix stuff etc. thats what the money is needed for, yet this money income will just goto someone else for their lambergeni or porche 911 in their up front parking spot.

I work for a sports videogame company and we have been making deals to put more and more ads in our games. They are just ads on fences or billboards in the games so it doesn't really bother me.

What I fear is that in the next few years the ads will get more intrusive. They could easily put commercials into the games that the user is forced to watch in-between innings or quarters.

I expect this to happen in the next 5 years, and when it does I am going to have to quit my job because I refuse to become a whore for the advertising industry.

jeezo just checking something out

People saying they will boycott the games are kidding themselves. It is *MUCH* easier and makes better sense to boycott the products that are advertised. I for one will not be purchasing anything that I see advertised in a game. The other day I was actually thinking about starting a site for in game advertised product boycotting.

this is funny. You see, this is what we call inserting the screws and prepare to tighten. Once they get the head of their shaft in and anyone is settled, that's when they start thrusting their 'fuck you' rod IN AND OUT, IN AND OUT, IN AND OUT. And believe me, in a few years... we'll all be bleeding continuously from the ass.

I see a lot of doomsday predictions here, but I'd like to take a more optimistic outlook. I think that the internet is going to greatly weaken the control that publishers have over the developers, and I believe the developers will always insure that if there are advertisements, they don't detract from the game. Developers are in it for the love of it, while publishers are in it for the money. I'm hoping that someday soon, as soon as a successful developer starts getting pressured by their publisher to do something their fans wouldn't like, the developers will just say, "Sit the fuck down before I go Valve on your ass".

I don't understand the knee jerk reaction so many people have to in-game advertising. Advertising is embedded into almost every other form of corporate entertainment; be it sports, music performances, films, theme parks, this website... you name it.

Why are we so quick to hold publishers and developers to the fire when they allow for this additional revenue source, that is just sitting there for the taking?

I'm not positive but I'm pretty sure this sucks. Fucking advertisments are everywhere so it's inevitable they'll be in our games too. For the most part ads are just useless bullshit trying to convince us we need more crap. I swear I'm moving to Nepal and becoming a goat herder. especially if Bush gets reelected

For the same reason I don't watch movies with commercials, I won't play games with ads. It's that simple. My free time is not for use by Nike, Ford, or the US Army. You sell me a game, I pay for the game. You can't piggyback your greedy, mood-destroying bullshit on the deal just because you want to make more money.

But many who feel like me will still want to buy and play games. This will only lead to a new kind of modding: stripping ads from games. Since the ads can't blanket everything--even the gaming industry isn't *that* stupid--in many cases, it shouldn't be much harder than replacing textures and shaders.

Now, granted, some in-game ads could be more subtle. If there's a gun in the game called the KFC-9000, wtf are you gonna do about it? Not to worry: if you're that much of a sell-out, I won't be playing your game, anyway.

Everyone's right. I forgot. Making money is bad. Everything should be perfect and free. /sarcasm

/>>> to reach the 18-34 year old male audience that is increasingly difficult to reach through television and other existing advertising channels.]/

Hahaha! Wanna know why that is?

The other day I was watching the TV (which I do not do very often at all, because TV is just generally a fucking terrible form of entertainment unless you have cable, and so only watch my weekly favorites - Stargate, Simpsons and a couple of other shows) and I thought, where are the ads that are targeted at me, or better yet just men. Well, there aren't that many really. Since most TV is watched by women most ads are targeted at women as well, and in rather obvious and stupid ways but that's another matter. Anyway, I finally came across an ad for body wash from I think Lynx. In this fine piece of advertising media the main protagonist was this short, five foot nothing dude who was completely naked. And I don't mean discreet naked, I mean greek wrestler naked, with a glistening body and one particular shot that zoomed in on his ass very suggestively.

Now, who are they selling this to? Homosexuals perhaps? Because I do not find a mans ass in my face on the TV very encouraging. At all. I am sure the members of the gay community love nothing more then to see a bit of tight booty on the screen and bless em for it, but if you're going to appeal to me, the only naked sacks of fatty flesh I wanna see are boobies. And that's the whole damn ad, this wet naked man prancing around a lot of fully clothed women that are hardly the subject of any single one of the shots in the camera. So ok, it couldn't really be the sexual angle I suppose. But is the ad funny? No, no it is not. It's in fact a little bizarre to watch the whole display, a little unsettling.

And that's why I bloody hate advertising. Because advertisers don't understand me, they don't care about me or what I think, they will only pander to me for my money, and I bloody hate the idea that someone is trying to influence my decisions in such a sleazy way. Especially in a world where money is so damn important in the first place. Call me shallow and kneejerk on this but that's the way I feel about it. And I do not want it in games as well.

So in conclusion - fuck ads!

Indeed, and DNF has been in production longer than four years. By my count, we're coming up to .. 7?

Some very easy responses to this if you don't want the advertising.

Buy the game, and then don't buy the advertised product. Talk bad about the advertised product on the internet. Make it so every product advertised gets a bad wrap. Advertising costs quite a bit of money, and no company wants to spend a ton of money to have a bad image.

For those that don't understand why people are scared of this, the reason is out of fear. The only benefit advertising brings to the consumer is a low cost, but that is doubtful to happen (have movie tickets gone down? cable TV?). So, it brings in an element of danger (anytime power/money goes to big companies with no understanding of a product there is a danger). Look at what Publishers are doing to video games? Is it any wonder that the great games of today are coming from the independant game makers of yesterday (the ones who have the money to not be owned by a Publisher)? So, this is a bad thing for the money spending consumer, because at the best, it won't change anything, and at the worst, it will make games worse.

If it makes the games cheaper, and isn't too obtrusive, then yay.

Games contain 'faux advertising' that's just made up placeholder crap, anyway, something real isn't any more offensive.

Dear Massive Incorporated,

From the depths of my heart, I seriously, honestly, truly hope that all the people directly responsible for this idea and all the people responsible for putting it into action, die horrible, painfully extracted deaths that involve them being fully concious the entire time and maybe even dying and being brought back to life in quick succession a few times. And that when you finally die, you dont see your life flash before your eyes ... but a 5 minute ad break. And that the deepest level of hell - which lets face it, is where youre going - does nothing but hold your eyes and ears open and force the worst half dozen ads in existience onto you repeatedly for ever and ever amen. Have a nice day.

Regards,

Simon

Next thing you know..... "This game requires the installation of GAIN and Bonzai Buddy, do you agree?"

Cortana: Master Chief, it appears as though the Covenant is getting away with the earth's last supply of great-tasting coke products!

Master Chief: Not on my rolex brand watch.

So will we have ad blockers for games now?

If you read between the lines (it's just press release) you can see this is only for PC games or on-line enabled console games.

I don't think it will get huge, anytime soon. Come on, Real Networks is the first client? woo hoo.

Yes, use of ads in games will creep up higher but overall TV advertising is still the most cost effective form of advertising because of the number of eyeballs you can reach. Games don't have the same numbers (not even remotely close to TV.)

What is interesting is that this will be spread across an entire line of games so I doubt this could be in-game stuff per se. It'll probably be at the launch of the game or soemwhere in the GUI. Imagine a banner ad on the title screen.

Press Start After a word from our Sponsor!

Just like in Doom 3 on his PDA, there was some goddamn spam advertins there too!! Fujckin Spiam goddamnit.

I think it was in the emails in Deus Ex too!

Argh! I stopped watching TV for this very reason...

Oh well, I forsee hacks being released to remove ads. :)

That's fine. Just make the games cheaper or maybe free. All the main television networks are free and they bring in their revenues completely thru advertising.

I'm already sick to god damn death of clicking 8 times everytime I start a game just to get through all the Nvidia/Creative/Publisher ads. I didn't mind when it was just the Developer and the Publisher, but it's getting pretty retarded how many little logo animations I'm having to sit through. Now they want to start using the bandwidth I paid for to serve me ads in the games I paid for? Fuck them.

Katamari Damacy 2 --

Roll up all the fucking ads into a giant ball and set them on fire.

-- Win.

The problem I see with this is that it's not going to be a way for publishers to defray costs, it's a money making tool. If ads in games make the games cheaper, then I'm all for it, but that's not going to happen. It's going to be like commercials in front of movies in the theater. The price of movies has actually gone up in the last decade since they started doing that, making my attendance at theaters go down proportionally.

With PC games, at least you can probably patch out obtrusive ads.

So ad's have been in games for years now. Characters in fighting games, billboards in racing games, signs in adventure games. Yet now that you have been told that these ads will go more mainstream… people are crying about it?

Ad's in some way shape or form have been in games for years. You did not notice them then. The only reason you will notice them now is you were told about them.

QQ imo

Does this mean the end of quirky and comedic ads/mags in our games?

in example.. the dirty girly magazines found in Doom3 featuring our g-string wearing quake3babes?

I rented Pikmin 2 last weekend. Could there have been any more product placement? I was kinda turned off by that aspect.

The one place we thought we were immune to intrusion, the place where our imaginations can run wild and freely play whatever we like.

Like others have already said, this is only the beginning, it will only get worse. These big advertising companies don't give a shit about you, all they want is your money, they're only doing it because they can and unless we fight them they will have free reign over everything we do.

I'm sorry but this will be a sad day in gaming if this kind of thing gets the go-ahead, greed will have won and we'll all lose out.

"I Robot":ed

So games are going to be free now right? No? Well, the price will go down, right? No? Oh ok.
:(

I've never minded this in games prior where it appears in a place logical for an ad. The dnL ads in SSX3 appeared only where you would expectedly see an ad, and it wasn't bad because they were kept on billboards and the occasional appearance around the track instead of having a big closeup of your boarder chugging a bottle after winning the championship or something stupid like that.

Actually using my bandwith to update the billboards, I don't know. Either make it a seperate program that I can uninstall and save the bandwith, or I'm going to install Kerio and block the port.

2 things

1. i could care less if there is advertising in video games as long as it doesn't interfere with anything, and im sure it won't.

2. i would really like to see video game prices drop as a result of all this, even though im 99.9% sure they will not.

Time to start blocking ports or IPs with a firewall :)

I really dont like this idea, but I guess there's not much I can do.

eh not as bad as having to sit through commericals before a movie.

If it were similar like in Need for Speed: Underground where you're driving by and you see McDonald's billboards, then I don't mind.

I just do NOT want some ad to pop up outta no where and disrupt my gaming. That would totally piss me off to no end.

Unless it's in sports games, screw that.

"Gordon, they're waiting for you in the TAMPAX test chamber"