In-Game Advertising Breaks Out

UID1000000 writes "MSNBC reports that companies like Nielsen are implementing tracked advertising in video games. Viacom is also considering in-game advertising. I can't wait until your first person shooter stops and drinks a nice cold refreshing soda."

Comments

consoles and freeware

[BoldAC]

I'm not quite sure how this is all that new. Many, many console games have ads throughout the game. I was playing Madden 2005 just a few minutes ago... and the billboards in the stadiums are pushing all sorts of EA-related stuff.

What has shocked me is the failure of freeware with embedded ads. For a while it seemed many freeware authors were trying to make money with this concept.

As a freeware author myself, it didn't work well for my product. People preferred the old, buggy ad-free version to the final version with small, tasteful ads. I ended up making more money off the google ads on the download page than I did from the product.

I finally killed the ads and the number of people using the program hit the roof.

AC

Re:consoles and freeware

[proj_2501]

Madden 2005? I remember the big hullaballoo over Pizza Hut ads all over the NES version of the Ninja Turtles arcade game!

Re:consoles and freeware

[stretch0611]

This is new because: "Gamers are tracked. New advertisements are delivered on the fly. It's both a game publisher and ad exec's dream."

I will not pay for a game that tracks me or downloads ads. I am not even sure I would play it for free under thsoe conditions.

Re:consoles and freeware

[omghi2u]

OMG it's a no-brainer...

Free product needs to make money.
Few people pay for software.
Solution is to make people see ads.
Before game doesn't work (nobody pays attention).
Slap ads in game, collect money. ;-)

Re:consoles and freeware

[antifoidulus]

The game came with a coupon for a free personal pan pizza, now that is great advertisment to bovine America. Get your kids to play video games, then take them out for some greasy pizza!

Re:consoles and freeware

[Nos.]

You and I may not, but millions will, especially if it means less expensive (free?) games. Targetted and tracked advertising is the way things are moving. Pushing a commercial to thousands or millions is going by by, which is why were seeing thigs like Google's Adwords/AdSense becoming very popular. Its targetted advertising.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Anonymous Coward]

The old Playstation game WipeoutXL (wipeout2?) had Red Bull ad's all over the place, and that was well before Red Bull was even sold through major distributors in the US (i think). They weren't distracting at all, kind of fit with the game. To this day WipeoutXL remains one of my favorites.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Anonymous Coward]

The only people that will see the ads are people watching someone play. When you're "in game" you have other things attended to. Since so many games are now "1 person per console" I expect it to be less than successful.

I was in a company that attempted this 4 years ago. it was a stupid idea then, too.

Re:consoles and freeware

[heir2chaos]

And one can't forget the blatent advertisements for "Space Quest X: Latex Babes of Estros" in "Space Quest IV", or was that "Space Quest XII"... hmmm, damned timelines screw me up.

Re:consoles and freeware

[PhrostyMcByte]

Blizzard has been putting ads in their Battle.net service for years and their games sold a ton. I don't know if they track you or not but they are there.

Re:consoles and freeware

[stretch0611]

I forgot to mention:

It may be a game publisher/ad-exec's dream, but it is not a player's dream.

Also I suppose it is possible to circumvent the ads in single player mode if your pull your dsl/cable/dial-up line out of your computer before you play.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Xofer D]

You and I may not, but millions will, especially if it means less expensive (free?) games.

No they won't. They'll simply download a version which has been cracked to remove the ad misfeatures. You can be certain that such features will be removed along with copy protection, because any feature which downloads ads from the vendor would also be "phoning home", and what cracker would want that? Once they're merely copying the game already, there is a lot less incentive for consumers to purchase the game.

This probably will not mean less expensive games, and it certainly will not mean free games (giving it away for free makes it less valuable as an advertising medium; free things don't always get used). The game companies will want to maintain the perceived value of their games by not positioning it as a cheap, second-rate game. Of course, we know that it'd just be cheap spyware, so you can count me out too. That's my internet connection, thanks, and just like spam I don't want them using it for their benefit and not mine.

Re:consoles and freeware

[GreyWolf3000]

Interestingly enough, the pizza company in the first movie was Domino's.

Re:consoles and freeware

[PainKilleR-CE]

These are simply within the chat interface on battle.net, though, and not in the games themselves.

On the other hand, I've noticed at particular times (it's been a while since I've been on battle.net, though, so I can't say recently) that the ads have been dominated by Blizzard's own products, meaning that they weren't getting many outside advertisers. At the same time, I'd think that this means they aren't tracking very well, as I don't need to see ads for games I already own and have used on battle.net.

Re:consoles and freeware

[glesga_kiss]

I remember the big hullaballoo over Pizza Hut ads all over the NES version of the Ninja Turtles arcade game!

Likewise, I'm sure early sports games such as Fifa 96 had advertising. All stadiums tend to have advert boards now, so it was obvious to include these in the game. Initially they used to use the publishing house name and other games they made, but after a point they started to accept advertising from third-party sponsors. That probably began with some "official sponsor of ..." creeping into the games.

While the submitter may have incorrectly indicated that this is the first game advertising, I think it is true in terms of downloading new adverts as time goes by.

If you do decide to introduce this form or advertising, tracking is a neccessary evil. You need to know which users have seen which ads. Your clients want to know how many eyeballs saw each one. However, I see no reason why this could not be done on the client side using anonymous submission of the data.

Re:consoles and freeware

[kris_lang]

It's not the ADS that are new, it's the fact that the statistic-bots at Nielsen-VNU are attempting to sell compiled packages of market demographics of who exactly VIEWS these ads to the purveyors of advertisements. Nielsen-VNU does this so that the purveyors of ads can charge more for these ads by claiming that more of those key 18-36 males actually view these ads. Nielsen also competes with soundscan and arbitron for radio ad penetration, also partners with TiVo to sell those kewl demographics that TiVo can collect, and sells the key information about those "nielsen t.v. log" viewers such as income, race, age, and buying habits for large chunks of money. Nielsen recently had to re-readjust their amazingly skewed statistics when their N.Y. ratings showed a HUGE drop in young hispanic males viewing certain channels. Turns out that they had modified their sampling formulas and ratios and, as a result of that, the "viewing" numbers that they extrapolated from that (and which the big networks broadcast and cable and satellite use to calculate the charges for their ads) changed lots of money changing hands. Univision protested loudly.

Fox station in San Diego got in trouble (dropped off the Nielsen results tracker for x period of time for having an advert saying "hey nielsen viewers, write down our station now!", and you know a lot of those radio give-away gimmicks that say "listen at 1:30 this afternoon for such and such a song and CALL IN TO WIN!" are often temporally correlated with Nielsen logging times for radio listenership.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Croaker]

You and I may not, but millions will, especially if it means less expensive (free?) games.

The thing is, it won't result in cheaper games. As an example, take a look at the movies. Back in the 80's, it was unheard of to have advertisements for products (other than the coming attractions, that is, which had been established almost as early as the movie theater itself). Now, we have 10 minutes of so of ads for all sorts of crap, reducing a trip to the movies to being TV you pay $10 or more for.

And has your ticket price gone down at all since they started showing ads? Concessions gotten any cheaper? No. Prices still continue to climb. The theaters and Hollywood just pocket the extra revinue.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Anonymous Coward]

Targeted advertising is really nothing new either. Google is fairly late in the game, it's a miracle it worked for them.

Re:consoles and freeware

[hal2814]

Yeah, but WipeoutXL for all intents and purposes is a Sports game. Most sports games can successfully put advertisements in the game becasue we are accustomed to seeing such adverts in actual sporting events. A much larger challenge would be successfully putting in-game advertising into a non-sports game.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Anonymous Coward]

Or people who run everything through a linux router can just firewall out the ad server's ip address, make their caching nameserver pretend their domain doesn't exist, etc.

I have already done this plenty of times with things like AOL instant messenger and it works fine. It isn't hard to block the ads for a program while the rest of the functionality still works like normal.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Anonymous Coward]

going by by

Haha, you cant even speel "bye bye", what a looser!

Re:consoles and freeware

[_Sprocket_]

Targetted and tracked advertising is the way things are moving. Pushing a commercial to thousands or millions is going by by, which is why were seeing thigs like Google's Adwords/AdSense becoming very popular. Its targetted advertising.

A key part of this is the tracking. Google Adwords goes to certain pains to maintain a privacy barrier between users of Adwords (via site visits, searches, etc.) and those who establish a business relationship based on an Adwords ad (that is - someone who clicks on an ad... and even then the information is limited). This, among other user-favorable approaches to advertising, is what has made Google's system a success.

The grandparent doesn't say what ad tech they used. But the problem is that by this time, the well has been poisoned. Any app that admits to being "advertising supported" will be viewed as a likely carrier for untold amounts of scumware (spyware, et al). Even if it isn't. The perception is there - and for good reason. Scumware companies have soured our view of that model.

The interesting thing is that Google entered a poisoned market. Advertising ilk such as Doubleclick polluted online advertising with inappropriate expectations (why is just seeing an ad on TV acceptable but an online campaign a failure if it doesn't generate click-throughs) and playing games with tracking cookies, pop-ups/unders, java, and flash. It's a wonder anyone loads ad banners at all (and an increasing number of users don't). Yet Google has flourished in this wasteland. And a large part of this has to do with their behavior. At the least, they don't behave in a manner that makes it worth the effort to block them. And that only makes an already effective system more effective.

Purveyors of "tracking" and "targeted" ad technology should be very careful as to what limits their targets will accept.

Re:consoles and freeware

[sparkywonderchicken]

This also opens up a new market for someone to write software to block these ads, depending on how they are delivered. Kind of like disabling Gator and still using the software it's connected to.

Re:consoles and freeware

[The Slashdot Guy]

I remember those ads. I didn't know what Red Bull was, I thought it a company involved with making the game.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Kombat]

And has your ticket price gone down at all since they started showing ads?

Actually, yes, they have. Here in Ottawa, Ontario, all the major chains lowered their ticket prices last year by a couple of bucks, although the prevailing opinion was that the move was made to combat piracy, rather than return advertising dividends to the patrons themselves.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Anonymous Coward]

The NVidia / Pentium 4 ads in Enter the Matrix were horrible. Plus they were in the Gamecube version of the game. How does that make sense?

Bastards!

Re:consoles and freeware

[NanoGator]

"The game came with a coupon for a free personal pan pizza, now that is great advertisment to bovine America. Get your kids to play video games, then take them out for some greasy pizza!"

Yes, I'm a fat ass because of Ninja Turtles. It took a whopping week for my transformation to occur.

Re:consoles and freeware

[GreyPoopon]

And has your ticket price gone down at all since they started showing ads? Concessions gotten any cheaper? No. Prices still continue to climb.

I have absolutely no support for the MPAA and the tactics of movie theaters, but one thing you have to factor into the equation is that the cost of making a movie is astronomically higher now than it was in the 1980's, not to mention the equipment required to show them. Special effects, digital processing and incredible sound are in high demand now. Given this, the revenues from advertising may be holding the prices down some, but I don't think there's any way of knowing for sure.

Re:consoles and freeware

[soltarusprime]

And further back, the greatest advertising snafoo of all time when M&Ms (instead of Reesie's Pieces) turned down the offer to be the candy depicted in the movie "E.T."

Re:consoles and freeware

[upsidedown_duck]

The only people that will see the ads are people watching someone play.

I'm not sure about this. RPGs, where the character spends most of his/her time just walking around talking to people, the people could say things like "Oooh, this [brand] cola sure hits the spot and it's a chrome cleaner, too!" or "Hey, kids, [brand] sardines are high in calcium for strong bones and teeth!". In games like Doom, I wouldn't be surpised if the gamer could read 1000 ads at once plastered all over the walls and ceilings while looking for imps.

Regardless, given that games are already a time sink, I, ironically, become angry when the game starts wasting my time. Ads are essentially a waste of time in a paid-for game. Add 30-second ads to the process of "leveling up" in an RPG (use your Nike|Reebok|Adidas-brand armor boots to defeat a boss and get to see an ad...tons of fun), and heads would start exploding the world over.

I would bet that ads in games would be percieved as 100 times worse than product placement in movies.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Clovert Agent]

I'm not sure it's entirely a bad thing, and I'm usually pretty rabidly opposed to ad tracking.

But I play MMOGs like City of Heroes. I don't think the game would suffer from advertising in obvious places. If anything, it would add to the "city" feeling - freeways without billboards look odd :)

And if the publisher (NCSoft in this case) tracked how many players had seen the ad (ie: had a viewpoint on it from within x distance), that wouldn't worry me. More invasive than that and I might protest, but within reason I think it's OK.

Obviously I'd like to see some sort of benefit. A reduction on monthly fees, better support, perhaps the ability to opt out of seeing ads.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Anonymous Coward]

Was that in the remade version?
Luke still shot first.

Re:consoles and freeware

[upsidedown_duck]

Another thought: Nike|Reebok|Adidas-brand armor boots would actually be a big hit among certain gamers...the ones that buy Nike|Reebok|Adidas-brand shoes because [favorite athlete just out on parole signed for another 15 million] wears them. Pretty lame, but this sort of product placement would work among the insecure adolescents out there who are seeking their place in the world of empty fashion.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems that a good model for in game advertisements. Is to put ads in the game not for the players. But for the specatators! Sorta like nascar. Players are much to involved with playing to notice ads. But spectators arn't.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Anonymous Coward]

To be honest, so long as I'm allowed to 'register' my level of approval by fraggin' the in-game billboards, I'm all for it.

Like, spawn your own bots that actively hunt $PRODUCT_I_HATE 's ads and railgun 'em. For hours at a time. And maybe even get 'em to defend $LIFESTYLE_INDICATORS_I_FEEL_PERSONALLY_ATTACHED_T O.

Let's show 'em what this demographic's made of.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Greyfox]

No, that's not how it works. The will raise the price AND deliver ads to you. The price never goes down. If we lived in the world you described, they'd have cut the cost of a movie to $3 or $4 when they started doing advertising during the previews.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Anonymous Coward]

Most sports games can successfully put advertisements in the game becasue we are accustomed to seeing such adverts in actual sporting events

But, oddly enough, alot of the time they will remove advertisments that are really at the stadium/park/field. A good example of that is the huge Citgo sign that's visible at Fenway. If you don't watch a lot of Red Sox games, you don't notice it, but if you do, it's a glaring omission. It's almost on par with leaving the Green Monster (the left field wall in Fenway) out.

Re:consoles and freeware

[plover]

I wish I had mod points to give you, this is very insightful.

And I guess I've surprised even myself with this. I'm an ad-blocker. I'm sorry to anyone's web page I visit that's paid for with advertising-sponsored links, but there is only so much flashy blinky sh!t that I can take. I run the Proxomitron and have a huge ruleset. On top of this I use Mozilla with the popup blocker, and use adblock constantly. I have the flashblocker plugin that simply does not display flash until it's clicked on. It's been so long that I surfed without all this armor that I find myself shocked by the crap people put up with. Pop ups, pop unders, flashy DHTML blocks that fly around their screens, it's like a carnival leaping up to disguise the fact that they are serving information. Hell, I already find the "games.slashdot.org" color scheme to be distatefully distracting enough, without the clutter of banners.

I do have a few exceptions: I don't deliberately block ads on the sites that I frequent (fark, UF, etc.) in hopes that they get some stipend simply for the traffic. I even buy from the banner ads on some of those sites just to give the business their way.

I also don't mind SOME OF the banner ads I've found in certain products. For example, XFire is completely sponsored by one small banner ad located at the top center of the screen. It's not PUNCH THE MONKEY BLINKING, it's not spyware sponsored, it's just a small billboard. I appreciated the effort so much I've purchased a couple of games through them just to say "hey, well done guys, this is the right thing to do."

My other exception is Google's advertising. It's always been text based, so it's never been the visual distraction that causes me to want to block it. I don't always read them, but sometimes I do. Certainly, it gets much more of my attention than the blinky "turn away from the flashing lights" ads. Plus, I've always considered Google to be "the good guys" for all the reasons you mentioned.

I once evem wrote a proxomitron filter to strip the google ads, but removed it when I realized it was advertising that didn't drive me off, and that might benefit the sites hosting it. So, you're absolutely right -- Google's ads aren't worth the trouble to block.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Anonymous Coward]

I finally killed the ads and the number of people using the program hit the roof.

I find your software fascinating and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Requiem]

The irony of this post is delicious.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Mortanius]

Holy crap! Big Business will know how many times a Coke ad flashes by your screen while you spin around to blast an imp with your shotgun! Next thing you know the game will be FORCING you to buy the product!

Please. Besides, you could just stand in front of an ad for some company and tape down one of your keys to make you spin around endlessly, jacking up their numbers. :-P I recently came back to Anarchy Online and noticed that some of the billboards which had previously featured fake in-game ads now have ads for Alienware. Does it bother me? Nope. Would it bother me if Bronto Burger was suddenly replaced by McDonald's? Well, maybe, I like annoying people at the Bronto farm, but otherwise, nope. Is it really going to ruin your gameplay to see ads for potentially real products?

Although the part about working the products into the dialogue sounds interesting. Would they get the actors to re-record the entire sentence, or just the particular word, resulting in the Die-Hard-on-network-TV effect?

Re:consoles and freeware

[jasonbw]

actually, that was great. they were doing the personal pan pizza in 5 minutes or its free deal. they always ran late so we ate the entire summer for free (about 6 times if i remember correctly). i think i might still have the manual intact with the coupon.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Kazymyr]

The oldest in-game advertising I can think of was in "Xeno" for Sinclair Spectrum, circa 1986. The in-game billboards would scroll ads for upcoming games of the same software house.

Re:consoles and freeware

[SophtwareSlump]

I don't know what year it came out, but Pole Position in the arcade had 7-11 billboards on the side of the road.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Wiwi Jumbo]

Judge my Photography.

I judge your photos to be the high side of average, but they're still better then mine. :o)

http://wiwijumbo.deviantart.com/gallery/

Re:consoles and freeware

[Anonymous Coward]

i remember commander keen had ID for many of the blocks throughout the game, which i guess is the same as having the gamehouse plastered throughout the game.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Masami Eiri]

Never noticed them... did notice the obscene amount of Powerade adage. Though I just rolled with it and drank it to regain health. Ads in games never bothered me, as long as they make sense.

Re:consoles and freeware

[clontzman]

Not nearly as delicious as an ice-cold Coca-Cola and a crispity, crunchity, peanut-buttery Butterfinger!

Re:consoles and freeware

[Dave_Chimaera]

There was that 'Cool Spot' platform game back in the 90's for 7-up too... From what I recall it was actually a pretty good game, by the standards of PC platformers at the time (admittedly thats not exactly saying a great deal)

Re:consoles and freeware

[Morpeth]

I played CoH as well (recently cancelled), what I liked was that the storefronts and signs are fictitious, and NOT real. I prefer fake billboards, because while I expect a cityscape to have them, I don't need companies pandering their crap to me while I play a game for entertainment

Heck - you already paid $40-50 for the game, then $12-15 a month fee to play, and you'd tolerate the ads? You are a marketer's dream :)

I also only want them to track my avatars movements for one purpose only, to stabilize, improve and maintain the game, period. Not to figure how to cram more ads in my face.

Even IF they dropped the montly fee COMPLETELY I would be unhappy with the ads. I play games to escape the world, not see yet another freakin coke machine, GAP ad, or Shell gas station sign.

I will avoid companies and games that start doing this, no way in h*ll am I going to let one of my few pleasures and escapes be ruined by those annoying marketing companies, it's bad enough as it is now.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Talinom]

Hell, I already find the "games.slashdot.org" color scheme to be distatefully distracting enough, without the clutter of banners.

Apparently you haven't been to the IT section of /. yet. Enjoy.

Re:consoles and freeware

[1DarkZen]

What about America's Army? It's one big ad for the Army.

Re:consoles and freeware

[be951]

I'm not sure about this. RPGs, where the character spends most of his/her time just walking around talking to people, the people could say things like "Oooh, this [brand] cola sure hits the spot and it's a chrome cleaner....

That's possible, and it could be done in an amusing/entertaining way. Other possibilities that seem more likely are things like real billboard ads, signs, etc... in any game with a somewhat realistic environment. And product placement in cutscenes and during loads (long load times could then be offset by a price discount since advertisers would get more exposure and thus be expected to pay more).

Add 30-second ads to the process of "leveling up" in an RPG (use your Nike|Reebok|Adidas-brand armor boots to defeat a boss and get to see an ad...tons of fun), and heads would start exploding the world over.

No no. Sponsors pay developers big bucks to have their item be the best -- Adidas boots increase your movement rate by, say 5%, and Reebok by 8%, but Nike naturally outbids everyone and their boots are +15%. Everyone loves Nike the best and their virtual boots are the most sought after. It is win-win-win. Players get a perk, developers/publishers get a new revenue stream (and maybe pass some of that along to gamers? Well, it is theoretically possible), and Nike gets advertising in a market they might otherwise miss (gamers who'd rather play an RPG than watch sports).

Re:consoles and freeware

[common middle name]

FYI: Neilson and Soundscan merged. Its now Neilson-Soundscan. It happened about two years ago.

Re:consoles and freeware

[KDR_11k]

I'd wager that most casual gamers (who just want to play Madden with their friends and not bother with any of that technical stuff) wouldn't know or care about such advertising "features". I'm not sure tracking could be implemented in a relatively fixed perspective game like Madden (where the camera isn't player controlled and there's no way of telling what the player is looking at, though there's a high chance it's the ball) without attaching some hardware to the user's eyeball. Even in othergames, the perspective might not tell too much about what the player saw. Sure, the player's going to have your ad in his view if you place it right behind the boss, but the player will probably look at the boss, not the surroundings. The only ad the player is guranteed to see is the full screen ad, but unless it's a load screen (and I'd say even then) it'll scare away customers. And it still won't provide feedback about how much the player cared. Since tracking ad displays only for determining ad fees would be unnecessarily expensive and probably work against the publisher, I doubt they'd really use tracking and instead set a fixed fee or something based on copies sold or something.

I'll be one of those people who'd boycott if they added that without a compensation for the customer (as in, game for 20 at launch) and I doubt they even could gather that data legally in the EU, but if it means really cheap games I won't bother too much. I'm using Opera with ads on, so I don't care that much for unintrusive ads (as opposed to ads that fly in your face and stick there or email marketing).

Re:consoles and freeware

[NoMercy]

I can just imagine it now, your straifing around a corner, gun cocked and ready at a door then suddenly in the distance a billboard comes into view and you start downloading a huge image to display on it.

Guy comes out the door and kills you dead while your lagged :)

Re:consoles and freeware

[Anonymous Coward]

Yo! Noid!

Re:consoles and freeware

[bk_veggie]

i tried this, but then was constantly trying to figure out which mega-corp was using a white square with a red x was doing a guerilla marketing tactic.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Dizzle]

I'm not quite sure that's such a big issue. M&M still dominates over Reese's Pieces, and always has.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Paulrothrock]

Also I suppose it is possible to circumvent the ads in single player mode if your pull your dsl/cable/dial-up line out of your computer before you play.

Unless you're playing over the Internet, or if they rig the game so that you can't play unless you have an active Internet connection with a certain port open to receive images.

Money grubbing bastards like this have no soul. They will try everything to squeeze every ounce of money out of you.

I have no problem with people getting paid for good work. However, I don't think they should be able to make unreasonable demands, like forcing you to watch ads during a game you bought and paid for.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Anonymous Coward]

(Taken from the article)
"It's like when I played 'Grand Theft Auto' for the first time," he said. "I thought to myself how much better it would be if the signs were real."
(Massive, Inc. CEO Mitch Davis)

"It's like the first time I heard of Massive, Inc. CEO Mitch Davis," I said. "I thought to myself how much better that company would be if the CEO wasn't huffing exhaust fumes in the company car park".

Re:consoles and freeware

[anon*127.0.0.1]

I'm going to be leery of any game that interrupts gameplay to deliver a commercial. If Max Payne 3 has some cutscene where Max stands still for 20 seconds and watches a TV commercial for Mountain Dew, I'm not going to like it. If my kids racing game on the PS2 makes them watch a 30 second commercial for lunchables to unlock one of the cars, I'm probably not going to buy it for them.

But if a company can deliver ads without screwing up gameplay, I don't think I'd have a problem with it. Somone mentioned billboards in GTA3 already, though I think the whole GTA series is too controversial for most major companies. When I play UT2004, the game throws up a static screen every time the level changes, and I have to stare at it for 10-15 seconds. There are only about six different screens, and they old pretty quick. If the publishers wanted to toss some advertisements up there instead, I wouldn't mind... heck, I might even welcome it.

And contrary to some what people are saying, it is quite possible that in-game advertising could lead to reduced game prices. If advertising becomes a major revenue stream for game companies, then it would make sense for them to reduce their prices to get more viewers for their ads. That might make games with advertising a little cheaper then those without, at least for the short haul. We might see more patches, bonus packs, and expansion sets for popular games... buying ad space in a free Doom3 expansion set would almost be the gaming equivilant of buying commercial time in the Super Bowl.

Re:consoles and freeware

[severoon]

Since it's a game, and most game consoles have an always-on Internet connection these days (that's true, isn't it?), these companies could make ads that were actually useful to the player. Maybe people wouldn't mind these so much, and if they did significantly bring down the cost of the game, I think people would be even more for it (the game companies really ought to publicize what thier customers are saving due to these ads.)

So imagine this. You're playing Real Baseball 2004 or whatever and you see a Pizza Hut billboard. You click on it and the game goes into "Pizza Selection Mode". You build a pizza, enter your information, and order it for delivery. They place a confirmation call to your house and send out your pizza. Neat? I think so. Useful? To some people, at least. Profitable for the company? Yup. Where's the downside?

Re:consoles and freeware

[Anonymous Coward]

You should try gentoo. It doesn't have any pizza ads in it.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Anonymous Coward]

I would be afraid to download any binary that had adds in it. There's too much risk that it could also install spyware/addware without permission.

Re:consoles and freeware

[GTRacer]

I run the Proxomitron and have a huge ruleset.

So do I, although I haven't gotten into rule-writing as much as I should. I understand the basics; I just haven't had time to experiment to get the fine-grained control I want.

It's been so long that I surfed without all this armor...

I hear you! Every so often I find myself surfing from someone else's machine or from an external, unfiltered PC and you're right: The Web is a cluttered, chaotic mess!

GTRacer
- Shounen, indeed!

Re:consoles and freeware

[bigman2003]

And in a big grand circle...

Xbox is the 'official console' of World Cup 2006.

Re:consoles and freeware

[plover]

Ah, but I have. Since most of what I read on /. is IT related, I almost immediately wrote a proxomitron rule to replace "it . slashdot . org" with simply "slashdot . org" (I'm putting the spaces in because the Proxomitron rule will eat the "it." on my next preview!)

However, I haven't frequented these other sections often enough to warrant writing a rule to fix them.

Actually, the it. color scheme isn't nearly as bad as the games. color scheme. Maybe I should rewrite my rule to simply alter the "bgcolor" tags slashdot inserts, regardless of the "host" name. Then, I could tweak it to be as garish or as button down as I want. Hmm...

Re:consoles and freeware

[Luigi30]

FIFA 96's backgrounds were too low-res. They just said "FIFA '96" on the boards.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Safety Cap]

~ the cost of making a movie is astronomically higher now than it was in the 1980's ~.

No.

The issue is the fact that the movie companies ("Suits") are extremely risk-adverse these days; they want a guaranteed hit. To do this, they go with a familiar story (remake of some old chestnut, or a action/hot babe thriller) and lots of star power. The latter thought is based upon the assumption that people will want to go see their favorite star in a poorly-written story, rather than a cast of unknowns with a well-written script.

The cost of the stars and the cost of overhead, of continuously tweaking a good story until it is a tired, retread POC, is what drives the cost up.

Some of your best bargins are the so-called "minority" films. The studios generally pay much less for a "Mexican" or "Black" flick, even though the writing is generally of good quality, as in "Mi Vida Loca" or "Soul Food."

Re:consoles and freeware

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah but was M&M's in the movie ET?

Re:consoles and freeware

[BrokenStructure]

putting ads in games isn't new at all. Every sports game has tons of them, and I just saw a screenshot from Doom3 that had a playboy sitting on a desk.

What they're doing new, and what is a total invasion of privacy, is that they will be tracking exactly which ads get viewed, when, where, how, etc... and then I imagine they'll be sending that info via your net connection back to whichever company for 'processing'. It's just so blatantly big brother.

I, for one, won't be buying these games unless I know for certain that I can disable the software.

Re:consoles and freeware

[BrokenStructure]

amen, brotha'!

;-)

Re:consoles and freeware

[logic hack]

Yeah but they were two minutes late with delivery so they decided to go with someone more relyable to ensure your pizza didn't arrive late when battling mousers.

Re:consoles and freeware

[|/|/|||]

Sounds like you need to write a letter to your movie theater. Two things that ruin a movie theater for me are 1) commercials (other than previews) and 2) vomit inducing pop music.

A *good* theater has either no music or some barely audible classical music, and the curtains should be closed until the show starts.

I guess I'm just picky, but that's what I'm looking for if they want my business. The theater that I go to now may be the only one around here that doesn't play commercials, and if they started then I certainly wouldn't go there anymore. I've given up on two *closer* theaters already.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Chanc_Gorkon]

No. It was Reese's Pieces. RTFP! (Read The Frickin Post).

Re:consoles and freeware

[Nurgled]

Your last paragraph reminds me of something one of my friends told me about a while back. In one of these new-fangled "virtual world" things -- I think it was There -- they encourage players to purchase different textures/models for their avatars, of course calling them "clothes". At the time I was told, they had recently added a special new "shoe" product which was named after a major brand of training shoes. Which one I forget.

The point is, though, that like you said players "wearing" these trainers can run slightly faster than other players. The thing that amused me most was that apparently players were buying them like crazy even though running speed has no real bearing on this particular game. If they'll do it for this, then it stands to reason that players will be even more willing to go for this in a game where running faster actually provides some kind of advantage over other players.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Dizzle]

I'm not quite sure I understand your post. I know Reese's pieces was the candy in ET, but it's not a big issue that M&M passed it up because it's still the top seller with respect to reese's pieces.
Unless there was something I missed.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Requiem]

I concur.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Anonymous Coward]

"Also I suppose it is possible to circumvent the ads in single player mode if your pull your dsl/cable/dial-up line out of your computer before you play."

No, they'll just have them cached.

Re:consoles and freeware

[DeadScreenSky]

Hollywood doesn't actually get any money for the ads, AFAIK. It all goes to the cinema, which actually needs it. The problem is that current films just don't stay in the theaters for very long, and with the type of profit sharing that is used nowadays by the studios and the theaters, the theaters just aren't doing very well financially.

Let me explain: usually the first week or so of a film release will have the theater earning something like 10% of the ticket sales. Every week thereafter they will make another 10% or so, cumulative. This wasn't a big deal when good films would stay in theaters for half a year or so, and when far less films were released, but that simply isn't how it is done nowadays (why exactly this is is an exercize left to the reader). And the studios generally only heavily advertise a film for its first week (there are exceptions, but the advertising is still only heavy right before release), which just makes films maximize more and more their first week sales at the expense of long-term sales. The studios then rush the film out to DVD fairly quickly now (sometimes far less than six months after theatrical release!), which doesn't help the theater at all, of course.

Don't get me wrong, I despise advertising in all its forms (I rarely watch any television for just that reason, and never the major networks, who advertise more frequently. I block 99% of all ads on the web, etc.). But the theaters don't really have any other options other than bankruptsy, as the film studios have nearly all of the control in this situation. I just ignore the ads in the theater myself, taking the opportunity to continue conversation with my friends. Just pretend the film was delayed 10 minutes or so (anything longer would be pretty ridiculous on the part of the theater, but it just hasn't happened in my recent experience), maybe the projector isn't ready...

(And I am pretty sure pre-film ads go way back, just usually it would be something like a short film or news clip that mentioned the sponser at the end. There were definitely some ads in theaters back in the 80s, but usually only for stuff like Coca Cola or the candy the theater sells. They aren't new, though they are more aggressive.)

Re:consoles and freeware

[IncohereD]

I guess I'm just picky, but that's what I'm looking for if they want my business. The theater that I go to now may be the only one around here that doesn't play commercials, and if they started then I certainly wouldn't go there anymore. I've given up on two *closer* theaters already.

I had an amusing experience with my roommate when we went to see Kill Bill vol 1, wherein he was shocked to see a commercial beforehand. He's from a very small town, so only went to two movies before coming to University, but this was in our fifth year. I think if you see movies late enough in their run in almost any theatre now there's often no ads, because the advertisers don't want to pay to show to 10 or 15 people. I've also noticed that now that they're showing the still/digital ads before 'showtime', often the trailers start right at showtime, which is a small improvement.

I'm definitely a huge support of repertory cinemas, though, and the lack of ads (and the interesting trailers) is a giant plus.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Anonymous Coward]

I will not pay for a game that tracks me or downloads ads. I am not even sure I would play it for free under thsoe conditions.

I certainly won't either. I suppose if they don't think I'll mind being bombarded with adds, then the game publishers won't mind giving me the game for free, sound fair?

I suppose the good news for all those who hate advertising is that there is so much fun to be had with linux. Who needs the latest FPS when you can build LFS? (And I'm being semi-serious here).

Ultimately, the point I'm trying to get at, is that myself and many others don't like advertising. I am will to go to great lengths to avoid it. Including being deprived of the latest and greatest if necessary, but it's always a subjective tradeoff of benefit vs intrusiveness. There's plenty of other things to do, and people who write little games for fun that aren't encumbered like this (plus the whole history of gaming if you want to install an emulator and load old rom/floppy images). The free and open source world may not have all the hype and polish of the corporate crap, but the soulless money grubbing corporatoins leave such a nasty after-taste in my mouth that I just don't care.

Re:consoles and freeware

[barcodeplane]

How about the fact that M&M's missed out on a good chunk of money?

Re:consoles and freeware

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget to factor in inflation.

Re:consoles and freeware

[Krusty_Klown]

I guess you don't remember the CGA PC game: Noid!

Re:consoles and freeware

[Iffy Bonzoolie]

According to the Arcade History Database Pole Position came out in 1982, so you win!

-If

Re:consoles and freeware

[eofpi]

Ads in games are nothing new, especially for the developers'/publishers' other products.

All of Midway's "San Francisco: Rush" series have ads for other Midway games on the billboards, and one of the bonus tracks in "Rush 2: Extreme Racing USA" is a slot-car-scale tour of what's purportedly one of Midway's offices, complete with several dozen arcade games made by them (including the series' various cabinets to date, as well as most of the Area 51 series of arcade games).

And this is just from a game series that started in 1995.

Re:consoles and freeware

[zarthrag]

Out of curiousity...just how much do moderately popular sites make off of google adwords? I know it varies with the site, but how does this fare for supporting "free" software authors?

Re:consoles and freeware

[Luigi30]

Like they need more? They make billions off M&Ms.

Re:consoles and freeware

[proj_2501]

i remember an nes version of the same. what makes you think i wouldn't?

Re:consoles and freeware

[WWWWolf]

Not to even mention it makes the whole game experience change.

I can imagine showing the game to some kids five years from now and say stuff like "When this game was brand new, they had a tasteful company X ad here, none of this blinking stuff."

Not that the crappily coded game even could work five years now when the publisher is gone and it can't find the ad server...

Re:consoles and freeware

[Anonymous Coward]

You and I may not, but millions will, especially if it means less expensive games.

Yes, millions will. Then people will figure out a way to crack the games to take the adds out. After which video game companies and advertisers will start complaining about so-called 'pirates' who crack and distribute de-added games and how they are loosing 50% of their revenue. Wait... this all seems kinda familiar...

Re:consoles and freeware

[Murphy(c)]

You forgot to mention that you actually got to play part of "Space Quest XII : Latex Babes of Esteros", in Space Quest IV.

If my memory serves me, after you exit your time pod in some canyon landscape, get nabbed buy a huge flying bird and fall off in some water, you then get rescued by a submarin "maned" by the babes in question (and full 256Color VGA goodness).

You leave SpaceQuest XII when they all decide to go shopping at the Space Mall, and after interrogating you with a hair puller.

That's what I called adventure games !
Murphy(c)

Do I get more vitality points from Expresso

[SirLanse]

Will there be points for Coke vs Pepsi? Can I get all the Gatorade? If I get generic, will get sick?

Re:Do I get more vitality points from Expresso

[Stripe7]

Heh, more like stop off at the Burger King stand for xtra hit points. Quaff a coke for 10 hp etc.. Hmmm, Smith and Wesson ads? Stop off at Colt to get the latest in alien stopping power. :)

Re:Do I get more vitality points from Expresso

[Viceice]

You know, it would be interestingto include this tech in Sims2 then have both a Pepsi and a Coke vending machine up for sale in teh game, and see which users would buy more of.

Re:Do I get more vitality points from Expresso

[nastro]

Hey, it's River City Ransom, 2005! Super Red Bull raises vitality to next level! Big Mac 10 dollars raises strength to max!!! Smiles are free, but only with coupon and purchase of small Starbucks coffee!!!

Demo versions...

[hot_Karls_bad_cavern]

...should soon be rife with this sort of thing. Want to play the game? For free? Well, here's some ads to enjoy in the mean time. Might bug some folks, but if the game is really that good, hell, i'll buy...if the ads are taken out of the pay-version.

Re:Demo versions...

[LostCluster]

Funny, I don't see you posting with the "subscriber star" in your header. Guess you don't consider this Slashdot game very good at all... :)

Re:Demo versions...

[MP3Chuck]

Isn't a demo an ad in and of itself? "Here's a little taste, now buy the full version!"

There's no good that can come of this tracking stuff ... not for the consumer, anyway. $50 a piece for a new title isn't enough?

Re:Demo versions...

[rarose]

Well, it might be worth subscribing if we didn't have to replay the same level^H^H^H^H^Hstory every couple of days.

How that affect the price of games?

[_w00d_]

Does that mean that the price of games will come down? If so, will companies want people to "pirate" games because it would only mean more exposure for their advertisers?

Re:How that affect the price of games?

[Anonymous Coward]

Prices of games will never come down from this. If anyone thinks that they're an idiot. It only means that the corporate whores in the publishers companies will be making more money.

Re:How that affect the price of games?

[omghi2u]

OMG, that's not going to happen.

Everyone loves money,
ESPECIALLY dump trucks full of money.
This is gravy,
A way to "maximize" profits. ;-(

Re:How that affect the price of games?

[_w00d_]

If advertising dollars became the major source of revenue for software companies, I wouldn't be surprised if they lowered the price of their games just so the games will reach a wider audience. Look at television for example. Television is funded primarily by advertising.

Re:How that affect the price of games?

[blueZhift]

This probably won't bring down game prices, but you do make an interesting point about piracy. Pirates are just like anyone else, they are influenced by ads and will probably buy some of the products. So if a heavily pirated game is indeed piling up ad revenue, then I would expect the game publisher to make sure that they get their cut of that. Indeed, this might even lead to less aggressive pursuit of pirates by said publishers. Afterall, if the pirates are ultimately making more money for them, they can hardly complain. I'd love to see the numbers on this!

Re:How that affect the price of games?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like cable?

Re:How that affect the price of games?

[micromoog]

Television is funded primarily by advertising.

And the price people pay for it has been steadily rising since the 80s. Very few people actually pull their signals for free from the air these days.

Re:How that affect the price of games?

[Anonymous Coward]

Paid placement has been rampant in movies for years. Has the price of a movie ticket gone down? Do the studios now welcome pirating?

Re:How that affect the price of games?

[networkBoy]

Very few people actually pull their signals for free from the air these days.

I still do. I have no cable no sat dish, just POBCTV (Plain Old BroadCast TeleVision) and I get my DSL connection over my POTS. That's all I need. I don't watch a lot of movies, hardly any TV, and have found myself too busy to justify the added expense of pay TV as I would never use it. To me the adverts are fine. If the software followed a similar model with adverts bundled in the free stuff and commercial content reduced/eliminated in the pay version (wasn't the point of cable TV to be ad free?) then I have no real issue with this. I may even play the ad supported version (as long as Claria/Gator is not the ad provider) to muck about with their demographics (I'm in the wrong age group).

Re:How that affect the price of games?

[_w00d_]

And the price people pay for it has been steadily rising since the 80s. Very few people actually pull their signals for free from the air these days.

I should have been more specific. We don't pay for local television stations. With cable, you are paying to have your television stations delivered to you over a completely different infrastructure. Your cable bill goes to pay for the stations, the cable lines, and the cable company's advertising in your community. It would be different if the cable companies broadcast a signal because they wouldn't need to run all of the cable lines and associated equipment. But I digress.

Who else?

[ack154]

I can see it now:

• Healthpacks - sponsored by Johnson & Johnson
• Ammo Reloads - sponsored by Remmington
• etc

Re:Who else?

[glesga_kiss]

Who's going to sponsor the little blue pills that make Pacman bigger and stronger?

Re:Who else?

[MyHair]

Who's going to sponsor the little blue pills that make Pacman bigger and stronger?

Red Bull or Power Ade! Who else?

Also, in Quake IV the Megasphere has been replaced with Red Bull.

Re:Who else?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who's going to sponsor the little blue pills that make Pacman bigger and stronger?

Wouldn't that be VIAGRA?!?

Re:Who else?

[pHatidic]

You see here a can of pepsi pepsi.
You drink the pepsi.
The pepsi was poisoned.
The poison was deadly.
Do you want your posessions identified?
Try a refreshing blessed +2 rustproof coca-cola next time.

Re:Who else?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nail gun ammo sponsored by Nine Inch Nails...

Re:Who else?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who's going to sponsor the little blue pills that make Pacman bigger and stronger?

Wouldn't that be VIAGRA?!?

I can see the slogans popping up already:
Play long, play hard!

Re:Who else?

[DigiShaman]

And vending machines will have Coke and Pepsi written on them....not for long though.

Hey, what do you know!!! The BGF9k DOES blow shit up.

Re:Who else?

[Xentor]

Ahh, Quake 1... Those were the days...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that was done because NiN did the music for Quake.

Neil Young says:

[Garion911]

This frag's for you!

Re:Neil Young says:

[Garion911]

*sigh*

For those of you who dont get the joke...

Neil Young wrote a song, "This notes for you!" in the 80's about product placement in music... The video was banned from MTV because corporate sponsers raised a fuss..

Games already have that?

[evilNomad]

PlanetSide already got ads for Intel on the loading screen, and tbh i doesnt really bother me, if it means more money for development, then they can fill the loading screen if you ask me!

Re:Games already have that?

[FlipmodePlaya]

Yah, I think it's a great idea. How cool is it in Oddworld to be drinking Sobe, or riding those grinding shoes from Sonic Adventure 2 (can't remember the name)? Ads for the NBA and stuff in sports games add an extra touch of realism, too. I'd rather have it that way, knowing the publisher making my favorite game is making extra money, than getting cheesy fake ads for no reason a la GTA3. I suppose I would be annoyed if one of the ads got in my way, but I've yet to experience that.

Re:Games already have that?

[Creepy]

Not to mention the idea isn't even that new... there was a mac (only?) racing game several years ago that was entirely paid for by advertisers as an advertising experiment.

I have no recollection of the name of the game, as my mac at the time was far too underpowered to run it.

Re:Games already have that?

[Bowdie]

Word. I play Planetside (werner - TR "plainslot") and I've seen that "Runs great on" thing so many times, I'm numb to it now.

Don't forget the Nvidia thing just after the loading screen that you never see because you're clicking the mouse. ;)

I wouldn't mind ads on the loading screen, but I think it would be taking the piss to have in game ads. "This Reaver brought to you by Northrup Flight Dynamics"

No thanks

Re:Games already have that?

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

Yeeeuch!

When I play games, it's to get away from reality for a while. The reason GTA is fun for me is because it's not realistic. If all the in-game billboards, cars, and stores were based in reality I would find that very disturbing.

Not to mention the addition game-wrecking influence advertisers would surely ask for, ala non-flipping, non-damaging vehicles in Gran Tourismo.

Worms and Red Bull

[Rik Sweeney]

Worms, by Team 17, had Red Bull as an item that you could collect.

Re:Worms and Red Bull

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that the original worms predates Red Bull; at least it predates the era of popular Red Bull.

I also don't recall my copy of Worms featuring any branded product. Was it a secret? Maybe it was a patch (quite likely, as for a while it was pirate-only in the US.)?

Re:Worms and Red Bull

[Anonymous Coward]

Which worms? Where?

I've been playing it for 10 years and never saw it.

Re:Worms and Red Bull

[Fred Or Alive]

I think he's referring to the latest edition, Worms 3D. I'm not sure if that's out in the US yet.

Re:Worms and Red Bull

[Anonymous Coward]

No it didn't.

You are thinking of Superfrog by Team 17 and it was Lucozade that was featured.

http://www.lucozade.com/ is a British energy drink by the way just incase any of our American friends aren't aware of it.

Re:Worms and Red Bull

[jjsoh]

As I recall, Red Bull was even advertised in WipeOut (the first PSX game) not only on in-game billboards, but also during the opening cut scenes. Only, you couldn't buy those energy drinks here in the U.S. back in 95(?) because they weren't sold here. We (at least, I) didn't know who or what Red Bull was.

Though, as soon as RB hit our market, the brand was instantly recognizable by me, and possibly by others who've played this game to death. Hmm, maybe advertising in video games does work?

Actually..

[suso]

Actually, it might be more likely that you when you approach a shotgun to pick up it will say Remington on the side.

Cat fight!

[PIPBoy3000]

Forget the Coke ads. I want the Budweiser girls!

Re:Cat fight!

[the_hyperman]

AND TWINS!!!!

Re:Cat fight!

[malex23]

Why are so many straight guys suddenly into homosexual incest if it involves weak beer?

Nostalgia

[brejc8]

Can anyone remember an old Amiga games called Pushover? Sponsored by Quavers?
Or Zool not only being covered with advertising but even came with its own Lolipop

Re:Nostalgia

[LostCluster]

Or... the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles NES game which had ads for Pizza Hut displayed on signs in the first level...

Or... Yo Noid! A video game based completely around the "Avoid the Noid" ad campaign from Domino's Pizza.

Re:Nostalgia

[BarryNorton]

Yeah, was mentioned a previous time Slashdot ran this non-story: http://games.slashdot.org/games/03/05/19/0313200.s html?tid=127&tid=186

Re:Nostalgia

[Fred Or Alive]

Or James Pond 2: Robocod, sponsered by Penguin, although not all versions were (I wonder if the recent PS1 remake I spotted was, although I doubt it...)

It seems that UK game developers like sponsership in their games (see Worms 3D, Wipeout etc. for modern examples.)

Re:Nostalgia

[rossdee]

Or the "essential 12939 supplies" from Mercenary.

(Hint: look at that number in a calculator in a mirror)

Re:Nostalgia

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait. Zool was supposed to come with a lolipop? I was cheated!

Re:Nostalgia

[Bendy Chief]

Yep, I remember "Yo Noid!" What a lot of people don't realize about that game is that it was essentially a sprite hack of the Japanese game "Kamen no Ninja, Hanamaru". (Masked Ninja Hanamaru)

Hanamaru had a pet bird that he attacked with, and flew back to him afterwards. (Noid's yo-yo) After each level, there was a battle with different types of scrolls, (pizza eating contest) and the first level rose and fell exactly the same as the first in "Noid!"

Give the Hanamaru ROM a go if you want to see an interesting bit of game-advertising history.

Blatant ad

[Monkeyman334]

Yeah, I was playing Evil Dead the other day and saw a blatant ad for S-Mart. It was terrible because it wasn't a billboard or anything, it was actually part of the storyline.

Re:Blatant ad

[spookymonster]

You're kidding, right?

Re:Blatant ad

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I was playing Evil Dead the other day and saw a blatant ad for S-Mart. It was terrible because it wasn't a billboard or anything, it was actually part of the storyline.

I don't know what is sadder; the certainty that some people that will take this sentence seriously, or the possibility that you ment the sentence to be taken seriously....;)

Re:Blatant ad

[LGagnon]

Wasn't that in Army of Darkness? I don't remember that in the original film.

Re:Blatant ad

[Anonymous Coward]

Shop Sssssmart! Shop S-Mart!

was in army of darkness. had to send that she-hag back to hell with his boomstick.

Re:Blatant ad

[Anonymous Coward]

He is, yes.

Re:Blatant ad

[Reapy]

Shop Smart, Shop, S, Mart!

Well...

[CountBrass]

If it's unobtrusive or, even better, adds to the game then all well and good. If it jars or is too blatant then back goes the game to the store.

I would compare the appearance of Omega watches and Aston-Martins in James Bond and Starbucks in Shrek (which I think was all well done) with the appearance of Audi in I,Robot and BMW in James Bond: both of which I felt jarred and reduced my enjoyment of the film.

Re:Well...

[omghi2u]

OMG-you made me realize something!

There are ads in real life.
Games want to be realistic.
So ads in the scenary in games,
And products having real names
Can work. ;-)

Re:Well...

[LostCluster]

If it's unobtrusive or, even better, adds to the game then all well and good. If it jars or is too blatant then back goes the game to the store.

Uhm, you haven't noticed that all video game sellers are required to have a "no refunds on open boxes, only exchange is for same title" policy by law? I highly suggest you start renting your video games if you want to be able to take them back...

Re:Well...

[CmdrGravy]

That extended car advert bit in one of the recent bond films with the two cars dueling it out on the ice was just blatant advertising and quite dull.

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

Think parasite eve II and the vending machines ;)

Re:Well...

[Aerion]

But you can still sell the games back in order to cut your losses, which is probably what the poster meant.

Re:Well...

[Fastfwd]

The Audis werent that bad because it was part of the story. The shoes were definitely a distraction.

Re:Well...

[kfg]

I'll bet you believed the clerk at the store when he told you that it was against the law to take back underwear too.

It isn't. It's against the law to resell returned underwear not in the original package. It is simply company policy to not accept the return.

Notice that you too used the word "policy"? If there were such a law as you suggest that word would not appear on the sign. The word "law" would replace it. When the sign says "policy" that's exactly what it means.

They are perfectly free to give you a refund, they just don't want to. Same as the underwear.

Only in the case of computer/video games the store is also free to resell the title.

KFG

Re:Well...

[JFitzsimmons]

Hell, those were very informative ads! I didn't even know cars with miniguns on the back were on the market! Get one of those babies and I won't need to worry about rush hour ever again!

Re:Well...

[N-S Equations]

Car ads are not just in movies. It has been pretty much standard practice for driving games to advertise cars and flightsims to advertise planes.

Specific products that comes to mind include the NFS Porsche series and MS Flightsim.

Re:Well...

[TwistedSquare]

In the UK, the game shop "Game" have (last time I went in anyway) a ten-day no-questions return policy. If you buy a game then you can take it back for any reason within that ten-day period. It leaves them open to pirates taking advantage but it helps boosts sales because people feel like it's a bit of try-before-you-buy, in case the game is poor.

Re:Well...

[Epistax]

I also try to think towards the positive side. If unobtrusive ads decrease monthly fees, I'm happy. If it makes it so the game itself costs nothing (just monthly fees), I'm also happy. As for non pay-to-play games, I'd rather not have any ads for any real products or companies, except of course any delightful easter eggs.

Re:Well...

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

Electronics Boutique will refund for store credit. I have used it twice: Once in 1999, and again in 2003. If your current game store refuses to refund/exchange items, there's really no reason not to switch to a more customer-oriented store.

Re:Well...

[slycer9]

All you have to do is inform them you refuse to agree to the TOS and they must BY LAW refund your money.

Worked on SWG, once the nerfs hit, one day I didn't click on the TOS, went back to Gamestop, explained to the manager, walked out with my cash.

I never lied, I simply abided by THEIR TOS.

Re:Well...

[CountBrass]

Cobblers. I regularly buy games and return them if they're crap under the shop I buy them from's 10 day no quibble returns.

Game prices

[Anonymous Coward]

If game producers make money this way, maby the game prices will go down? Yeah, right...

Gimme a Discount, Then

[grunt107]

IMO if a videogame is going to advertise during the game, there better be a substantial discount (I know there won't be but a guy can dream). I do not see the game experience benefit of the Master Chief powering up with a SoBe Liz Blizz, or enjoying Coke often.

It would be less distasteful to include advertising with the game documentation - although that fails with online downloads.

Strangley, now I WANT a Fanta...

Re:Gimme a Discount, Then

[Alphi1]

IMO if a videogame is going to advertise during the game, there better be a substantial discount (I know there won't be but a guy can dream).

Like the discount you currently get from your Cable TV provider (since you pay them PLUS they get the advertising revenue).

Or the discount you get when you watch 20 minutes of advertisements before a movie.

What? We DON'T get discounts for that stuff?!?!

;)

Re:Gimme a Discount, Then

[serano]

That's not going to happen over the long run. Just look at the cable industry. When cable started, people payed for it because it didn't have commercials (and it had MTV). The early promise of no commericals eroded pretty quickly though. Games will be like that.

If you get used to seeing ads in games and the games are a little cheaper at first, it won't be long before you're paying just as much for the games as you originally were plus now you have all the sucky ads. Better to resist the ads being there in the first place.

In-Comment Advertising Breaks Out

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot reports that companies like Nielsen are implementing tracked advertising in Slashdot comments. Some of the first sponsors showing up in Slashdot comments include Apple, Microsoft, Google and SCO.

Slashdot comment writers won't be required to do anything, rather these companies and their products will be auto-linked. Now even a negative story, such as one for SCO, can be a positive!

Adverts in games?

[derrith]

Something like this?

Re:Adverts in games?

[CoffeeJedi]

did PA do that joke first or did the Simpsons?
(not with BF42 of course, but with a Saving Private Ryan-esque movie theater ad for Buzz Cola)

Buy Now! Limited Time Doom4Pepsi

[Admiral Justin]

You can use the god cheat by typing at the console:

"Iforgiveyouforcrystalpepsi"

Great!

[eclectus]

When can I buy a Nike shirt for my online avatar?

NetHack is way ahead

[micromoog]

NetHack's Mail Daemon has been delivering spam to me for years.

Re:NetHack is way ahead

[micromoog]

NetHack, rather. Fuck.

discount?

[bodrell]

They damn-well better give a discount, for subjecting paying customers to unsolicited ads.

Ads on TV I can mute, but I can't stand ads in the movies, when you've already paid high dollar for a ticket, then while you're a captive audience they blast Coke/Blockbuster/Body Fantasies ads at you.

Arrgh.

Re:discount?

[FortKnox]

Yes, the best model for this is have the game funded through advertisers and give out the game cheaply (or even free!).

But the truth of the matter is, they'll sell for the same amount and EA execs will line their pockets more.

I wonder if this would help out the indy or open source developer??

Re:discount?

[Diabolical]

Given the fact that most movies cost well over 50 million dollars i can understand they seek sponsoring in some way or the other. It is never a guarantee that a movie will be successfull no matter how much money you throw at it so if some revenue can be made through sponsoring in some way or another that is perfectly fine by me.

Besides, sometimes adverts in movies and product placement can add to the feeling and experience of a movie.

However, sometimes it can be too much. SciFi movies can do without presentday products and company names (think lexus in minority report and such). But stories which take place in the present day or very near future get some "lifelike" experience through brand recognition.

Re:discount?

[MyHair]

I can't stand ads in the movies,

Tell me about it. Have you seen "The Twenty" or "The 2wenty" or whatever they call it? It's a digitally projected "show" (cough cough) in place of the old slideshow ads. It's a thinly veiled series of ads along the lines of an entertainment show. What really gets me is at the end they always summarize what they've shown you and say "if you didn't see all of the twenty, come to the theater earlier!" ?!?! Yeah, thanks for the advice. I'll come early to see more ads. At least the slideshows were easy to ignore.

And by the way, that digital projector sucks. I can see the pixels on the edges. It'll be a sad day when theater movies go digital.

In response to peer poster Diabolical: "All restarants are Taco Bell."

As long as they..

[grasshoppa]

..keep the ads somewhat tasteful and out of my way, then who cares?

And by tasteful, I mean no flashing crap at me, alternating contrasting colors. Or, say, flash.

Re:As long as they..

[micromoog]

One man's "tasteful" is another man's "extremely annoying".

Re:As long as they..

[grasshoppa]

Well, let's just settle on "Out of the way" then.

As long as I don't have to "take the pepsi challenge" to get to the next level, I'm happy.

This isn't terribly new

[stromthurman]

I remember playing text adventure games on a Commodore Vic 20 where you'd find leaflets and reading them presented you with an ad for another game by the company. Granted, this wasn't an unrelated company looking for product placement, but it was still advertising within the game.

Re:This isn't terribly new

[LiquidCoooled]

But that small fixed advert did not relate to the plot in anyway, it did not refresh and change itself. Everytime you saw it, it would still be the same flier.

Just like the games discussed previously, games released with sponsorship are one thing, and sometimes the affiliation is warranted.

Now this development wants to adapt the adverts, what I fail to see is *HOW* will it do it, will it be scanning for other open windows on my system and checking where I browsed to before playing? will it require a questionairre to advance to the next stage?

I hope this model doesn't take off, because I can see us getting stung with "adware supported" shareware titles which install Claria-4-Gamers or whatever it will be.

We the consumers will lose out.

Re:This isn't terribly new

[Thrakkerzog]

Did any of you play Laura Bow: The Dagger of Amon Ra? It was a game by Sierra.

In one section, there were some hieroglyphics on the wall, as you were walking through a secret tunnel. If you sat there and translated them with the Rosetta stone you found in the game.. it said.. BUY SIERRA PRODUCTS

Re:This isn't terribly new

[stromthurman]

Actually, I never played that game, but that is pretty ..interesting. Brings to mind the scene in "A Christmas Story," where Ralph decodes Little Orphan Annie's secret message and finds it's an add for Ovaltine, heh.

Cool username btw, I'm a big fan of The Tick.

Re:This isn't terribly new

[Ziviyr]

I thought the "Ask me about Loom" bit in Monkey Island was cute.

Duke Nukem

[houghi]

I can't wait until your first person shooter stops and drinks a nice cold refreshing soda.

It would beat drinking out of a toilet.

Re:Duke Nukem

[stretch0611]

Will we be able to blow up the ads? That might make it acceptable.

Re:Duke Nukem

[Jefe (Not Satanic)]

I came here to kick ass and chew Watermelon Bubblicious... and i'm all out of Watermelon Bubblicious

Re:Duke Nukem

[Class Act Dynamo]

Why is there always such a stigma against drinking out of the toilet!! I don't buy into these puritanical beliefs!!!;)

Re:Duke Nukem

[lpontiac]

Will we be able to blow up the ads?

I can't wait for Adbusters: The Game .

Re:Duke Nukem

[sbryant]

Speaking of which, I saw the ad in the game, but I never did find out where I could rent Sister Act III... :-)

-- Steve

Re:Duke Nukem

[Mister Transistor]

It would be a great use of the audio commentary; when he cracks a soda and takes a swig I can just hear:

"Hmmm... What _is_ this crap?"

required...

[Nick_dm]

required penny-arcade link :)

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2002-09 -18&res=l

Ach! Mein thirsten!

[kpansky]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2002-09 -18&res=l

new?

[Anonymous Coward]

JetMoto for the PS1 from 1996 had ads all over the place. I'm sure there were more, but that's the first one I remember seeing...

Advertising in an Fps?...

[Ba3r]

...Never heard of it!

*Cough*America's Army *Cough*

Re:Advertising in an Fps?...

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, dude, america's army is a publicity tool published by the US army. And quit your whining, AA is a free download. all 750MB of it...

Re:Advertising in an Fps?...

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, idiot, that was his point.

Re:Advertising in an Fps?...

[wormeyman]

Where are the ads in aa:o? the only ads i've seen were in counter strike and that was because it was a "free" server.

Advertising is a cancer on free speech.

[rokzy]

Just like porn, except whereas some people actually like porn, no-one likes advertising.

I will resist any attempts to force advertising on me e.g. Adblock, and if my attempts fail I will just turn away entirely.

Thankfully I'm an academic and don't even have to deal with billboards.

A single non-intrusive, correctly targeted and well implemented advert is a million times more effective for legal businesses than a million expensive "let's ruin another part of your day with offensive crap" campaigns.

Re:Advertising is a cancer on free speech.

[Pendersempai]

Porn is not a cancer on free speech. It is a perfectly acceptable, completely victimless way for adults to enjoy themselves. The only problem is you puritans who are out to ruin life for the rest of us. :P

Re:Advertising is a cancer on free speech.

[rokzy]

I'm not a puritan.

In an ideal world porn's victimless but then so is advertising.

In reality there tends to be a lot of illegal and immoral activity associated with both.

It's not the adverts or the porn itself, but the way they exploit other people and resources.

If you're claiming the porn industry has never caused exploitation then stick to your fantasy world and maybe one day that supermodel really will choose you!

Re:Advertising is a cancer on free speech.

[harrkev]

The idea of "correctly targeted" is an interesting one.

In my opinion, there are two types of advertising.

1) Informational ads which inform you of a new product, or interesting features of an existing product that you might not have known about. These can be geniunely useful. "Hey! Look at that! I have never seen one of those before! I want one!" These tend to work on the left side of the brain.

2) "Persuesion" ads where they try to convince you that a product is "cool" or "must have." "WOW. My true love, Brittney Bimbo drinks soda. Maybe if I drink HER soda, she will love me forever!" Give me a break! These tend to focus on the right side of the brain.

Now, guess what type of advertising we will see in games.

Re:Advertising is a cancer on free speech.

[Viceice]

People DO like advertising. Tastefully done advertising. I happen to like TV shows that show Ads from all over the world... it's a laugh every 30 seconds for an hour. Very enjoyable.

Re:Advertising is a cancer on free speech.

[Anonymous Coward]

So what you need to do, if you want pornography, is support the consensual, ethical, part of the pornography industry and cheer on attempts to destroy the unethical part. A blanket condemnation of the whole of a huge industry that has such wildly diverse groups involved in entirely seperate parts of it seems a little extreme.

Compare it to shoes. Some are made in decent factories with reasonable health and conditions and pay. Others are made in sweatshops. And some are even manufactured in prison-labour camps in countries with far from reasonable human rights records. Would you make a big deal about the evils of footware on the same basis?

I wouldn't condemn all advertising either. I want to know about new products and services, and people knowing about them creates jobs and ensures people can benefit from wonderful new things. I condemn misleading and fraudulant advertising though.

Re:Advertising is a cancer on free speech.

[LiquidCoooled]

The problem is, TV advertising has grown into such an art form.

There can be extremely well done, tasteful, imaginitive, relivent adverts for all kinds of products, and I do not doubt their power.

Having seen a few of the ad shows your referring to, your right, they rock! Watching as something completely serious in one country having a completely different meaning or interpretation in another is great.

However, on the web, all I used to see were horrendous, invasive, garish monstrosities, like standing next to someone with a bullhorn and screaming down their ear.

No thanks, I have now restricted my online browsing to a static, fixed medium just like a magazine. I do not block adverts, but I do disable all kinds of animations (gifs get frame 1 loaded only, flash is history).

In-game soda machines...

[jakeblue]

The idea of advertising in some games just doesn't really bother me. If you want to change all those soda machines in Doom 3 to Coke machines, I have no problem with that. As long as the ads don't affect gameplay, what's the problem?

Re:In-game soda machines...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I hope it affects the gameplay. I hope you're able to plant C4 on them and blow them to bits! Now that's the kind of advertising I would enjoy.

Re:In-game soda machines...

[KnarfO]

I thought the same thing about Doom3 - it's "Ad-ready"; all they need to do is sell the slots on those drink machines to someone...

More anoyning would be cut scenes that included un-skipable "scenes" that plugged someone's product (completely un-related to the game).

Or having to watch a :30 second spot before advancing to the next level... eew.

Re:In-game soda machines...

[rvw14]

Go ahead, put the add in. I already have to wait a while for the next level to loan (yes, I am on a very low end machine). As I usually use this time to get up and get something to eat/drink, I would not be seeing the add anyway.

Relentless

[Boolio]

At what point are we, the consumer, going to revolt against all of this forced advertising? Pop-ups, spam, video games, junk mail. As long as research shows that consumers are influenced by forced advertising, they will continue to penetrate deeper into our everyday lives. Has anyone seen the newer concepts where active ads recognize you by your cell phone, and change to market items they project you will buy? Big brother is coming.......

Re:soda pop

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called "tonic", damn you. /lives near Rhode Island

Darkened Skye

[Mongoose Disciple]

I can't believe the most blatant case of in-game advertising ever hasn't been brought up yet...

Or am I just the only person in North America who played this Gamecube game where your goal was actually to gather magic Skittles(tm) and Taste the Rainbow?

Re:Darkened Skye

[chary]

Darkened Skye was an interesting one. It was a Skittles license, based on their advertising campaign, but it didn't advertise it anywhere.

However, before condemning it, it's worth noting that it did have a sense of humour about being a totally whored out game - the writers took the opportunity to rip the piss out of the genre ("Nah, we can't go in there yet." "How do you know?" "I read the script...uh...I mean, I HAD A SACRED VISION!"), as well taking a number of pokes at the whole concept (particularly in one scene where you get one out of a monster's stomach, and the heroine comes up with some line along the lines of "A Skittles! Surprisingly well preserved. You see, Marketing wouldn't let us show one all funked up from stomach juices and...well...I'll be quiet now") It wasn't a very good platform game at all, but it did have its charms. Its Lucky Charms.

Buy a box of Lucky Charms.

Here comes... the Ad Cannon!

[spookymonster]

Get hit with the Ad Cannon and you'll be incapacitated for several seconds while your avatar stops and conspicuously consumes:
- a bag of Doritos
- a can of Red Bull
- a bottle of Tums
- a tube of Preperation-H

Re:Here comes... the Ad Cannon!

[Anonymous Coward]

'and consumes...a bottle of preparation H'
Here's your sign.

Re:Here comes... the Ad Cannon!

[julesh]

you'll be incapacitated for several seconds while your avatar stops and conspicuously consumes:
[...]
- a can of Red Bull

He'd better be able to fly afterwards, or I'll be demanding my money back.

Re:Here comes... the Ad Cannon!

[Seltsam]

Well, Red Bull did advertise in Wipeout XL for PS1. There are "flying" cars in that game.

Re:Here comes... the Ad Cannon!

[logic hack]

I don't know what your friends have been telling you, but Preperation-H is _not_ meant to be taken orally ;)

Easy solution

[arhar]

Just disconnect from the Internet while playing the game... of course, it doesn't work for games that require the connection, but I think (hope) there are others like me who still play single player games.

Re:Easy solution

[Rallion]

It might be more convenient to set up a firewall to block the game, actually.

Re:Easy solution

[deathazre]

'Unable to connect to ad server. The game will now exit.'

Note to advertisers

[YrWrstNtmr]

Keep your dickbeaters out of my bitstream.

Ads, especially billboards, in an urban driving game or FPS, are kind of OK. For realism, the billboards have to be there anyway. Make 'em realistic, and if the publisher can get a kickback from Pepsi (theoretically lowering the price of the game - - HA!, but I digress), well and good.

But reading what I'm going past, and phoning that info home? Gimme a break.

Pretty soon, your next upgrade patch will include not fixes for the actual game, but new ads. "Our new sponsor is now Coca-Cola. Your gaming experience has been enhanced to reflect this exciting new addition to our corporate team!"

Re:Note to advertisers

[micromoog]

For realism, the billboards have to be there anyway.

A lot of cities and towns ban billboards entirely.

Re:Note to advertisers

[Cameroon]

Yup, it was great moving to an area where that is the case. I grew up in an area where billboards are the norm, so it was really nice to get away from them.

Re:Note to advertisers

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed on the billboard thing, but in driving games, advertising cars is a valid means to make money. For example, there are very good odds that the makers of the Gran Turismo series got paid to include certain cars in their games. However, cars are kind of necessary to the game, so changing them from generic hulks of pixels makes sense. Gamers get added realism, advertisers get product placement. This was win-win.
If it adds to the game, include some minor product placement. If it does nothing but advertise, leave it out.

Re:Note to advertisers

[Night Goat]

The whole state of Vermont has outlawed billboards. It is really nice to not see them all over the place. Instead of billboards, we have these little black signs that businesses can put up near their offices that help drivers figure out where they're located. Much easier on the eyes.

So for example

[stateofmind]

In the next Metal Gear game, when your character stops (you know how they do the animations when they don't move for a few seconds). Snake will take out a Coke and, drink it and then go "Ahhh... Coca-Cola".

Josh

But not in dreams...

[MalaclypseTheYounger]

Leela: Didn't you have ads in the 20th century?

Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio. And in magazines...and movies...[and in video games] and at ball games and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts and written in the sky. But not in dreams. No siree!

EA Games

[p0]

EA's Fifa series has been doing this for sometime now. The commercial billboards on the soccer fields do advertise real products.

So what is new?

[frankthechicken]

Games have been trying to emulate movies for years, in the false idea that since both are visual entertainment, they should both be approached in similar ways.

Having to interact with an advert in order to progress, I can see as being a very infuriating premise, unless it is done in a clever way.

Movie promotions you can generally ignore, and let them pass you by, as they are simply passive images, game promotions I can see as being more invasive, and less avoidable.

Re:So what is new?

[MolarMass]

I would consider it invasive if a couple of things were to happen.

First, if items or props were added to a game simply as a vehicle for advertising instead of merely replacing the 'fake advertisements' that are all over games as it is.

Second (really an extension of the first), it would be most displeasing if users were forced in some way to interact with the advertisement, such as a Pepsi Challenge or pop-up ads on an in-game computer terminal or something. That said, I think that well-conceived sponsorships of brand names can help. For example, it's nice to have an authentic car models in games (as in Grand Turismo.).

Re:So what is new?

[mrchaotica]

Movie promotions you can generally ignore, and let them pass you by, as they are simply passive images

Tell that to the first five minutes of I, Robot!

I'd say that movies are like games, in that an advertisement is ok when it's in the background, but bad when it's the focus of the action. Having to watch Will Smith put on his Converse shoes is annoying, but having a Coca-Cola (or Pepsi) machine instead of a generic one in Half-Life wouldn't be.

It's a great idea.

[Depris]

I'm really not so sure in terms of console games since in my opinion they are rather limited. However I think in terms of PC games especially the truely next generation titles that take years of development and funding, stuff like this is only a good thing. In-game advertising is probably one of the best ideas to hit the gaming scene in awhile. I also think Valve is heading in the right direction with Steam and the idea of online distribution and advertising. It's true that ingame advertising isn't really a new concept but I feel aside from sports titles it's being slowly implemented. Also any form of well conceived advertising (ie: advertisements that are poorly done/intrusive and are executed properly) is long overdue in terms of being put correctly into all forms of computer media. (ie: not only gaming, but websites etc. ... a lot of people have tried but it has to be done right.)

Potential problems for games companies

[pandrijeczko]

With the current popularity of PC game modding, if product advertising within games becomes too overpowering, I'm sure a lot of people within the modding community will end up creating patches that delete advertising completely.

If it happens to be a "must have" mod, a fair proportion of the game buyers end up applying it and the advertiser gets less coverage and revenue as a result.

In that instance, I guess the only litigation the advertiser can take would be against the game creator or publisher.

Re:Potential problems for games companies

[micromoog]

Then they'll just use the DMCA to put these evil, depraved lunatics behind bars where they can't hurt anyone else.

Gaming Adbuster patches please!

[Lust]

we already pay alot for games and I'm sorry to see them taking the all-too-predictable route of adding advertizing to the storyline. First it was sporting events: every moment of a broadcast is sponsored (stadium names, half-time shows, replay cams, etc etc) and nearly every visible surface carries a logo. Then it was adopted by movies, sometimes altering the plot in senseless ways...have any good examples? I remember Lara Croft parachuting into a jungle and driving a truck (BMW?) some needless distance rather than simply landing at the final destination...I refused to see Tomb Raider 2 after this annoyance.

TV commercials used to help generate revenue when broadcasts were received freely over the airways...now we receive cable transmissions at a hefty cost ($50/mnth here) but still endure commercials on most stations.

Perhaps if games were free I would accept commercials but this is unlikely. I look forward to third-party patches to remove in-game ads altogether.

Re:Gaming Adbuster patches please!

[Chi Hsuan Men]

I remember Lara Croft parachuting into a jungle and driving a truck (BMW?) some needless distance rather than simply landing at the final destination...I refused to see Tomb Raider 2 after this annoyance

Interesting, most people refused to see this movie before that annoyance.

(By the way, it was a Jeep Rubicon, not a BMW).

Re:Gaming Adbuster patches please!

[Stone316]

Yes, because we all know that there are plenty of landing strips in the jungle. If you watching a movie that closing for 'perceived' advertisments why do you even bother to go?

I could care less if an actor/actress in a movie sucks back a pepsi or bud (they have to drink something) but I don't think many (if any) movies were altered for better ad placements.

Re:Gaming Adbuster patches please!

[AndroidCat]

Game modders shouldn't remove ads, just change them to something else more amusing. And if the game reports advertising back to the mothership, fix it so it keeps reporting that you saw the ad for DENNIS.

Re:Gaming Adbuster patches please!

[tiled_rainbows]

No, the 4x4 in Tomb Raider was a Land Rover Defender. I don't know if you get them much in the US, but that's what it was. A Land Rover Defender, as used by the military, and farmers, and stuff. Land Rover even brought out a limited "Tomb Raider" edition.

Re:Gaming Adbuster patches please!

[Chi Hsuan Men]

No, the 4x4 in Tomb Raider was a Land Rover Defender

Sure about that one guvnah? This link says otherwise:

http://www.motortrend.com/features/news/112_news 03 0522_tr/

Re:Gaming Adbuster patches please!

[tiled_rainbows]

I couldn't make that link work, but subsequent googling of my own solves the mystery - the 4x4 in the first Lara Croft film was a Land Rover, and in the second (which I didn't see), it was a Jeep.
So we can be friends now.
Except for the fact that Lara's obviously a Land-Rover kind of girl. They've got that drivin'-round-the-country-estate, upper-class-type thing going for them. A Jeep is just out of character.
I acan't believe we're arguing about this, btw. So I'm going to stop now.

GTA VC and Redbull gives you wings!

[Anonymous Coward]

For when you need that extra energy to beat a prostitute with your bat.

TMNT: The Arcade Game (on the 8-bit NES)...

[Leviathant]

...has Pizza Hut logos in it. So in-game ads aren't all that new. Neislen ratings figuring on calculating how many times someone runs past the wall with Pizza Hut written on it is new, but the fact that their ratings systems seem pretty shoddy at best isn't all that new either. I still find it pretty crazy what people accept for ad exposure rates when buying ads for TV, radio, magazine and newspapers, when the one surely trackable ad system (teh interweb) shows just how infrequently people really pay attention to the stuff.

martianbuddy.com

[kop]

Need i say more?
martianbuddy.com
Wed, 25 August 2004
Total unique visits: 471121
Unique visitors today: 16867

Re:martianbuddy.com

[justkarl]

Wow, almost a half a million. Those poor people.

Re:martianbuddy.com

[Vengeance_au]

The driver for people to visit the site is an email discussing unlocking a cabinet - if you visit the site, you get the code to a cabinet which contains the chain-gun. This allows you to access it about 20-30 minutes earler than you find it in-game.... a very handy thing to have :-)

You should try playing Neocron instead

[forgotten_my_nick]

Only adverts in game are for in game weapons and the red light district.

Re:You should try playing Neocron instead

[Jaysyn]

Is that game still around?

Jaysyn

Re:You should try playing Neocron instead

[forgotten_my_nick]

Kind of. NC1 is for most parts dead now. NC2 is being released end of September. They are killing off the first Neocron (much to the pain of the people playing)

Re:You should try playing Neocron instead

[Jaysyn]

Well I saw it at gogamer.com for like $2 do I thought it was going the way of the dodo.

Jaysyn

Old news...

[Anita Coney]

Microsoft's Monster Truck Madness had advertising years ago.

Targeted ads.

[stretch0611]

Maybe they will take highly addictive games like Everquest or the Sims and place drug ads. They will attack you with Zoloft ads to cure "social anxiety disorder". "Take our drug and you will be able to meet real people again."

Remember

[stateofmind]

Chuckwagon for the Atari? Now thats advertising, but at least it was fun.

Josh

It's about freaking time...

[SledgeHBK]

If it would possibly drive the costs down for the game development studios, I am all for it, given that the ads are applicable (and as non-intrusive as possible) to the given genre/story.

For example, I wouldnt want to see a full-screen taco bell ad in the middle of a DOA3 match, but it would be pretty sweet to have real wall ads in a Grand Theft Auto game.

Whoops. The fake ads are half the fun, and I don't think Pizza Hut would want to be associated with a game like that. Blah.

CS Space for rent!

[Braingoo]

For $500 a day I will join Counter Strike Games and spray your company logo all over the map! the other gamers are sure to love me and let me continue my work as they game!

As long as...

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as the ads are not visible or audible or perceptible in any way, I'm all for the inclusion of ads in games.

Seriously, is the gaming industry trying to self-destruct? As if pushing the same old tired crap out again and again (gee, I wish there were more FPSes and RTS games) and cancelling games that would sell like hot cakes (I will never forgive you, Interplay, for Fallout 3...nor you, EA, for forcing Criterion to drop the GameCube version of Burnout 3) wasn't enough, they have to push ads in games that we paid money for? I don't think so, Tim.

P.S.: Dammit! I want my squad-based tactical game with base management!

I can see it now...

[bsd4me]

If there is a Diablo III, the potion vendors get replaced with vending machines, the smiths get replaced by Wallmart, the other NPCs will be wearing sandwich boards, and all of the armour will have logos on them...

Re:I can see it now...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and using your Tivo so you don't have to "stay a while and listen" to Deckard Cain will be a criminal offence.

Re:I can see it now...

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to mod this up, but you posted anonymously. This is the funniest thing I've read all week.
Thanks :)

Re:I can see it now...

[Anonymous Coward]

>>all of the armour will have logos on them

I have visions of chainmail with the Nike swoosh on it.

What would Nike's motto be in the world of Diablo? Just kill it?

Re:I can see it now...

[toddestan]

It's not like Diablo II isn't full of ads anyway when you play on battle.net - with tons of bots spamming "Buy your overpriced hacked items from our site!!!!!" Blizzard does not seem the least bit interested in kicking them off battle.net or shutting them down either.

Re:I can see it now...

[Anonymous Coward]

the smiths get replaced by Wallmart

And you thought Diablo was bad for Tristram's economy. Well that was nothing.

At least we know which games to avoid..

[applemasker]

For those who didn't RTFA:

Gamers are tracked. New advertisements are delivered on the fly. It's both a game publisher and ad exec's [wet] dream. Atari and Ubisoft are among the game publishers to sign up.

Re:At least we know which games to avoid..

[sparkywonderchicken]

Information--Your on the record link in the signature doesn't work

Re:At least we know which games to avoid..

[applemasker]

Thanks, they moved the website without informing me. It should work now.

firewall

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue here is not so much the advertising, which has been done lots of times before, but the fact that games will start featuring "live" advertising, downloaded from the net as you play, with viewing stats uploaded. I'm on a traffic-limited connection, and this means lots of messing about with firewalls etc if I'm going to avoid having a chunk of my broadband allowance eaten. Modem users will probably end up with an extra minute on their level loading times as the ads download. In summary, this is crap.

The penguins are stealing my Sanity ..

[Peter_JS_Blue]

.. one piece at a time.

Who are you ? Bill Gates ??

Re:Best. Game. Ever.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeow, I don't like Bush at all, but you should be careful or you might have the FBI knocking on your door, or at least make a stink for our beloved Slashdot.

Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow

[Jakhel]

Try playing it sometime and use your communication/data device..you'll see a big "Sony-Ericson" logo plastered on the top of the screen..not to mention that it actually looks like a Sony Ericson Phone

Re:Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow

[kgarcia]

The original splinter cell has a "palm" logo plastered on the comunicator device.

EA Sports

[slungsolow]

Has been throwing in outside advertisers for some time. From what I can remember, the music that used in the latest version of their wonderful madden games was provided in a fashion similar to "payola" or pay for play...

To be honest, this doesn't actually bother me because the advertisements within the game take place while the action is still going on. Whether is the "Nokia Sugar Bowl" within NCAA 2005 or the "Gillette Half Time Report" in various other games.

Its completely unobtrusive and works well with the game. I'd go ahead and say that it provides a kind of realism to the whole experience.

allows it sometimes too

[Anubis350]

Advertising also allows free speech to be free. Many news sites for example that would normally charge for their articles, dont because of ads. see the top of slashdot for ex. In fact, what do subscribers here get? ad-free pages! because they pay for it

Re:allows it sometimes too

[rokzy]

You seem to be confusing free speech (as in the fundamental democratic right) with free media (as in not having to pay to read something).

That is a very dangerous position to be in.

Re:allows it sometimes too

[Anubis350]

no actually I'm not. I understand the difference. However, free media very often encourages free speech. Allowing said free speech to reach a wider audience.

Re:allows it sometimes too

[rokzy]

Most of the time advertising involves itself with free speech it has a negative effect - you can't say anything that might lose your sponsorship.

Re:allows it sometimes too

[proj_2501]

you'll have to excuse him. his only experience with politics is jello biafra.

Re:allows it sometimes too

[micromoog]

If by "free speech" you mean "speech approved by the corporation paying for the advertising".

We won't get anything out of it

[StevenHenderson]

I am on the mindset that if they want to show me a few commercials before a movie to help lower ticket prices, then that is fine by me. However, ticket prices continue to rise, and we are seeing none of the profit generated by these ads.

I have no reason to believe that we will have any revenue from video game ads passed along to the gamers...

Re:We won't get anything out of it

[Anonymous Coward]

You're absolutely right. Game publishers won't use the additional revenue to pay the developers more, or to charge less for games. They also won't use it to create more good games. If they could make more good games, they wouldn't be pumping resources into so many crappy ones now.

Rather, they will use the additional revenue to pad the losses from the games that don't sell well (i.e., the crappy games), or to publish even more crappy games. I don't much care, since the same people who bring us no-CD cracks should be happy to supply no-ad patches...

Re:We won't get anything out of it

[StevenHenderson]

You speak true...for as much of a scourge as patches are a lot of the time, they would really be great in a case like this.

Check the latest Playboy

[First Person]

Well Playboy magazine is already one step a head of you. Their next issue will be an interesting crossover of video game advertising and girlie photos. See here for more info.

Re:Check the latest Playboy

[mcmonkey]

WFT? OMG! LOL.

Though it sets up a potential /. poll--most notable ommisions in Playboy's video game layout:

[ ] Kya
[ ] Samus
[ ] Ulala
[ ] The Princess
[ ] Ms. Pac-Man

Just what we need....

[NIN1385]

This is just what we need, next time a good looking female shows up in a game I honestly wouldn't mind the trojan man popping out to give me a free box of condoms...

We already there

[Jarnis]

Anarchy Online already has billboards advertising Alienware computers :)

(This is a tie-in to a marketing campaing related to the launch of AO expansion titled 'Alien Invasion')

I doubt any gamer would mind much for (paid) advertising in the form of (animated) billboards or 'holograms' in first person shooter levels, but the stuff should *fit the theme*. Futuristic shooter such as Unreal Tournament would be easy - just stick in some billboards to suitable levels, but if someone would start selling McDonalds stuff by planting ingame ads into something like Everquest, gamers would go berserk over it...

It all depends how it's done. I think Sims Online and The Sims 2 also have somekinda marketing/product placement deals already set up.

Re:We already there

[Elsebet]

Ah yes the billboards. Last I played they advertised ARK and the Shadowlands expansion. I have to admit they were eye-catching and I wish MMORPG's would have more changing content. The last time EQ gave me 30 days free I logged in and West Commons looks exactly the same as it did a year ago, albeit instead of 90 toons there was only me there. :)

I have mixed feelings on ads in MMORPGs. Honestly what would EverQuest/AC/Horizons/etc advertise? Cosplay? Renaissance Festivals? Furries?! (Yikes) Sam Adams? Would an elf discuss the ad with her halfling friend or would they just "roleplay" the ad mentioned something about Master Jecht's fine swords?

Perhaps if they implemented it in a way where you could choose an ad-free version at full price, or an ad-supported version for a discount (or even free of monthly fees?) it would work. It would certainly make buffbot/multiple-box playing more affordable. Your main client could be ad-free and the rest show ads which you probably don't even see anyway. Ad-free clients would see a billboard which "fit in" the game theme but the others would see an actual ad.

Certainly would be interesting, looking forward to see how it turns out. I certainly don't want ads in a game I pay monthly for unless there is a benefit attached.

Re:We already there

[droleary]

Anarchy Online already has billboards advertising Alienware computers :)

Yep, and I have a screensaver for Mac OS X that can already get an updated billboard when a new sponsor comes along. A friggin' screensaver! It's not that hard, and yet these people are talking as though they've come up with something revolutionary.

Let me get this straight..

[d_jedi]

They want *me* to pay for games.. so that I can see advertisements??!

I absolutely do not see how this benefits gamers in any way.. game prices will NOT go down (exclusive scoop.. you heard it here, folks!), and game quality will suffer (progammers will be forced to change their mindset from "what will make this a good game?" to "how can we maximize the ad space?")

I prefer the "fake" ads in many games s/a GTA.. they're funny (I want a Mibatsu Monstrosity :-> )

Re:Let me get this straight..

[t_allardyce]

You pay for TV and get adverts (except the BBC but then you dont really get a choice on that) same in the cinema and most public transport - the advertisement is helping to pay for it thus making the cost to you less. Well, you would think that right? infact the cost stays the same and you just get adverts so really you're being screwed over on all these things but the point is its already happened everywhere else, so gaming is the next logical place. It'll probably start out innocent enough - maybe some adverts on the loading screens, but then it gets worse - they start intentionally slowing down the loading so you can watch more ads, maybe stick a video advert in there. Then adverts will come into the game play, maybe pausing it or stuck on some wall, imagine multiplayer games where half-way through everything pauses and everyone is subjected to a server-wide advert to pay for the hosting - sick! Luckly patches/cracks will come out to get rid of all this crap, and the result will probably be that if you download the game from a filesharing network it will already have the adverts taken out so the developers will screw themeselves when people stop buying games. Multiplayer adverts could be the worst tho, its possible that it could happen to current games - the server just stops the game and starts sending server messages to all the clients with some stupid text advert - imagine the potential of regular MMORPG patches - you cant play without the latest patch (which contains all the graphics needed for the current adverts). This too could also drive people onto hacked servers.
We can only hope.

Re:Let me get this straight..

[kris_lang]

Actually, the movie theaters already make more than enough money with the ticket prices I pay. I agree with Ebert on this. I paid to see a movie. I'll put up with and enjoy the previews of coming attractions, but I do NOT want to see commercials up on the cinema screen for twenty minutes prior to the film starting. I've actually gone to theater managers and complained about being subjected to advertisements when I've paid to see a movie.

Re:Let me get this straight..

[randalx]

progammers will be forced to change their mindset from "what will make this a good game?" to "how can we maximize the ad space?")

Agreed. I believe this is already happening on TV and in Movies. From what I understand this is why you don't see too many Westerns (or other period types) being made anymore since it's hard to product place a BMW or Nokia out on the Ponderosa.

Re:Let me get this straight..

[bkruiser]

Sounds like America's Army has competition. I loved NFS Porsche Unleashed...

Re:Let me get this straight..

[mikeg22]

Laws of capitalism disagree with you. If what you are saying is correct, then the game companies that do this will just pocket the difference, making bigger profits. This is impossible to maintain as a competitor will take the difference, pump it into making a better product, and gain a larger market share.

Given consumer knowledge of alternatives, competitors working against each other to maximize profit is a good thing(tm).

Re:Let me get this straight..

[ghoda_x]

They want *me* to pay for games.. so that I can see advertisements??!

Why are you so surprised? You already pay to see ads on TV, at the movies, in your magazines, in the newspaper...

This is what happens when you just shrug at the next minor inconvenience that comes along...

Re:Let me get this straight..

[sqlrob]

Except the theaters don't get much, if any of the ticket revenue. It's all concessions.

Re:Let me get this straight..

[livhan28]

absolutely do not see how this benefits gamers in any way.. game prices will NOT go down

exactly, this is hidious, but this is exactly the kinda crap that happens when profit horing companys like *Viacom* start to enter the market.

its unfortunate, but it looks like games are the perfect vehical for this kind of intrusive advertising.... so look forward to your next copy of "Viacom's The Sims" to come with your very own "my search bar" and cost 5 dollars more than before...

Re:Let me get this straight..

[thamaht]

Thing is, GTA isn't trying to be realistic.

I enjoy the way GTA handles ads too, but if I am playing a game that's trying to be gritty and realistic, seeing spraypaint over a McD's logo on the subway would be pretty cool.

Course, the advertisers would have to settle for a partially obstructed ad, but it'd fit in subtly enough to probably be even more effective.

Static ads VS. Downloading them...

[Joust]

I can handel ads in game. No problem. But any game that downloads new ads to me anytime I'm online, can kiss my stuff! Why would you want to install yet another type of spyware? My entire life is nothing but a big commercial! Anywhere I turn! Give me my 30 minutes of peace damnit!

Sonic

[essreenim]

the Hedgehog only eats:

Hershey bars

Advertising could go in game strategy

[Anonymous Coward]

When you pick up a box of ammo, you get this popup:

This box of rocket propelled grenades is locked. The alien spirit will give you the key, but only if you first answer his query:

Which of the following are benefits of Clarinex® allergy medication?**

( ) Provides protection for 24 hours from just one tablet
( ) Gives prompt allergy relief without drowsiness
( ) Was found to be 30% more effective than the next leading brand
( ) All of the above

[ OK ] [ Cancel ]

** Remember, only your doctor can determine if Clarinex® is right for you. Side effects may include gangrene, explosive diarhea, hairy palms, disturbing hallucinations and deep pitting scars on the eyeballs. Do not use if you are pregnant, smoke crack, or work in a radioactive environment. If side effects appear, discontinue use immediately and see your doctor.

Advergaming

[bippy]

I wonder if Advergaming and advertising in games are going to merge. Sky Captain the movie has a game out, but apparently it sucks. The questions is, can a bad advergame detract from product it is advertising?

Re:Advergaming

[bippy]

Whoops, left out a link.

EA Sports

[BRSQUIRRL]

The NCAA Football line of games from EA Sports has been my favorite time-sucker lately, but the Pontiac ads in the latest version (2005) have me more than a little bit ticked off...I don't particularly like being forced to watch a Pontiac car skid across the field in between EVERY FREAKING PLAY in the game's "college classics" mode. Very disappointing, considering that a college football game is a rare case where some well-placed non-intrusive advertising could actually make the game more realistic.

Buy a pizza get a spell...

[bkruiser]

PepsiQuest, MMORPG gives virtual cash and gifts for real purchases! Buy a pizza from pizza hut and get an AOE spell doubling stamina for all in party! Each pepsi can code entered rewards with 10gp and a full life bonus! Pepsi/Sony/GM - buy a Saturn vehicle and get an online virtual vehicle, purchase a Sony big screen and get Full set of the best armor.... Hey it just makes sense for this to happen sooner or later. The fact is that in most MMORPG's people who have real money buy online credits and charachters anyway.

mod parent up

[hot_Karls_bad_cavern]

heh, that one gave me pretty good chuckle. And actually, i'll be getting a offer letter today on a new job, have looked at /. subs before and think i'll probably do it 'cause i do spend some time here and like the place :-) See what engineering school has done to me!!?? :-P

syndicate wars?

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't it have giant billboards with a couple of advertisements?

*keep moving*

Nothing new...

[Vaakku]

Arcade version of thunderblade in 80's had a Pepsi ad.

opt-out?

[Dr.Frankenstein]

I wonder if gamers will be allowed to opt-out of targeted advertising. I don't object to having ads in the game since this does make the game more realistic. I do object to making the acceptance of targeted marketing a condition to play the game (e.g., placing such a condition in the EULA). Cheers, Matthew

A request to advertisers

[Anonymous Coward]

Please die and stop wasting air.

Happy Gilmore - The Game!

[Anita Coney]

n/a

Doom 3

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

Games?
So... when is the Linux client for Doom 3 going to be released? I bought Doom 3 the day it came out (it runs pretty well with WineX...), but, I'm waiting for the Linux version. Anyone know when it's due out?

Re:Doom 3

[Jumpin' Jon]

So... when is the Linux client for Doom 3 going to be released?

When the in-game advertising has generated enough revenue to subsidise the port, mebe?

Re:Doom 3

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

That's almost funny...

id already said that they are making a Linux "port", I was only asking when it's due out, if anyone knows.

Ads are more than just product placement

[Triskele]

There are several different things that come under the heading of advertising:

• Product placement This is the most common where real world products are used in-game in a positive fashion. This kind of endorsement is not particularly intrusive and if done well is perfectly natural. After all, sometimes the fake products that appear in games and movies are so obvious that the real product gets endorsed despite attempts not to. Unless we're talking about Repo Man here of course...

  Sponsorship of tournaments is common these days in the sports world but the sport benefits from this with the sponsor's money. So a sponsored game should at least be cheaper or have some cool features that would have had to be dropped without the sponsorship (imagine a set of sponsored skins and arenas for Unreal). But if the sponsorship is shallow and just an excuse to get the sponsor's name out and more money for the publisher, the punter should probably go elsewhere.

  Adverts are something else altogether. These have a message. They have to be intrusive to a much greater degree or they don't work. Ads on billboards in game are sort of acceptable as they are a model of the real world. But what about interstitial ads between levels of the game (tried and hated)? Or what if you had to put up with a jingle every time you 'drank' a can of cola just to raise your HP?

Personally I believe that games funded by adverts should have this fact made clearly visible on the packaging so the consumer can make a rational decision. Do I want ads whilst playing a game - or not?

About time!

[Anonymous Coward]

A while back (over 2 years ago) i was helping with a big gaming site that now went outta buisiness. They used to let ppl play on their servers while in turn trying to rent dedicated clan servers & bombarded the site with tons of ads. Tho noone really cared about the ads (or even saw them) cause they where INSIDE the game, so that's where the ads should have been in the 1st place. They never did listen to the suggestions of placing the ads inside the games ..*chuckle*

The UT engine already allows for clikable images inside the gaming engine (since 3 years or so) ..ie link a ad to a website & pop out of the game.

I find it actually surprising that it took so long for advertisers to go get gamers where they are the most of the time ..no not on some obscure website browsing, but "inside their frikking games playing"

I. Love.

[Blacklantern]

....jumping on turtle backs.

Picking up an ammo packs

Elder Scrolls Mar-row-wind

and those TWINS!!!

AND. I. LOVE. YOU. TOO!!!

HERE'S TO COMMERCIALIZATION!!

Re:Buy Now! Limited Time Doom4Pepsi

[AsbestosRush]

I actually liked the stuff. When I was in college, the 3 of us on campus that actually liked it referred to it as "battery acid".

Nothing new...its just spyware for games

[TechnoWeeniePas]

So it tracks your ad viewing? Sounds like spyware to me...nothing new to see here move along.

disincentive

[serano]

What disincentives could the gaming community introduce to make game producers less likely to place ads in games? One approach would be to refuse to games with ads and encourage others not to. Can anyone think of anything else that might be effective?

Is it just me ??

[Anonymous Coward]

Or do they market coca cola like it still has cocaine in it ??

Also, if you had a coke (caine) habit, could you sue coke (cola) for their inducements to take illegal drugs ??
After all "coke is life". Just ask any addict.
That could be a good anti-vert. Make own levels for Doom3 etc. and put slogans like "coke is for life, but crack is quicker".

Run that up yer flag pole and see if it flutters Mr Admam.

(Brought to you by pepsi; the heroin of your childhood.)

Adverts will take over

[t_allardyce]

Advertising is going to become the 21st century grafitti. forget all those futuristic films showing clean looking city-scapes, in the future every single bit of space will be sold off to advertisng, there wont be a blank wall or door, only the biggest/richest people/companies will be able to afford blank walls on their buildings and people might even start getting advertising indoors! grafitti will be a federal offence. Sure some things will be able to pay for themselves because of the adverts but its just going to be sickening - people will figure why pay money when you can just get some adverts and get whatever it is for free or cheaply. Its already happening...

Re:Adverts will take over

[Anonymous Coward]

Go read Transmetropolitan... which should give you a good idea of what that might look like.

Product Placement

[Robmonster]

Advertising withine Entertainment is getting out of hand.

Product placemernt has always been around of course, but I was amazed at how blatent its become.

I went to see I, Robot in the cinema the other day. Within the first few minutes there was a lingering closeup of a new steroe system by JVC, and Will Smiths character received a special delivery containing some 'retro 2004 edition' trainers. Immediately after pulling them on he said "Ah, a thing of beauty". He was complimented on them a few tiems during the film also....

When I go to the cimena, I expect to see a few adverts. I dont mind watching film trailers, I was annoyed when UK cinemas started showing 'regular' TV adverts before a film showing but I can just about sit through them.

However, once the film starts I expect the adverts to finish.

RM

Re:Product Placement

[gcaseye6677]

Shitty movies, like I Robot, are made almost exclusively to serve as an advertising vehicle. That's probably how the profits for this movie will be made, since they certainly won't be made at the box office. This is why I have become very selective as to which new movies I will see in the theater, and I suspect many people will start doing the same. Hopefully the era of advertising-disguised-as-shitty-movie will come to an end when viewers lose patience.

this is exactly why...

[m2bord]

my xbox will never be connected to the net. it's just a matter of time before the hacks are out to change the ads to something more useful...like i don't know...blank space?

Billboards are fine with me.

[SatanicPuppy]

The example they gave in the article was GTA, referring to the billboards on the streets. I can honestly say that it wouldn't bother me at all to see companies pay to put their real product ads in games in that manner. Same goes for sports games, which the ads in the arena, yadda yadda.

These are places where, in our every day lives, we are used to seeing ads. This is no change, as long as its done in a non-invasive sort of way...That is as long as you aren't forced to sit and absorb the ad.

Nothing. Nothing in the whole freaking world, makes me madder than being forced to sit through an advertisement. If I have paid for a freaking movie, and they make me watch some goddamn annoying commercial at the beginning, I find that completely intolerable. I doubt I'm alone.

So it all comes down to the same thing; how much advertising can be done without making people crazy? I think GTA would be a good testbed, because if the ads make the players crazy, you know someone is going to go to the ad company and kill everyone there. Its a given.

Re:Billboards are fine with me.

[parksie]

I don't recall GTA ever having adverts in it. Not to mention having an advertising billboard when you're looking from the top is a tad pointless...

Re:Billboards are fine with me.

[FCAdcock]

So you mean GTA's gonna get rid of the made up ads and go to real ones? Now that's no fun. I want the perverted ads back...

Re:Billboards are fine with me.

[shufler]

GTA3 and GTA:VC have billboards, posters, radio spots, etc.

They are all for fictional companies and such. They even went as far as creating the domain names advertised (For example, http://www.petsovernight.com/)

Re:Billboards are fine with me.

[fatcatman]

Nothing. Nothing in the whole freaking world, makes me madder than being forced to sit through an advertisement.

I can think of something. "I, Robot": "Don't you just love these shoes? They're great. They're from the year 2004. Can you zoom in on them? Cool shoes, aren't they? Grandma, make sure you ask me about my shoes later in the film, so I can show them to the crowd yet again. Buy these shoes, guys. Come on, you know you want to."

This sort of blatent product placement is a load of, excuse my language, pure fucking bullshit. It distracts from the movie and makes me feel like I just paid $10 to see a 2 hour commercial. Next time this shit shows up in a film, I'm walking out and demanding my money back.

This was as bad as the Subway stuff in Happy Gilmore. Except when Adam Sandler did it, it was a big joke and setup for laughs. He didn't try to take it seriously.

You want product placement? Stick a coke in a fridge. Have Neo use a Nokia phone. He's going to need a phone anyway, so it might as well be a slick new model that I can go out and buy if I want to. That's realistic and appropriate. Don't stop the whole movie so you can show me your fucking shoes.

Let's put it this way: Put the item there but don't make a single reference to it. If you have to zoom in on it and talk about it, you're going to piss people off.

Re:Billboards are fine with me.

[okayplayer]

We/they would never get rid of them... I love my dormatron shirt... The real GTAIII fans notice it and still stop me on the street.

Re:Billboards are fine with me.

[Tim Browse]

The real GTAIII fans would stop you in the street and shoot you through the head, and then steal the shirt.

Of course, really hardcore fans would spend 5 minutes zigzagging wildly around you shooting off round after round and failing to hit you, and shouting "goddamn controls!" all the while.

Er, I mean, beat a hooker to death with her own shoes. Or something.

Re:Billboards are fine with me.

[Anonymous Coward]

how in the hell did this get modded insightful? I mean, this is my own post and I don't think it's insightful...

Re:Billboards are fine with me.

[StocDred]

The real GTA fans probably don't notice your shirt because their shirts say "Degenatron."

Re:Billboards are fine with me.

[modge]

The way to avoid this is to turn up late of course. I never make it on time any way and you know theres going to be at least 15minutes you can avoid at the start

Re:Billboards are fine with me.

[mrchaotica]

Actually probably not, for the same reason they don't use real cars (e.g. call the Blista "Civic"): nobody wants their products associated with violence and crime.

Re:Billboards are fine with me.

[exick]

Degenatron was from Vice City. The Dormatron was a weight-loss product advertised in GTA III.

Re:Billboards are fine with me.

[greay]

See, if they were any brand other than Converse, I would have been bothered by that. But Converse, in my experience, has that "'cool' factor" - I've /seen/ people in real life do that. People who only wear Converse. They love their shoes, and are proud of them. Occurs often, with people and jackets, too.

I'm not saying it wasn't blatant product placement; I'm just saying that it's not as unnatural as some people seem to think.

Re:Billboards are fine with me.

[StocDred]

Whoop. I feel sheepish. Mod me -1 Being Snotty Without Cause.

Re:Billboards are fine with me.

[Merusdraconis]

Of course, most of their companies were satirical, which is quite a bit different to actual companies. One of the things I really liked about GTA3 was the satire they snuck in an otherwise morally bankrupt game.

Re:Billboards are fine with me.

[Anonymous Coward]

there is fucking advertising everywhere. play the fucking game before just saying that it doesnt have any advertising.

Its people like you who think you know everything that make slashdot into the pile of shit it is now. Just pay some fucking attention, think then post.

retard.

Re:Billboards are fine with me.

[ThePuD]

or maybe you could play the game. It's Called Grand Theft Auto. There is, however, a sequel that you have likely played called Grand Theft Auto 3.

Plain and simple Boycot these games

[WyldOne]

I am totally sick and tired of all the advertizers trying to stick thier shit in my face.

Time to make a stand people.

not new

[5m477m4n]

I've been playing Need for Speed games for years where real cars I may want to buy are being advertised.

An insigtfull prediction...

[Maljin Jolt]

Any in-game advertising will be cracked off at zero day.

The only acceptable is indirect advertising such as appeared in movies, e.g. James Bond hacking Soviet nuclear explosive device controlled by Widows CE (sic!) or Trinity with latest Nokia phone (is it already obsolete today?).

Its Real ;o

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.adsingame.com/

Super Dodgeball

[jmcmunn]

I am pretty sure there were blatant advertisements in this game, but since I had the Rom that was in some Asian language (Korean maybe?) I coudn't actually read them.

Come to think of it, I don't even know if they were actually words or just symbols that the game designers made up. But that doesn't stop me from being offended by the symbols representing advertisements!

Why should it bother you that there are ads in games, as long as you can keep playing? As long as I don't have to stop mid-game and watch ads, I don't care if I am blowing up a Pepsi machine or a Coke machine...

Hassle the developers!

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in 1995 we had to edit and parody company logos to get them into a game.

Now, as larger multinational companies (you should see how many are moving to china) monopolise the market (ea) the more they have been pushing adverts in video games. This has now reached such levels where we are now 'used' to corporate advertising even in games, it is considered acceptable.

Development costs have spiralled with technology, not only from the levels of staff required to complete them but also on the quality of the game. The larger companies can quite easily add $500,000 to a budget, the smaller companies simply go bust. Project managers will already be planning to reduce their spiralling $2,000,000 budget any way they can.

There is very little point in taking back the game afterwards if you don't like the level of advertising. I'd advise anyone to write to the development house creating the advert laden games and complain. Developers hate the marketing department dictating what can and cant go in games, they'll hate advertising even more if people start refusing to buy the game.

cool, refreshing pop

[blueup]

Yeah, Probably not far. The "health packs" won't have a big red cross on them anymore, and the strengths (effectiveness, +X, whatever) will be determined by brand.

GUINNESS +100
Coke +20
Pepsi +10
Shasta +2

#include "std_disclaimer.h"
#include "trademarks.h"

Re:cool, refreshing pop

[volinux]

And during the next Columbine when kids are shooting each other while powering up with Coke and Guiness, how much will the lawsuit be worth? I don't think video games lead to violence in normal kids, but even if it's just some freak incident...they're will be a lawsuit.

Ad in game... and?

[KD5YPT]

As long as those advertisement fit seamlessly into the game, I'm okay with it.

Non-audible code?

[Robmonster]

The technology may involve a non-audible code inserted into the game that would be picked up by a Nielsen device.

This will surely give skewed results..... People playing on headphones will not generate a 'hit' . Also, whats to stop people finding out which sounds contain these codes, making a tape of it and sitting it on repeat play....?

RM

if the price is right

[metsu]

this sounds like the begining of some sort of community perversion.
advert corps may give some sort of url-driven shader textures. maybe even the community mappers can make some money off it.
clientside fetching is easily defeated. so i'd guess the game server will stream the textures.
now.. i wouldn't mind a regular themed billboard in a map. but i think it would give incentive to the wrong people to join a community for 'profit' and servers running only the admin's ad-ridden maps will soon follow.

0.02c

Who cares?

[paragon_au]

Tracking the advertising is the only worrying thing.
In games at the moment, you often see fake advertisments for non-existent products.
If they are replaced with real ads, what does it matter?
Aslong as they don't add ad's where they don't belong, I am happy for the people who make the games I enjoy to earn a bit of extra cash on the side.

Just keep it unintrusive.

Doom3

[Andy Dodd]

D3 has lots of advertising/news for fictional companies.

A non-futuristic FPS occuring in current times could include Microsoft software boxes, Dell monitors on desks, maybe the occasional Coke machine, etc.

Stuff we're used to in our everyday lives that just appears natural there. (Similar to product placement in movies. I'm not speaking of the commercials beforehand, but within the movie, such as a person wearing Nike sneakers or driving a Lexus.)

Re:Doom3

[nmk]

Microsoft software boxes, Dell Monitors. What are you talking about? If this is anything like the movies, all the computers will be Apple, all the monitors will be Cinema Displays, and all the software boxes will be iLife.

Re:Doom3

[mrchaotica]

You should have used Converse and Audi, for a concrete example (I, Robot).

Re:Doom3

[G-funk]

"It's the 2004 re-issue! You kids out there can get them right now!"

Not to mention that the 2004 chuck is the same as the 2003 chuck, and the 2002 chuck, and the 1985 chuck, etc etc...

Re:Doom3

[Trejkaz]

Ain't no punchin' turkey without Wild Turkey! TM

Hold up a 7-Eleven

[Anonymous Coward]

"I can't wait until your first person shooter stops and drinks a nice cold refreshing soda."

Or you could hold up a 7-Eleven...

As seen in the armory...

[Black Parrot]

• Chainmail, +3 -- 500gp
  
• Chainmail, +3, with Coca-Cola logo -- 350gb
  
• Tabard of Logo Change, Pepsi -- 12gp
  

It's a Hack and Security Threat

[vertaxis]

If you read carefully, advertisers want to "track" usage and monitor how far one goes into the game. So, unless your computer or game console is completely disconnected from any Internet connection, the game will be reporting infomation back to where ever it's coded to. Do you really want someone out there knowing how you're using their game?

So, big privacy issue here.

Also, what if the addition code gets hacked? Instead of a little code for advertising, what if a proxy gets setup, or trojan, or other malware? If your machine is behind a firewall, then expect your security to be bypassed.

On another note, if advertisers want to advertise something to me in my game on "MY" hardware, then they can damn well pay me for it. I am NOT giving up my bandwidth and electricity to pay for a service which puts them into a position of stealing from me to provide ads. There won't likely be a discount to the price of a game to offset this cost to me. Unless the game is free, and paid for fully by advertising, then I refuse to buy a game with built-in parasitic advertising. The advertisers will benefit themselves without any compensation to us.

You are narrowminded

[NDPTAL85]

The problem with your assertations is not that they are false, but that they dont' go far enough. Why are you singling out just two industries as guilty of exploitation? Porn and advertising ARE guilty of what you claim but what about the following industries:

Journalism
Tobacco
Pharmaceuticals
Bio-tech
Anything internet related
Wall Street (Investment banking, retirement funds, credit cards)
The Automobile Industry
The Food Industry
Real Estate
Manufacturing
The Energy Industry
The Bottled Water Industry (as in only idiots buy bottled water, thus they're exploiting the stupid)
Academia (Convincing the nation that good jobs are unattainable without a prohibitively expensive college degree, the text book cartels...etc)

Name one industry where people AREN'T or haven't been in the past exploited for financial gain. So what makes pornography and advertising so horrible in comparison to the others?

As with many things, it's a double-edged sword

[foxtrot]

Do I want billboards all over my games, so while I'm eliminating the Zerg, they're running past a big ad for a Volvo? Not really.

On the other hand, remember the original Castle Wolfenstein? To regain health, you'd eat a meal that someone left out. Does it hugely change gameplay if, in a more modern setting, to regain health the object you grab looks like a bag of Doritos and a can of Pepsi? Not really.

Done well, in-game advertising can actually yield a more realistic feel-- if I'm playing an FPS set in modern times, I should be walking past Coke machines and USA today newspaper boxes and have a UPS truck drive by. It's reality, and having them say "Cola!" "News!" and "Package Smashers!" detracts from the realistic feel of the game. ...but y'all are probably right. What we're gonna get instead is a cut-scene in Fallout making sure we realize our Pip-Boy runs Microsoft Pocket PC 2025...

-JDF

Re:As with many things, it's a double-edged sword

[slungsolow]

double-edged sword.. I like that..

That falls under the same as this:
The advertisements may be annoying, they may be obtrusive, but they provide the developers and publishers the ability to boost the budget of a game so it can be of a higher quality.

Once they start recouping costs before even delivering a product, they can do bigger and better things. The original investment as a whole already starts to pay off before any kind of delivery takes place. Will this be good or bad for games in the future? Maybe or maybe not.

Re:As with many things, it's a double-edged sword

[MadHungarian1917]

The ad's will be intrusive and probably interfere with game play otherwise how will the advertiser ensure that an "impression" has been made.

For an example an early VHS version of "Top Gun" contained an ad for Pepsi before the movie began

I can't resist

[qray]

Used to be I only went out to the store after watching TV to buy all the stuff I saw on the commercials. Now I'll be doing that after every video game I play. I guess I'll have to fill out more of those credit card applications.

Doom 3, brought to you today by...

[Jumpin' Jon]

{insert name of adult nappie* manufacturer}
...and...
{insert name of heart pill manufacturer}


* - that's an English diaper, m'kay

I got two words for you all

[msaulters]

Jennifer Government.

Read it. It will happen (or something like it). It IS happening. Futurama was NOT at all wrong when it depicted advertisers beaming their crap into people's brains while they dreamed. Every successful marketing/sales droid I know would have zero second thoughts about anything which can increase revenue. Among those people, there are no morals. I mean, Pepsi has already tried to pollute the night sky. Pizza Hut is slapping their logo on the side of spaceships. This has been going on for years. There's nowhere they won't try to go.

Re:I got two words for you all

[bobobobo]

Futurama was NOT at all wrong when it depicted advertisers beaming their crap into people's brains while they dreamed.

LEELA: Didn't you have ads in the twentieth century?

FRY: Well, sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio... and in magazines... and movies, and at ballgames, and on buses, and milk cartons, and T-shirts, and bananas, and written in the sky. But not in dreams, no sirree.

Re:I got two words for you all

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a really good book (scary, not as scary as 1984, but scary, but good also). I borrowed it from my public library (I love libraries!) and I may even read it again some day.

And did anyone else just not care about the puppy?

Re:I got two words for you all

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know. Do I really want to read a book by some dumbass who thinks the Internet should be spelt as the internet (no capital I). Lets face it, he's certainly not too intelligent in his arguments for why it should be lower case. And he's obviously never come across any computer science in his lifetime to realise how the word came to be, and how it is separate from the general definition of "an internet".

So while I'm sure the ideas in his book might be interesting, I'm afraid the moron just pissed me off too much in his self-aggrandising website to get me to ever read any of his work...

Your other points are salient and I absolutely agree with them though :)

Re:I got two words for you all

[julesh]

Jennifer Government.

Read it.

Interesting. I'm not 100% certain, but I believe this is the book I heard mentioned a few months ago where the author had written a game specifically to promote it.

Now that's in-game advertising. Can't find a game to fit your product? Write one that does fit.

Re:I got two words for you all

[violet16]

Yep -- NationStates.

Re:I got two words for you all

[Anonymous Coward]

Max Barry wrote a web game with 850,000 users and you think he has no idea about computers because he prefers to spell "internet" lowercased?

Re:I got two words for you all

[crashnbur]

What happens in Jennifer Government will never happen for exactly the opposite reasons why what happens in 1984 will never happen -- by and large, people's ideals are centrist. And they have to be by definition, or else we would redefine the "center" to keep it in the middle.

Putting logos everywhere is one thing, but a super-libertarian-anarchic world order like the one in Jennifer Government will never, ever come to life.

Ever seen a Coke machine

[Andy Dodd]

In a "mundane" place like an office building?

You see vending machines all over in our current world. You also see payphones bearing the providers' logo/name all over (although less and less due to cellphones), but there are plenty of places where "advertising" can be put into a game without the user even thinking that it is advertising.

What about a Dell monitor box in a stack in a warehouse? Dell probably won't care if the box gets shot up/blown up, as long as the player sees the logo.

Or think of the barrels in Doom... What if those barrels were labeled Shell instead of UAC? (Assuming the environment is an appropriate one for barrels of flammable petroleum products to be appearing.)

Starbucks in Shrek

[MonkeyCookie]

If I recall correctly, the Starbucks in Shrek wasn't actually called Starbucks, but something very similar. They did that with all the brand names that appeared in the movie.

I'm pretty sure that it was more for the sake of parody than advertisement.

Re:Starbucks in Shrek

[chary]

And yet you noticed them.

Maybe that's the secret to it. Let the companies do GTA style adverts with the logos and slogans and things, rather than squirming and worrying about THE MIGHTY BRAND! Turn them into a part of the gameworld, rather than slapping the logo on the top.

On the other hand, I doubt there's many companies willing to give that amount of creative freedom where THE MIGHTY BRAND might be included.

Pinball Machines

[AnalogDiehard]

Game Advertising "breaks out"? They've been around for years.

Take a look at advertising used on pinball machines sporting images from major movies, music groups, and TV shows.

Let's take it further...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see how this would work. When you install the game, it checks your cookies to see where you've been lately. Then, it updates the billboards, products, etc. in-game to advertise stuff you theoretically are interested in.

Or how about this: It seems more games are giving you a danger-free, open environment to run around in at the beginning of games now, to give you a chance to learn the controls and immerse yourself in the game's reality. (Think Doom3's Marine Registration bit). They could place tons of adverts in there and see which ones you look at most, and then update the adverts later in the game to target you better.

Games like Vice City and Driv3r are perfect for advertising, with their potential for billboards, etc. Well, Vice City anyways. No one played Driv3r.

In the end though, we know it's only a matter of time till NPCs are trying to get you to refinance your mortgage, or to enlarge your manhood to please her better.

We need a bigger gun

[HarveyBirdman]

If Colt or Smith & Wesson or Remington had any balls at all, they product place into the Grand Theft Auto series.

Spyware

[Anonymous Coward]

>> Gamers are tracked. New advertisements are delivered on the fly. It's both a game publisher and ad exec's [wet] dream. Atari and Ubisoft are among the game publishers to sign up.

This is nothing more than spyware! I'm going to laugh when adaware or spybot goes thru and deletes half of your (or my) game because it found spyware.

Ubisoft and Atari - That's just sad. Guess I won't be buying any more of their titles along with all those that have the pathetic StarForce CP.

The author is a grammatical moron

[Asprin]

(Sigh)... I really apologize for this being so far off topic, but when the press makes painfully obvious grammatical errors like this, it just frosts my twinkie. Please pardon my venting, but I am blistering with splenetic rage over this particularly puerile lexiconic oversight.

Take a look at this excerpt from the article, about halfway down just under the 'related story' link:

Delivering ads on the fly
New York-based Massive, Inc. is taking a different tact with a technology that both serves and measures in-game ad impressions.

I believe the columnist intended to use the word tack, as in "...take a different tack." It's from nautical terminology and refers to a change or difference in direction (like a boat tacking against the wind). Tact is something entirely different.

When did MSNBC start hiring bloggers and IM-kiddies to write background pieces?

Strike 1: You are a professional journalist. You should know how to use words and dictionaries.
Strike 2: You write tech articles, so I expect you to be equipped a little better than average upstairs.
Strike 3: Your editor should know better when you don't.

Here, I found a book you should read.

/grumbling=off

Re:The author is a grammatical moron

[pclminion]

What universe do you live in, where an error in usage is equivalent to a grammatical error?

A few hints: Spelling != Grammar, Usage != Grammar, Capitalization != Grammar, Puntuation != Grammar.

This are a grammar error. Misusing "tact" in place of "tack" is not.

All I know is...

[Dirtside]

...if I get any more spam from MartianBuddy.com, I'm going to unleash Hell!

It can be tasteful

[affliction]

Advertising in a game can definately add to it's appeal, but most people will go overboard to the point of distraction.

The one game where I think this would be appropriate is the SimCity series. I wish I could throw up a McDonalds and a Taco Bell and then drive down to Walmart for some white trash viewing. That would definately add to the realism of the game.

However, if I pick up Halflife 2 and Gordon has to stop by the 7-11 for a Big Gulp to boost his health, I'm going to be pissed.

Adverts

[bag-o-doughnuts]

They're here in force already..take a look at Need for Speed: Underground Advertisements for all your ricer needs!

Kickbacks, lowering game prices? Unlikely...

[Seng]

They'll pad their pocketbooks with the extra ad revenue, and still drop $55 piece of junk games on the shelf at Best Buy. Justification will be, "It offsets the cost of piracy." Has ANY gaming company ever done any studies to see if a $15.00 game title on the store shelves would sell better than a $50 game? It seems to me that there would be at least three to four times as many that could afford the cheaper box which would boost sales more... AND, the people that want to play the game cheaper wouldn't have to bother a) downloading the ISO off torrents, b) findind a crack, c) getting infected with virus from "crack", d) reinstalling computer.

You have to be joking

[PacketScan]

Ok i'm got a Huge problem with this..
In game advertising?
I mean HELLO... I just shelled out 50 dollars for the newest first person shooter from viacom and now i have to sit through advertising..
Seriously if they are going to include adverts in my new video games i want a BIG discount or the darn thing for free.. Why should i have to sit and watch adverts when i just payed through the teeth for the game...
I only see this as a further step to make people steal games.. If viacom make 100 dollars because i played the game for 1000 hours. that's not fair and i'm sure others will see it this way as well.. These game companies need to get real and stick to what they know, building games.

Re:You have to be joking

[suman28]

I would think that you wouldn't want any discount or have it be free for that matter....Rememeber, if they pay for it, they will want to control most aspects of the game. So what if they player stops to drink a can of Pepsi and starts talking about the product for a few mins. Then, there is the issue of constant tracking of the players. Would this make for a good game play? I would much rather pay for my games, if it means keeping the ads out of it.

Company list

[KlausBreuer]

Goody.
Let's make a list of game companies interested in this appalling concept.
So far I have found:

* Activision, Inc
* Atari
* Ubisoft

No need to buy games from these people, is there?

And what a lovely quote in the FA:
"It's like when I played 'Grand Theft Auto' for the first time," he said. "I thought to myself how much better it would be if the signs were real."

Bah. Do I have to tell you how massively irritating the 'real' signs would have been, compared to the rather amusing 'false' ones?
Just shows that these people have absolutely no idea whatsoever about what makes a game.

Little, slightly OT, example: Roller Coaster Tycoon. Has 'poor graphics, no 3D'. Well, looks like lots of people (including me, I might add) rather like isometric 2D graphics, and RCT with all add-ons sold over 7 million copies...

Pole Position?

[MasMacho]

Am I the only person here old enough to have played Pole Position? Where all the billboards were for things like "Dig Dug" and Namco? It would seem this is hardly a recent phenomenon. What is recent is that nobody had any info on whether the kid with the two liter bottle of shasta was walking over to the Dig Dug game and inserting quarters. What Neilson is trying to do is figure that out.

The Wave To Come

[Emperor Tiberius]

This has been around for years. You'd also see political statements in games. Remember in Duke Nukem 3D, the "Innocent?" billboard pointing fingers at OJ? In Doom 3, the "VALVE running" stab? Personally, as long as my player doesn't stop to drink a Pepsi, or bandage himself with a J&J, I don't care.

Give me an immersive experience, but do _not_ ruin my gameplay.

Sponsoring Free Games

[ReadParse]

Yeah, let's use sponsorship for something valuable to the consumer again. Like the sponsored shows in early television (like "The Maxwell House Price is Right", for example -- I made that one up, but you get the idea). The whole show was basically a commercial for a single product, and the whole show was paid for by that company. Kind of like what stadiums and concert venues are doing now, except without the benefit to the customer. It should be either cheap or free to go to a stadium that's named after a company, but instead of lowering the price of admission, they're doing that to pay obscene salaries.

But I digress....

I think a sponsored video game would be a great idea. Say Pepsico pays great game developers to make a great game, then they give it away. You can download it or pick up a CD at the store. It's blatantly a Mountain Dew advertisement, with Mountain Dew billboards all over the game world, and yes, the main character always finds his refreshment in a nice, cold Mountain Dew. Before you know it, you're thirsty for a nice, cold Mountain Dew also.

And the best thing about it is that the consumer once again gets dramatic benefit out of sponsorship, just like you do on the radio and on broadcast TV. You get the content for free in hopes that you'll buy from the sponsor.

RP

Re:Sponsoring Free Games

[geekboy2k]

Whoops - someone already did that. There was a game for the Super NES called "Cool Spot" featuring the "spot" from 7-up. There was also a game in Chex boxes based on the Doom engine that was Chex themed. I am sure there are more examples.

Re:Sponsoring Free Games

[joeysmith]

Wonderful. Thanks a lot. Now I need a nice, cold Mountain Dew to slake my thirst.

Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja

[Fraize]

Who remembers that old coin up game Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja, where the health power-ups were cans of Coke?

Spacequest had it in the early 90s

[wing03]

Let's go way back to Roger Wilco's days in the very early 90s and I believe it was SQ4 or 5 where the Sprint logo would appear at the end of every space transmission.

You mean like ....

[gstoddart]

They want *me* to pay for games.. so that I can see advertisements??!

In exactly the same way as they want you to pay for TV and see ads, buy a magazine and see ads, pay for a ticket to a movie and see ads, and so on. I agree with you, but that cat is out of the bag already. Hell, people pay for shirts which are effectively advertising.

I'm far more concerned as to the amount of reporting that will actually take place. Sure, they're saying they want the damned game to emit some sort of tone which is detectable by the Nielson box and gets recorded. I'm worried about when the advertisers starts saying "we're not paying until you can give us information on the impressions from those that didn't have a Nielson box".

Then you're into the scary context that the game becomes spyware and expects to be able to stream to the mother ship.

Re:You mean like ....

[AK Marc]

In exactly the same way as they want you to pay for TV and see ads, buy a magazine and see ads, pay for a ticket to a movie and see ads, and so on. I agree with you, but that cat is out of the bag already. Hell, people pay for shirts which are effectively advertising.

I don't pay to watch TV. I get a number of magazines free that are supported by ads only. The most expensive one I pay for is that way because it has 0 ads targeted at me (I buy a UK magazine in the US).

For the ads I'm subjected to, I get something identifiable in return. A $10/yr subscription to Car and Track Trend probably is just about the cost to print and ship it to me. I'd suspect that somewhere in the neighborhood of half of their operating income is ads. The savings is passed to me. With movies, I get higher ticket prices *and* ads. I expect the same to be with video games. The price will not decline, but the product placement will result in additional revenue.

Oh, and every t-shirt with a logo on it that I own was given to me by the company depicted or a representative thereof. Shoes and some other items are almost impossible to get without logos, but anyone that pays extra for the right to advertise for Ambercrombie and Fitch or other company is so far from my though process that I can't even understand it.

It's already being done. A lot.

[Anonymous Coward]

That nVidia or ATI ad when you load your game, billboards in driving and sports games...

It's there.

I won't have much of a problem picking up a "Smith & Wesson BFG" as opposed to a generic BFG. Or if Duke suddenly decides to drink Bud rather then "Generic Soda". Or Space Marine uses Band-Aid brand health packs.

When the ads definitely detract form gameplay, though, I'll vote with my wallet.

taking advantage of a captive audience

[SethJohnson]

Yes, ads have been in video games for some time. Tony Hawk Underground, for example, contained McDonalds storefronts as paid product placement.

This type of advertising is awful. It does not add value to the consumer's experience. It takes advantage of the captive audience. It's no different than movie theaters showing commercials for shoes before a movie.

Your example of ads supporting freeware is an illustration of how advertising has traditionally worked- it pays for a service to be provided to the consumer. Think broadcast television. Ads in non-freeware software represent a money-grab by the publisher.

How do we resist this trend? Contact advertisers who use this medium and let them know that they are intruding on your personal space with their advertising. Let them know that their ad did not improve the entertainment value of the game in any way. It just created more profits for the publisher and you disapprove. Tell them that as a result you will refuse to use their product as long as they continue this practice.

Resistance is not futile. When the marketers behind the Spiderman II movie tried to put web logos on major league bases, sports fans balked and the studio scrapped the plan. Consumers must voice their disapproval if they are going to combat this deluge of advertising.

Re:taking advantage of a captive audience

[Masami Eiri]

Get off the soapbox.

So what if there were McD's storefronts in THUG? You do realize, that all the boards are branded by their companies (Toy Machine, Birdhouse, etc). So you want to eliminate the board designs too?

The way I see if, if the advertising fits (like the McD's storefronts) its fine. If it doesn't fit (like the webs on the bases) then it shouldn't happen.

Re:taking advantage of a captive audience

[SethJohnson]

Activision hadn't actually taken in any revenue from the skate product branding within any releases of the game. They had agreements with the skate companies to partner with marketing efforts. The deck companies got their logos in the game, then somehow those deck companies were supposed to help promote the game externally. I didn't see much of that going on, so perhaps Activision was satisfied by the street cred those logos gave THPS and didn't push the issue.

When McDonald's entered the picture, that's when Activision started pulling in money from product placement in the THPS series.

I apologize for my soapbox rant. I know that a lot of consumers would prefer to only hear the bleatings of their fellow sheep. I'll try to do a better job of acting complacent in the future.

Re:taking advantage of a captive audience

[Masami Eiri]

I did not realize that.

However, they were still advertising them. The point of the matter is I don't see why you have a problem with it. Having those McDonalds adds to the atmosphere, no matter what you say.

Like someone said elsewhere in the thread, a freeway without billboards is odd. So why not put in real product ads, instead of fake ones?

Re:taking advantage of a captive audience

[SethJohnson]

You are an interesting consumer. You are actually asking for more advertising in your life. Madison Avenue would love to use you in pitch meetings.

The reason why there is a problem here is that it can skew game conceptualization. Once revenue from ads influences game designers, they'll start adding uneccessary opportunities for ads to appear.

Additionally, you can expect dumb marketing people to simply plaster branding on load-time screens, interface screens, etc.

If the game company is going to make money off advertising that I'm exposed to, I'd like to see some money knocked off the price I'm paying for the game. I doubt that will happen, so I'm opposed to the game companies selling me to advertisers as a captive audience.

Re:taking advantage of a captive audience

[Merk]

I agree with the other poster. I would not buy THUG because of McDonalds ads. It didn't make the game more enjoyable, more interesting, or more realistic. It just stood out like a sore thumb. I hate McDonalds, and there's no way I'll pay for a game, and accept McDonalds ads in it as well.

The skateboard company ads annoy me too, but I'm willing to accept them since it's a skateboarding game, and these ads are really well integrated into the game.

The one thing that encourages me is that games, TV and such are increasingly falling under my control. Right now, an ad filter like privoxy can remove all the awful, annoying ads that would otherwise make using the web hell. At one point, I had tweaked Opera so that the ads it showed were the "ads" I had created, rather than real ones it tried to show me. If a game company publishes a game that tries to fetch ads remotely, I'm sure there will be a hack to get it to fetch something else instead.

Typical

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just further confirmation of the fucking abominable shit that computing has become. I've been a computer nerd since I was 13 - that's 23 years - and it's getting to the point where I just don't want anything to do with the goddamned spying, spamming, slime- and lawyer-infested world of computers. It's just sickening.

Advertising OK - tracking NOT

[AviLazar]

If they want to stick a coke can in my game, pizza hut logo, etc. I could care less. If it is part of the game (find the coke can for bonus points), I could care less. Actually if it reduces the cost of the game or helps keep the game maker in business - even better!
Now if it tracks me - which means it is using my bandwidth, and sending information about me - I DO care and would not buy the game for that reason. Though, I could see it being in every game (eventually) making it that you have no choice....

Speed of loading / Ad obstrusiveness

[SeanDuggan]

Another big benefit of Google's ads is that they're entirely text-based (although I think they said that was planned to change?) so they take almost no time to load. Back when I was on dial-up, a banner ad could add an easy 5 minutes to the loading of a webpage. Today's Flash ads do the same thing with broadband connections. (Although I think a lot of that is plug-in overhead. I know that it generally took that long for IE to bring up the prompt telling me Flash wanted to load itself on my computer and please hit yes.)

Me, I have no problem with inobtrusive in-game advertisements. Something like the advertising boards on sports games or billboards in an FPS are perfectly reasonable to me, as they're natural in-game. (That said, tune the ads to the game... I'd hate to be playing some shooter set in 2275 and see an ad for a 2004 Jeep Cherokee... although if they could work out some way of it being peddled as reto kitsh, I could see that.) Or heck, those little sumbliminal bits like characters getting cans that are actually labelled Coke or wearing Converse shoes. (Although please... no long close-ups with loving product descriptions like in I, Robot...) So long as the ad looks natural for the world, I have no problem with it.

part 1: it doesn't have to be obnoxious, you know

[Moraelin]

I'm not sure why everyone assumes it _must_ be an intrusive in-your-face affair, or that tracking _must_ mean your data being sold to the advertiser.

There are lots of opportunities for advertising in online multiplayer games which won't necessarily break the game.

E.g., a MMO which happens in modern times is pretty much expected to have billboards. City of Heroes for example has them, but they're just funny in-game stuff (bail bonds for villains and such) instead of trying to sell a real world product.

Now think a little. Getting a couple of real world banners for those billboards would definitely not be annoying or break suspension of disbelief in any way. E.g., if I saw a big MacDonalds billboard in that city, I wouldn't stop and think "wtf is it doing there." It would fit right in with the rest of the urban landscape.

It also doesn't even need to be a big billboard, but can be something even more subtle or less intrusive.

E.g., in a town you _expect_ shops. In fact, you tend to be disappointed when you don't see them. I know I've stopped and wondered about how few the shops in City of Heroes are.

So I don't think it would look out of place if in a hypothetical modern day MMO you saw a MacDonalds or Pizza Hut on a street corner. It fits there and it makes sense. Those townfolks must be eating somewhere.

Or you can go even more subtle and have stuff like: if that town has a shoe store, sometimes it could sprout a sign in the window proclaiming a big sale on Nike sportswear. It's not like you don't see those IRL, you know.

Also, these are massively bandwidth intensive games anyway, _and_ are based on stuff downloaded on-the-fly from their servers anyway. Having to download an extra 16k worth of compressed texture for some billboard ad wouldn't really make any difference.

So, really, what's the problem?

This is already here

[CrystalFalcon]

I frequently play PlanetSide, a MMOFPS (Massively Multiplayer On-line First Person Shooter), quite possibly still the only of its kind.

When the game loads, there's an nVidia commercial.

While in transit between continents, there's a small blurb saying "Runs great on Pentium 4".

This is already here, folks. And you know what? As long as it doesn't interfere with the game itself, I'm all for it. (OTOH, if it comes to the point of TV-style interrupting commercials, then somebody deserves a big fat punch in the face.)

Pervasive Advertizing

[Anonymous Coward]

As more and more ads pervade our daily lives it seems that more and more of us just become numb to their invasive nature. I find it appauling. Google has it right, while ads may be a necessary evil for the corperate world there's no reason for them to take such a dominate role in all forms of media. Non-Invasive context-sensative text Ads. They don't get in the way, they arn't an eye-sore and they are at times very useful. I do applaud Google for thier approach to the matter and it's just another reason that they're at the top of their leauge right now. I don't see that there's going to be any retaliation from the users that suffer from these invasive ads. I'm still rather surprised however that these people haven't been taken to court for flashing ads that could potententially induce an epileptic seizure by some poor unsuspected user who doesn't have a popup-blocker or ad-blocker. There's no way to warn users about that either. Is the solution simply not to use the internet? I think not. With so many companies seeming to focus upon their profit margin and bottom line it's a wonder how so many are kept afloat by hurting rather than helping the source of their profit margin: we, the users. Are we really doomed to this self-perpetuating degredation of soceity? If nothing is done what do you think will happen? Any thoughts?

Penny-Arcade Strikes again

[robi2106]

I suppose there are many other PA fans out there linking to the very thing this article alludes to as referenced in an old PA cartoon.

I searched, but couldn't find another reference.

jason

2 words to destroy ALL ads in Windows, PERIOD

[Travoltus]

Zone
Alarm

(at least for single player games)

PA comic

[xsupergr0verx]

Ach, Mein Thirsten!

Hmmm

[Tolwyn_993442]

Weren't the Rainbow Six games just one big ad for Heckler and Koch ? :)

part 2: on tracking

[Moraelin]

Bear in mind that these games _do_ already track you to some extent. If you thought you were totally anonymous in an online game, get over it: you aren't and you never were.

Even on MUDs, having been (briefly) a builder on one, I can assure you that there was some massive logging going on, and plenty of opportunity to snoop on what someone was up to.

It was amusing to see idiots thinking that the admins can't possibly know they're abusing some obscure bug or harrassing someone. In practice, an admin could be invisible right next to you while you spend hours abusing a bug. (I know at least one admin who literally sat and watched invisible for hours, just to see how long would someone keep at doing an exploit.)

Some liked to maintain some pretense of respecting privacy unless given reasonable doubt, or a direct request for help from a harrassment victim. E.g., yes, it was possible that all that hate text you sent someone was also going to an admin's screen too.

A lot didn't even have that kind of pretense. In fact, _most_ didn't have any kind of privacy promise or policy.

I.e., again, if you don't want to be tracked, never play an online game you don't host yourself. If you don't want something logged, don't do it online. It's that simple.

And by comparison, "tracking" for in-game advertising reasons can be a lot more benign. An ad provider doesn't need to know that "S1R N00BK1LL3R" or "Dread Lord IMHORNY" saw their ad, they just need to know how many distinct people did. That's all.

I hardly think that an aggregate statistic (like that a total of 10,000 people this week got the MacDonald billboard rendered on their screen) would violate your privacy or anything.

not product placement--read what I wrote again

[bodrell]

Regardless of my feelings about product placement, I was not talking about that at all. I'm talking about ads running on screen like you'd see on television, before the previews start. Maybe they don't do that yet in Holland (if so, you're lucky).

Here, however, the evening ticket price is ~$7-8, then before the previews even start the commercials begin to roll. Usually 2-3 Coke commercials, one for Levi jeans, one for Virgin Mobile, two for Ax/Body Fantasies fragrances, and often a propaganda piece (helping others--pass it on!). I'm probably forgetting some, too. It's one of the few times I am forced to see commercials. No mute, nothing else I can do while waiting for them to end. Sometimes I cheer and clap, "Go Coca-Cola!" in an ironic manner. I wish the other patrons were as pissed about it as I am, because maybe if they complained we could nip this in the bud.

Re:not product placement--read what I wrote again

[ticktockticktock]

Just do like some people do and purposely arrive late (by 5 to 10 minutes) to the movie theater for a particular movie. You won't be "forced" to see any ads since the movie would be just starting when you walk in. The only negative thing about this is finding a place to sit after the other people have already taken a spot before you.

Balance

[AllenChristopher]

I've mentioned this before, but it bears repeating.

A major problem with in-game advertising where suspension of disbelief is concerned is that I'm used to seeing ads for all kinds of products.

Nothing's stranger than a universe where terrorists are after the president and oh, incidentally, the terrorist leader has somehow erased every brand of soda except Mountain Dew.

Brands have emotional connotations. I know people who get angry if they have to have the wrong brand of cola. If a person has truly entered into your world playing something like Shenmue and then the only kinds of soda available are Pepsi products, that's going to piss off about half your players, give or take %20.

Exclusivity isn't going to cut it.

Re:Balance

[N3koFever]

The Japanese version of Shenmue had Coca-Cola, Fanta, and Sprite in its drinks machines but they were removed from the US version in favour of fictional generic brands. I actually found that far more distracting because I rarely see machines in real life selling generic drinks - they're invariably Coca-Cola or Pepsi.

That's why there's a place for product placement in games, just as long as it's not too invasive and I don't get offered cheap viagra on the loading screens.

realism

[dAzED1]

what's the problem? We want games to be realistic, right? Ads are verywhere in the Real World, so why not have billboards in your driving game, soda that actually saysCoke on it in your first-person-shooter, or whatever else?
So long as its part of the game itself, and isn't something wrapped around the view and breaking the interface...that wouldn't be tolerated anyway. Putting ads in games gets more money for the industry, allowing them to make better games, and it makes the games more realistic. I dream in communism (ie - non-property...not USSR/China style), but we're in a capitalist economy. If the industry has another income source, competition will still exist and it might even drop the shelf price...imagine free games with in-game ads. I don't see the problem.

Re:realism

[sqlrob]

We want games to be realistic, right?

No. Part of the reason I play games is to get away from reality. Why do I want reality to intrude?

Re:realism

[dAzED1]

realistic != reality.

In /reality/, you can't drive a car 200mph down a road in Miama and not go to jail. In /reality/ you can't shoot monsters from hell.

Its much /more/ of an escape if its something *realistic* that you're attempting to escape in to.

Microsoft software boxes, Dell monitors..

[oliverthered]

Nope- Apple as always.

I've never seen Linux advertised in any Linux games!

Re:Microsoft software boxes, Dell monitors..

[Anonymous Coward]

What Linux games?

Re:Microsoft software boxes, Dell monitors..

[Anonymous Coward]

UT has been ported to gentoo. IS this another pointless gentoo plug? I think so. Is UT worthy of a pointless plug? I think so to.

Space Quest 5

[RatBastard]

Space Quest 5 had ads for Sprint long-distance every time you used the ship-to-ship communicator. It pissed me off so much that I boycotted all Sierra games from that point on except for Half-Life.

I didn't pay $50.00 to have ads rammed into my face.

Obligatory Futurama Quote

[ksiddique]

LEELA: Didn't you have ads in the twentieth century?

FRY: Well, sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio... and in magazines... and movies, and at ballgames, and on buses, and milk cartons, and T-shirts, and bananas, and written in the sky. But not in dreams, no sirree.

Re:Obligatory Futurama Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Such an under-appreciated series.
Another great moment from the same episode is when Fry trys out the advertized-in-his-dreams underwear in the store.
He looks in the mirror and sees himself looking muscular and as two women are cuddling up to him he looks down and at the sign-
"Warning: Objects in mirror are not as attractive as they appear"

Ad with game inside.

[Traa]

America's Army, the game, is freeware and has only one minor ad that is well hidden ;-)

For those who don't know, the American Army (the real thing) spend some money to have a game developer create a FPS game including things the army has to offer. From weapons training to shooting the bad guys. The game was spread as freeware with the purpose of getting kids interested in joining the U.S. Army.

Anyway, just wanted to mention this ad with game inside.

What about firewalls?

[GMFTatsujin]

Let's say I run a tight ship and keep my network nicely insulated from the barrage of crap the is Teh Intarweb. Or that I don't even have my machine hooked to a network at all.

What happens to these games when they try to go out and get the xtreme ad of the day, only to find that they've got no path out? Do they crash? Does the EULA require that I purchase service from an ISP? Is there a generic repository of ads built-in? Or do I just have to send a check to an advertiser directly?

And if prices don't go down, which I expect will be the case, what have I really paid for: a game to play, or an advertising delivery vehicle that uses a gamepad?

In short: what kind of obligation does this put on the player to make sure the game actually runs?

Re:consoles and freeware - PepsiQuest

[bkruiser]

PepsiQuest, MMORPG gives virtual cash and gifts for real purchases! Buy a pizza from pizza hut and get an AOE spell doubling stamina for all in party! Each pepsi can code entered rewards with 10gp and a full life bonus! Pepsi/Sony/GM - buy a Saturn vehicle and get an online virtual vehicle, purchase a Sony big screen and get Full set of the best armor.... Hey it just makes sense for this to happen sooner or later. The fact is that in most MMORPG's people who have real money buy online credits and charachters anyway.

It's been done!

[ucblockhead]

I gather Mr. Taco never realized that in Half-life, soda from the machines gave you a slight health boost.

Wont' be the first time, or the last.

[pragma_x]

Anyone remember Wipeout:XL (Wipeout:2097 for those not in the US)?

The load screens were adverts for Redbull:

"Redbull increases reaction time!"

Of course it was done with a certain level of cool, so I didn't mind.

I suppose that as long as these ad placements are done with the same degree of control as, say, movie-based product-placement is, then it could be a real win-win for *some* games. It'd be nice to have advertisers pay a studio to put a coke machine in the next Rainbow 6 game as opposed to the other way around.

Having ad companies push updated magazine covers, billboards and vending machine art to online game clients would just keep things fresh.

Re:Wont' be the first time, or the last.

[Hassman]

After your character drinks the Redbull did they break out in hives? I do when I drink it. If they are going to advertise in games, lets be realistic and show some of the potential side-effects.

Remington?

[Zygote-IC-]

Why would I want ammunition made by a razor company?

Thanks! I'll be here all week! Tip your waitresses!

Re:Remington?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.remington.com/

Don't forget professional services.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm thinking something a little more interactive. After you take a hit and right before you die, a briefcase toting character walks up and hands you his card.

Hutz is the name. Lionel Hutz, attorney at law.

Question about this type of advertising?

[BadluckShleprock]

Does the ban on Tobacco advertising on television and radio cover video games as well? Since NASCAR and other sports series are trying to avoid the potential millions of dollars in tobacco advertising money, how long will it be before Duke Nukem stops his bloodfest to enjoy the fresh taste of a cool Laramie cigarette?

Before anyone comments on it, I know that one of the reasons NASCAR switched from Winston to Nextel partially because the poor, poor tobacco companies lost so much money to the swine lawyers in one of the biggest tort cases in history. Combined with the restrictions that the U.S. (not to mention the European Union) put on tobacco advertising on television, many sports have been forced to seek their fortunes elsewhere.

it's the logical next step

[CAIMLAS]

People have been advertising in games for years. They've even made a fair share of games that are exclusive advertising - the Yo! Noids game(s?) for NES come to mind, and I've seen McD's games, 7-up (with Spot) (and I'm sure others) as well. It's nothing new. The Yo! Noids game was actually pretty fun/well made, too, IIRC.

If someone were to make a game with their mascot that was fun and entertaining, I'd play it. I don't care if it's advertising. Take, for instance, the geico lizard. You could do some very fun (and funny) things with that if you've got the right creative people involved.

There are even the games that have 'fake' advertising in them. Duke Nuke'em 3D comes to mind. Granted, in the case of Duke3d, the fake advertising adds to the fun-loving nature of the game. However, in games where the level of realism is imperative to the game's environment, it makes perfect sense to have real (say) soda company banners, machines, etc. in place of the mock stuff. Something like Deus Ex (or maybe even Duke3d, with the soda machines that replentish life) would be good for this kind of thing - just don't make the adverts so overwhelming and distracting that they remove you from the game experience.

On the grounds of tracking views, it seems a bit crooked to me. IF they're going to do that and make a lot of money off you on top of your initial game purchase, they should at least charge less for the game. This kind of advertising makes mroe sense for single-player games as well - people are more likely to pirate a single-player-only game, as it has less replay/multiplayer value than the alternative - I imaigne that this effect might eventually lead to free games (similar to how TV is free).

ALso, I can understand how companies might do this to help suppliment the cost of development. Modern games take a very significant financial investment, what with all the high-quality models, audio, engines and textures that are now in games. They're approaching the quality of movies, ffs.

finding a seat

[bodrell]

The only negative thing about this is finding a place to sit after the other people have already taken a spot before you.

You said it. I'd always be sitting on the side or in the very front. It sucks that I have to choose between getting a good seat and avoiding the ads. But since I can't stand being late, I can't avoid the ads.

Doom

[xgamer04]

"The enemies in this level of Doom are brought to you by CLEARASIL"

[pic of smiling thumbs-up maggot-guy]

Oddworld

[Baby Duck]

I can't wait until your first person shooter stops and drinks a nice cold refreshing soda.

In Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee, which came out for XBox's initial release, you do just that! Abe will walk up to a SoBe vending machine, tilt one back, and regain lost health. OK, not quite a soda and not quite a first-person shooter, but you get my point.

Crazy Taxi Games

[Q-Mont]

I seem to remember Crazy Taxi 2 being nothing but advertising. "Take me to Kentucky Fried Chicken" they would say. Or "I need to go to the Levi's Store." The first game was great and the second one was all right, but there was still a lot of advertising in both games.

Pepsiman

[Deraj DeZine]

Anyone remember Pepsiman for the Playstation? It was apparently some sort of promotion for Pepsi in Japan, but I really enjoyed the arcade-style gameplay. I'm still not a big fan of Pepsi, however.

It's about damn time!

[mindhaze]

I was playing Chronicles of Riddick just the other day, and was flabergasted that when I visited the local hamburger joint, it was NOT a MacDonald's!!! I mean, what's the point... make my games more familiar with me.

Things I look forward to seeing in game:

- An Esso, Shell, etc, gas station. Preferably one I can blow up.
- Any well branded restaurant where I can kill people. Oh how postal that would be!

Re:QUICK, ONE OF YOU KARMA WHORES POST A MIRROR

[gcaseye6677]

Wow, what kind of world will this be when you can't even view a goatse troll without being subjected to advertising?

Photography

[Kombat]

Wow, you've got some great shots. Coincidentally, I have a cat that looks very similar to "Magic." Her name is Trinity, and she's also an all-black, short-haired domestic, but she has a small white patch on her chest (just enough to keep her from being a "bad-luck" cat). I liked a lot of your night shots of Parliament, too. Nice work.

No no

[superpulpsicle]

Nah. Those are the old days where they advertise products that exist.

Look at Doom III, they have a game called "Super Turkey Turbo Puncher". When this game gets released for real, it'll be a smash hit automatically. I can't wait to punch that turkey for 500 pt.

Re:No no

[Mr Guy]

Don't let your mother catch you playing 'Super Turkey Turbo Puncher'. She'll tell you it'll make you go blind.

if censorship is in the router ...

[Heisenbug]

What are the odds that they'll use strong encryption on the ad delivery? If not, I bet anyone on the same LAN can replace those fetched ads with their own (ala the recent goatse wifi story). That's going to be a lot of fun on college campuses and in net cafes ...

It's about time

[krgallagher]

"I can't wait until your first person shooter stops and drinks a nice cold refreshing soda."

I have long been a proponent of corporate sponsorship of MMORPG's. Instead of charging us for the software and then charging us again to play, both should be free. The trade off would be that you potion of health becomes a Mountain Dew and your potion of strength is a Red Bull. It gets even better with Remmington and Colt supplying weapons.

What a great way to build brand loyalty as in "The best armor is made by Tommy Hilfiger!" or "My Chevy is much faster than you Toyota!"

I want my gaming habit subsidised. Advertisers have been missing a bet for a long time.

Lower prices, then?

[hungsolo]

Does this mean that the retail cost of the games will be reduced, since they'll be subsidized via advertising?

I'd be willing to ignore a few ads to not have to pay $55 for a new release.

Spamola Mutha F*cka...

[Anonymous Coward]

...well, congrats on sealing the deal d*ckheads... Doom III is the last game I'll buy then. Its a good thing too since its also the best game I've ever played. The replayability is excellent!

Besides, how long do you think it'll be before the Amish are bombarded with ads? or... How long do you think it'll be before the Amish start bombarding US with ads?

Fed up with bullshit,
Disgruntled Admin

Rainbow six 3 - Black arrow

[dindi]

1st mission: metro station/tunnel
-has several ads for splinter cell: pandora tomorrow ...

kind of a nice idea, but really freaks you out since there is a guy with a gun on the ad, so you most likely shoot the ad to hell on the first sight :)

Some other recent game was full of coke machines and gatorade dispensers (or was it powerade ?? ) I think it was breakdown ... ahm too many games, too many ads, too many brands ....

Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

"TOS"es are not legally binding on either party. A contract is a contract and a TOS/EULA/license is not a contract. Quit letting software publishers play with the law.

Re:part 1: it doesn't have to be obnoxious, you kn

[cavebear42]

Have you ever played Super SX Tricky from EA Sports. The 7up billboards (for dnl) and are EVERYWHERE. I'm aware that snowboarding tracks would have billboards and the city tracks would have billboards but every 3 seconds you see yet another one. Also that game advertises for the honda element but not as obtrusive. The most blatent one of those is when you do a jump right throught the middle of one with its doors open. Just a few billboards.

My point of this is that they will be obtrusive. Why would a game company put in subtle ads when they can put in blatent ones and really attract the advertisers? Look at nascar, professional bull riding, or american football. "We'd like to welcome ya'll back to the Miller invitational rodeo. Next up, we have the Wrangler focus on a cowboy. But first, lets check those Copenhagen real time stats."

Doom3 is safe

[beta21]

It's soo dark in that game any ads will be missed. Unless you walk into a room and see an imp guzzling down a bud light!

Or everytime you used the torch, you'd see the magLite logo.

BOYCOTT ADTRACKED GAMES!

[TheBot]

I won't stand for this. I say we boycott any game that inputs a tracking technology for advertising. It's more about money now than ever before. What, they can't just be earning more money than Hollywood, they have to have more money than the whole world? This is rediculous and I am appaled at Activision Inc. for implementing it in future games.

BOYCOTT AD-TRACKED VIDEO GAMES! WE WILL NOT BUY GAMES THAT THEY USE TO FLOOD ADs TO US!

correct me if I'm wrong

[wolf_m16]

Didn't duke from duke nukem (the original) drink cola to up his health? ""I can't wait until your first person shooter stops and drinks a nice cold refreshing soda.":

Name-dropping

[Nurgled]

My friends and other people I talk to will often just reel off names of people who I assume are Hollywood movie stars to me and are often shocked when the names don't mean anything to me. I don't understand how people are willing to maintain a complex mental database of actors and what films they have starred in but are not willing to remember arguably more useful and usually less-complex information.

Often when I see a film I'll recognise an actor and think to myself "oh, that's the guy who was in that film about x", but I don't really know what his name is or anything like that, because I've never really thought of that information as important. I guess that's just me.

Re:Name-dropping

[Anonymous Coward]

People do that (memorizing actors/movies) because they use it as a filter, strangely enough. So many times I've wanted to go see a movie, but the choice was shot down because such and such was in it. Fuck, just go see the friggin movie, they're not called ACTORS for nothing! (Although admittedly there are some big names that are always uniformly aweful, whatever the script or director.)

Recent Experiences

[Nurgled]

The other day I visited my local cinema with some friends to watch I, Robot. We went to the pub for a drink first and after queueing and my friends buying expensive food products we got in to the theatre proper about 35 minutes after the billed start time, expecting to have missed the start. We were quite shocked (and, on that particular occasion, relieved) to find that we arrived in time to see the last preview trailer as well as the "don't let mobile phones ruin your movie" and the "Love Movies? Hate Piracy!" (Aarr!) stuff.

That's 40 minutes of junk before the film starts! Normally I don't notice the length of time because I'm chatting to my friends during this time. The ticket cost five pounds (roughly 9 US Dollars) and then once the film finally started the main character kept going on about his basketball shoes, which were of a brand I've never heard of and thus promptly forgot. The blatant nature of that product-placement was actually quite amusing, which was probably what they were going for.

Slurm

[Silvrmane]

I dunno about you guys, but ever since playing Doom 3 I've had a hankering for RoboCola.

Martian Buddy Has all your needs!

[unsigned integer]

Having trouble with those nasty scary monsters in the dark? Visit www.martianbuddy.com today!

The Cyberpunk Media

[eidolons]

Remember how excessive advertising was one of the things that made Gibson's Neuromancer and Stephenson's Diamond Age and Snow Crash so convincing, in that you had whole commercial avenues that were bloated with "mediotrons" flashing advertising imagery and holographs, etc?

If a game company develops a game that tries to incorporate this type of futuristic corporate "feel", they could do so by using legitimate, actual advertisors. You could have commercial streets that flash billboards just like in "Blade Runner" with the giant billboard of the Asian women drinking Coke, or imitate the impression of a busy city street with blazing pixellated neon-framed ads. I think this could be a symbiotic relationship here that works.

Re:The Cyberpunk Media

[demi]

Was there excessive advertising in Neuromancer? I don't remember it, but it's been a long time since I read it.

consider this sample advertising

[rozz]

you play a game, lets say GTA3
you find a hooker
you "make love" with her
after u finished
big banner
we observed the hooker has a very low oppinion of your performance ... we are here to help you... buy "sex with hookers for dummies" now!

my game experience will be so much more enjoyable ... i can hardly wait

P.S.
of course then we will have to pay double for the no-advertising version ... i just love the way advertising helps people

Yes, but...

[CaseM]

When I play UT2004, the game throws up a static screen every time the level changes, and I have to stare at it for 10-15 seconds. There are only about six different screens, and they old pretty quick. If the publishers wanted to toss some advertisements up there instead, I wouldn't mind... heck, I might even welcome it.

Yes, but how long before that 10-15 seconds turns into 30-40 seconds? ...and not because your HD is churning away, either.

I think many are worried that in-game advertising is very much on the proverbial slippery slope, and it's just a matter of time before the once innocuous "product placements" become full-blown, gameplay-stopping, time wasting commercials - while the price of the video game remains the same.

And contrary to some what people are saying, it is quite possible that in-game advertising could lead to reduced game prices. If advertising becomes a major revenue stream for game companies, then it would make sense for them to reduce their prices to get more viewers for their ads.

Akin to the way movie theaters have reduced their ticket prices because Coca Cola decided to buy an advertisement before my movie? I wish I could share your optimism, but unfortunately I think it's unfounded. If a corporation thinks it squeeze just one more nickel out of its customers without consumer backlash you can be absolutely sure it will.

Re:consoles and freeware - ad loading speed

[iamcf13]

So, you're absolutely right -- Google's ads aren't worth the trouble to block.

Google's AdSense ads are conveyed via a 5KBish JavaScript. As they are not physically imbeded in the HTML page proper, they are as much a waste of bandwidth to dialup users as graphical banner ads, Flash, etc.

no, but it will be...

[rbird76]

Counterexample: when networks first started using logos and small advertisements over their shows, they attempted to be unobtrusive for the most part. Once they were accepted/tolerated, the ads got bigger and obtrusive. Now I have a pit crew (with sound effects) using a quarter of the screen every 10-15 min. (for about 20-30 s) on TBS during Aliens swapping tires (or whatever it is they do) on a NASCAR logo.

The problem comes down to: advertisers have no limits (as someone else here posted). They will do what it takes to get sales, and the successful ones have no internal limiter that tells them when to stop. Unless you complain loud and long when they get their foot in the door, they'll use techniques that put their presence in your house, on your couch, ordering pizza, and trying to crawl into your lap - like a dog, but without the cuteness or unconditional love.

MMOGs

[mconeone]

I for one, wouldn't have cancelled my City of Heroes subscription if it was free, and I had to see ads while the game was loading, and on billboards all overthe city.

why not...

[leon.gandalf]

would be nice if it made the games cheaper... and with online play the ads can be updated.... JUST as long as they do not interfer with gmaeplay.

Gamepro article three months from now

[Zareste]

"The corporate video game industry has just suffered a complete shutdown, depriving us of a future flourishing with video games such as 'Bugs Bunny in Marlboro Land' and 'Alien vs Predator vs Captain Crunch'. Strangely, it began at about the time 'Duke Nukem: The Search for Jolt' was released, and escalated ever since. Companies are baffled as to why consumers suddenly had no urge to play the games, but the only people we can blame for this utter loss in profit are software pirates and p2p networks."

What about free ones?

[mconeone]

I have no problem playing a free game with ads, as long as they aren't incredibly intrusive.

Re:What about free ones?

[TheBot]

I say boycott that too. No ads in games! Its a nuisance and rather unneeded.

Ads in gaming

[Anonymous Coward]

ok...not surprised really... but can I shoot at them?!?!?!?!? ;o)

More realistic?

[SnprBoB86]

If done tastefully, in game advertisements could make the game world more realistic.

Spiderman 2 could have benifited from real advertisements in times square. Sports games already do this, but there are a lot of game company related ads (which benifit the games developer, and could be considered targeted ads). FarCry would have been tough to advertise in realistic, but I would have liked coke or pepsi soda machines in some of the structures. Etc.. etc..

Doom3

[AllNicksWereTaken]

So you're playing Doom3 (maybe Doom4?) and a monster shows up and goes "GROOOAAWRL!!!",

then the game pauses and shows...

"Make your demon zombie breath smell better, with MENTOS!".

How will targetted ads work?

[MrNemesis]

There's alot of talk in TFA about targetted ads, but how the hell will they know what to target? How can they tell, just by the way you play a game, what kind of stuff you're interested in plonking down hard cash for?

The only way I can think of is if they scan your internet bookmarks or web traffic.

Sorry, but the whole idea of in-game targetted ads not only fills me with dread, it also fills me with the need to edit my hosts file and reach for HijackThis. It just smacks of spyware.

XM radio

[p51d007]

Commercials were the #1 reason I switched my listening habits for music, to XM satellite radio. Yeah, it's not free, but it sure is free from commercials on the music channels! I even time shift just about any show on TV. I start the PVR, wait 15 minutes, then start watching the show on the delay, while it continues to record. When a commercial pops up, I just fast forward. On a 1 hour show, by the time the show is over, I've caught up with it bypassing the commercials LOL

Advertisement Patch for Duke Nukem 3D?

[johnthorensen]

"It's time to kick ass and chew Bubble *YUM*...and I'm all out of Bubble *YUM*"

:)

-JT

Q1

[CGP314]

Nail gun ammo sponsored by Nine inch Nails

Almost had one in Quake

[John Carmack]

We had a pretty good money offer to put a sponsored add in the Quake 1 entry level. We decided not to just on the basis of it being tacky, which was for the best, considering the company (some random early internet company) dissapeared into obscurity.

I don't have any fundamental problem with product placement in games, but it isn't something we pursue. I would just as soon have real brands in realistic settings instead of made up ones.

John Carmack

Re:Almost had one in Quake

[Rooked_One]

What the heck??? You mean Turkey Puncher 3000 isn't an ad for an up-and-comming iD game? I'm... depressed.

I wanna drink!

[Dabido]

I can't wait until your first person shooter stops and drinks a nice cold refreshing soda

Actually, I am tired of the games which have drink machines in them, but when you take your character over to hem, they won't let your character buy anything and drink it. Thirsty work shooting monsters. They should have something for the character to wet his whistle!

Nani-mo hoshii mono ga nai.

reward good ads, bury bad ads

[spyware scams_suck]

And I guess I've surprised even myself with this. I'm an ad-blocker. I'm sorry to anyone's web page I visit that's paid for with advertising-sponsored links,....

My firewall and my AV both have scriptblocking so i NEVER have to worry about the usual ad pests as well as the fact i carry spywareblaster and use an alternate browser as my default. If some sites block me because i won't add their ad spyware scum on my computer, that's fine with me. Hasta la vista, baby!! They said goodbye to a customer. What do i care if a few sites block me when I can surf smooth and easy now and get the same info somewhere else that doesn't block me. hehehe For those sites that let me in, i feel guilty, but they should realize if they want me to see their ad, they better put it in SIMPLE TEXT on the side somewhere of the article. I'll pay more attention and respect to that kind of ad than i would to a PUNCH THE MONKEY ad.

As far as videogames, i don't think i mind if they have ads or adtracking as long as it's fast and not a drain on playing the game. you could always press the mute button which is what i do now with overly loud and garish tv ads. if there's an ad every 3 seconds like what was happening a few years ago with the Mountain of ads in the Olympics on tv, i'm not buying the game no matter how good it is.

This doesn't mean i don't see a whole page of advertisements. i still go over to a animal rescue site to click on their page of advertisements as a "donation."

My other exception is Google's advertising. It's always been text based, so it's never been the visual distraction that causes me to want to block it.

So true. One time, I googled some words and it gave me the link that i wanted but i also noticed the same exact link in the highlighted ad boxes on top of the link choices. i was going to click on the regular link when i realized i SHOULD click on the highlighted ad since we want to reward google for its nice format text only ads and not the flashy, roll on your screen nonsense POLLUTION and spyware scum we get from other websites. Anyway, that's what i did and still do. if the link is in the ad link, even if i'm not interested in buying anything, i'll click on the ad link and look around just as i would have done with the regular link.

Penny Arcade

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2002-09 -18&res=l/

Sega did it tastefully

[Stormwatch]

Sega did it quite tastefully, in a way that is well integrated to the game.

"Shenmue" had real-life soft drinks (japanese "Shenmue" had Coca Cola machines, but the name was changed to 'Jet Cola' for the american version; "Shenmue 2" had Sapporo drinks) and a Timex wristwatch.

Sonic Adventure 2 had ads for Soap shoes (which are designed for grinding, which Sonic does a lot in that game). If I ever find one of these here in Brazil, I swear I'm getting one!

Oh, and let us not forget "Ferrari F355 Challenge"... that was a huge ad for Ferrari. And a great simulator.

Guns & Nachos

[JAD lifter]

In game advertising? The Guns & Nachos magazine in Doom 3 was pretty cool as was the magazine with the Red Swingline stapler on the cover.
In Farcry the Playmerc magazine laying on the table was pretty cool. It would have been cooler if you could have picked it up and looked through it though.

Stop It Already

[Scroatzilla]

This reminds me of the ads they show now before movies in the movie theater: I just paid 9 bucks to watch a movie and now, BEFORE THE 8 ZILLION TRAILERS EVEN, I have to watch television-style ads??? Give me a break! So now I'm gonna pay $50 for a game, then have to watch ADS? Correct me if I'm wrong, but ads have traditionally offset the cost of stuff. So why do the prices AND the number of ads keep rising?

Re:part 1: it doesn't have to be obnoxious, you kn

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but the ads in your city of heros example add to the ambiance and fit with the theme of the game. I dont play games to see more shit that I see when I drive around the city. If I saw a mcdonalds billboard in city of heros "I would have said WTF is mcdonalds doing in here?" why include shit just because you can? Shouldnt it have some purpose (other than revenue for the company)?

Xenosaga

[Tom Courtenay]

The PS2 game, "Xenosaga" features a PDA-like device on which the protagonist receives email messages.

Every third or fourth email is from Namco advertising one of their other games. These usually include screenshots and press clippings. I can't find any screenshots now, but it is so out of place and blatant I'm sure it is done with a tongue planted firmly in Namco's cheek.

Loving It! NOT!

[webzombie]

Boy I can hardly wait for the time when I'm crusing through DukeNukem ForeEver and as I'm smacking down aliens in the 22nd century MacDonalds will be loving it from the roof top of a near by building!

Sorry but I not going to be buying ANY games that are going to abUSE my hard paid for bandwidth to bitch slap me with more f*&#'n ads. Christ is this a stupid idea!

Its almost as lame as those ISPs who used the great music download scare to limit monthly bandwidth.

The potential for this is huge in Grand Theft Auto

[crashnbur]

The new San Andreas requires your character, Carl Johnson, to eat right and stay active in order not to become a fatass. The potential for in-game advertising in GTA:SA is huge. But... I have a sneaking suspicion that a few PR departments are under the impression that putting their image in a GTA game would harm more than help.

Proxomitron for video games ?

[keyshawn632]

Since we already do it on the internet for web content; I'm wondering how long it will be before 'crackers' or just benevolent others 'patch'/'hack' the game so that the advertisements will be edited/blacked out in the game ?
Any slashdotters know of such a current project existing now ? If not, let's start one..