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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[bigman2003]

And in a big grand circle...

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.