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Online Gaming Ad Network Launches
Wynken de Word writes "'In a move that could open a new vista of possibilities for advertisers, New York-based Massive Inc. today announces the launch of the first ad-serving network for video games. The company said it has so far signed game publishers UbiSoft, Atari, Universal and Konami as partners in its system, which enables marketing messages to be projected into the digital fabric of their online games.' AdAge.com has the article (reg req.)." If you don't feel like registering for AdAge, just read the press release or see the company website.
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This is just short of driving to your house and holding you down while you read an ad. I wonder if this will effect usage of the games? I'm 46 so out of the demographic they are looking for, but, I am very ad-aversive so I know it would effect my usage. I'm not saying it's good or bad to have the ads, just saying it would effect how I use a web site.
http://www.busyweather.com/
So this means that instead of paying $50 to Valve so I can play play Counter Strike over Steam or $50 to Ubi (+15/mo) to play one of their MMORPGs, I'm going to get it for free - or at the worst, a significant discount, right?
Or does this just mean that in addition to spending $50 for the game and $20/mo for the service and $50/yr for expansion packs, you're also going to have the added bullshit of being bombarded with advertising in one of the few places you can go to escape those very things?
Why not just have my boss appear in the video game that I'm playing at 2am on a Saturday morning (during MY time) telling me that I need to join some conference meeting?
Does this mean that I could buy an add for my game that ran in my competitors game?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I rather LIKED not having commercials crammed into my face... first it was movies.. now it'll be all my online games as well :( and i'm sure prices will only go up even with the extra income.
boooo!!!
Isn't it bad enough that I have to put up with ads on my television, radio, public transportation, and web browser? Christ, give us five minutes of peace, you ad-serving bastards.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
to reach the 18-34 year old male audience
i think the subject and the quote pretty much say it all, but i'd just like to add that, even though i am an 18-34 year old male, and even though i do play lots of video games, and even though such an ad campaign would reach me, and even though it would most likely be effective. i resent this blantant profi.......oh hell, they pegged me.
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
-Oscar Wilde
Ads geared towards 18-34 year olds that would be hard to reach via TV.
That's why we have billboards. Besides, how do they know that they'll pay attention?
When you need great justice, take off every zig.
What a good idea! Null routing Massive Incorporated in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...
Great, the one place i go to get away from advertising and commercials is video games, now it seems it's going to be just as bad as sitting at home watching TV. I think ill just watch all the visions in my head. (thanks to the 70's i get 15 psychadellic stations in 34 blazing colors)
-DrMyke
"mmmmmmmmm, doughnuts" - H.J.Simpson; super genius
Just stand in front of one of the advertising panels and no one is going to risk taking a potshot at you in case they miss and get whisked off to buy some dumb widget... Worst of all, if the ads are proxied through the game server instead of being downloaded directly from the advertising company, it's going to be a little bit more tricky to block them. Particularly if doing so involves reverse engineering the game protocol as that potentially puts you on the wrong side of the DMCA and its equivalents...
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Sorry I am not buying the game to look at ads (especially not at $50.00 per game).
You really want to see a thousand Microsoft ads in your games? Yeuch. Worse... you're going to get games that target ads directly to you, knowing loads about your tastes and intelligence thanks to your game profiles.
/obvious
"I see you're still struggling on level 1. How about a new car? You can get really great payment plans..."
And just wait until the other characters in the game start to sell you stuff. BLAM! BOOM! STAB!!!! Yeah... cool. It starts to feel a lot more realistic.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
...has lost a sale.
If they think they are going to use my fucking bandwidth and processing power to display an advertisement, and that I will pay them for the privilege, they are deluded.
When someone insults me like this, I will gladly piss all over his intellectual property.
Yea, that's what it means.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I wonder if this is a move based on that "mind reading" ad campaign?
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
... I'd see a web address on a public billboard. ... All my friends would be using e-mail. ... You could get a virus from viewing a document. ... You would need an ad-blocker for your videogames.
Cable TV was first sold as television without the commercials. That is why you paid money for it. Now we're going to be paying 50 bucks for a game that is smeared with corporate scum peddling goods I probably don't want.
I'm going to be entirely disheartened when the ads start detracting from gameplay, and immersion. That is critical. Also, I don't want my game console sucking any bandwidth downloading X-comapnies new ad so they can throw it into my video game.
Lets hope game makers are responsible. Unfortunately, it usually isn't the developers and creative people that make these decisions. It's usually the people up top that say, "X person said he'd give me a lot of money if you put this in the game, do it."
Great, now our video card drivers will have to have ad blocking code in them to filter out the lame ads.
Games were the last frontier where I could go to get away from ads. Not any more, guess I won't be spending my $50 on games ever again. Now I can be plagued with ads in my games, to go along with cellphone spam, email spam, TV ads, ads on busses, billboards, bumper stickers, mailbox fliers, movie previews.... I'm pretty sure there are no ads in my bathroom, but I'm scared to go check right now.
Does this mean Ubisoft will be editing The Matrix Online to include crumpled Coca Cola cans in the slums?
It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others.
Alrighty, I'm not a big fan of online games as it is, and am heavily against the subscription-based ones. I can't say I'm fond of stuff like Evercrack where you shell out quite a bit of money for the game, the expansion pack, and then are expected to subscribe for online play.
;-)
If in some way they can forego a subscription fee and simply subject its players to advertising, I'm all for it. In a sense, I do think it's pretty cool seeing ads for stuff -- hell, you see it when you're watching sports (so if it's in the game, why not put it in THE game
As long as it's tolerable and affects my bank account positively, go for it. If it doesn't affect pricing significantly, then screw 'em.
I'm not sure how these ads are delivered, but the article mentioned in-game real-time advertising, so I assumed they can put up an advertiser's logo, product etc while you're playing and interacting with it?
Eg you can buy XX-branded sofa in The Sims 2? Or your GTA character must eat PizzaHut's pizza to survive?
If this is true, I believe it will have greater impact than our standard in-your-face commercials we need to watch involuntarily during a tv show, as these in-game ads are more subtle, more passive, yet you are getting the feeling that you (or your character) NEED those products.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
I enjoyed not having to deal with ads in games. I mean there are the ad parodies which we see in games like GTA3, but for the most part, when I buy a game, i want to experience it without getting the latest "pulp culture" crap shoved into my face.
I can see the adds being ok if it supports online gaming networks like Blizzard has done with Battle.net. However, I don't believe that they would keep them as unobtrusive as Blizzard has done it (for those who haven't seen it, battle.net adds only occur when you are in the chat room/select game portion of the game, and are not in the actuall game itself).
What these game companies should do is sell ad-subsidized games. Full price: No ads. Super discount price: Ads galore. Much like Eudora or Opera.
Ad Age requires an address and more to access their articles, so, here is an alternate article that does a good job explaining what this is: Here
http://www.busyweather.com/
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... bullet holes, I'm all for it.
... yeah those ads won't bother most people after that. KILL'EM!
AA, open up with the saw
Hrmmm. Just what I honestly needed- more intrusions hawking products I don't need. Sigh.
Granted, I didn't register and read the full article text (i did read the press release though) but this rubs me the wrong way. It sounds to me like the exact same thing that pisses me off when I see commercials in a movie theater, or hear ads on my XM radio. I pay for this "premium" service, so don't shove this crap down my throat. If you want to put ads in something, do it in a freely (as in beer) available game.
home of the original cupholder
http://bugmenot.com/view.php?url=adage.com
login: clarus84@hotmail.com
pass: fpdcB2B
I've seen doubleclick's slow servers seriously impact the load time of websites that use them. This stuff better not cause random ping spikes on multiplayer game servers.
I had better not see space blimps with tampon advertisements in Halo 2. It's bad enough on TV. The tampon ads, not space blimps. Space blimps are cool.
It's only a model.
The thing that occured to me most in relation to the topic is when movie theaters started putting commercials before movies.. I griped, I complained, I lamented.. but I still go to movies.
Chances are, if/when online games get a stream of marketing, I'll gripe, I'll complain, I'll lament.. but I'll still play the games.
This is probably why a company that markets this could be very successful.
-- Jinsaku
Popups in Doom 3? Noooo
i didn't bother to register to rtfa, but hopefully (naive, i know) someone will require to make these opt-in. I mean, my dsl provider where i live is very crappy (256kb down, 128kb up). Its bad enough to lag in games due to the game itself, imagine lagging because my pc/console/whatever is downloading ads?
IIRC, they advertised Red Bull in the Wipeout games (set in the future)... before it was even for sale (in the US, anyway).
~ Aero
Might as well start designing a proxy now to inject blank ads into my xbox live stream. Spam in my inbox, spam on my cellphone, spam on my voicemail, advertising on tv, in movies, on SIDEWALKS for god's sake. Ads on buildings, the radio, the web, what's next? Some asshole ad company will build an Ion gun in polar orbit and run ads where the aurora borealis used to be. Maybe Choka-Kola will build a frickin' laser and burn their brand into the face of the moon. I can't be the first one to think the craters on the moon look like cola bubbles. ARRRGHHHH!!! What do you call every advertiser in history boiling in a sea of molten sulfur? JUSTICE!
Everywhere you look there's advertising. EVERYWHERE. I got so sick of hearing nothing but ads on the radio that I finally switched to satellite. A company needs to get its message out, but our culture is quickly becomming super-saturated with ads.
Now I'll be subject to advertising while playing games, too. Product placement ads I can deal with (like all the Sony Ericson stuff in Splinter Cell). That's pretty passive, and is easily dismissed when you're really in to playing. Having massive in-your-face banner ads on the walls while playing an up-coming game like Quake4 would completely irritate me.
"False hope is why we'll never run out of natural resources!" - Lewis Black
These are not stories on ads. They are advertisements for advertisements. You see, so many people block ads on /. nowadays that it's really cutting into the revenues. It's hurting the guys that run this site, and it's hurting them bad (can't afford gin'n'tonics anymore, etc). Of course they had to do something to stop this, so they came up with this plan: post tons of articles on ads in games, until people get so used to seeing ads on their computer screens that they will start feeling nauseated when there's no ads on the screen, and turn /. ads back on.
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
Are you ashamed of your sword? Does it embarass you when an opponent laughs at the size of it? There is a solution! In no time at all, you can be wielding a massive zweihander, slaying tons of opponents. You'll be the toast of the party.
Because sometimes you need a bigger hunk of....steel.
It sounds like annoying crap on paper, but ads have been in many games for a long long time, they've just been static and moronicly fake. A race track with 15,000 Sobe beverage ads?
If this leads to basically a more dynamic and realistic version of that for games where it is appropriate (sports/racing games in particular) the market might actually respond to it as a cool feature.
Other ads could be much more borderline. Playing Splinter Cell 3 and you turn on a TV and it just happens to have an ad for the next episode of survivor.. You play a week later and it's an ad for the simpsons. A crumpled magazine on the floor changes from a picture of a coke can to gum. Such subtlety that crosses over into immersion without being abrasively intrusive is going to be an interesting gray area.
If they are a moron about it though, and have a full screen pop up ad for the Star Wars trilogy DVD between rounds of counterstrike, they'll self destruct their new ad delivery vehicle.
Since most computer games take place in fantasy settings where real-world advertisements would be inappropriate, I have to wonder just how popular this is going to be. It also assumes certain display models--a FPS could display billboards while there's no good place in RTS games but the load screen. It's an interesting idea that's a bit ahead of its time, but I don't see it being used in any of the games that are on my christmas list.
Targeting features must be agreed upon with game developers, and usually require players to provide opt-in registration.
http://www.busyweather.com/
Yuck. Our precious fluids!
I like it.....
as long as you can blow them up with missiles.
AD FRAG!
Just like cable TV - you pay to get commercials.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I don't see this being used for in your face (TM) advertising. Instead I imagine games like Vice City where the billboards are replaced with real ads, or sports and racing games where the signs around the playing area reflect real advertisements. This sort of thing has been in games for quite some time, it's just that now the game companies have the ability to change the ads.
Unfortunately, then the ads are being shown to a self-selected bunch of cheapskates who don't buy stuff.
Not very useful for markting.
COUNTER-TERRORISTS WIN!
and now a word from our sponsor...
in this age of communication i'm just not getting through
...I don't get enough of this directly from Sony Online Entertainment, almost every time I log into EverQuest? Pfft!
This could give an advantage to Open Source games, because it will probably be easier to have them without ads. I certainly hope this is true.
Bring the games down to a reasonable price, and help ensure it's going to be "good" and I'll buy more games. I pretty much stopped buying the new stuff once they hit $50-$60 per title only to buy it and find it to be hyped-up junk.
September 18, 2002
#!
Unfortunately, then the ads are being shown to a self-selected bunch of cheapskates who don't buy stuff.
Not very useful for marketing.
I always thought that coke machine in west freeport used to be a pepsi machine.
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"All your base are belong to us! ... Now go buy a 99-cent McHappy meal, for a litmited time only."
Height: 38U, Weight: 0 Newtons, Eyes: #0000FF, OS: Gray Matter 1.0 (Alpha)
Is this a problem that needed a solution or a solution that is now looking for a problem? This looks to me like some suits think they have found a way to make more money with an "untapped and unreachable market" Who benefits here other than the dorks providing the ads? I think gamers lose for sure. I don't see myself buying anything where I have to look at ads. Did the gaming indistry realize that games cost too much and they are going to sell advertising to greatly reduce or eliminate the cost to the customer? I doubt it.
'Same speed C but faster'
Now, not only does your MMO, "Shadowbane", suck, you will start to advertize to the 0 people that play it! Where do I buy stock?
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
Would be to include some special objects in MMORPG. Imagine finding a Cola-Cola can in World of Warcraft.
Any ads which annoy me result in my boycotting the product. Vote with your wallets on these kind of issues... if you don't like the way a company does things, don't buy their products. Why should I pay to watch advertisements?
kin242.net
I considered this idea while back, but it seemed unlikely that anyone would take it up. Taking it a stage further, 3d models of new products such as cars could be downloaded into a game. Or, with geographical data, you could have store fronts from your local area etc. Yeah, having banner ads for Coke/Pepsi shoved down your throat isn't for everyone, but the idea of constantly updated content is kind of cool.
Suspect is Sigless, repeat Sigless!
the gaming industry that is.
We'll just hack our way around it, fuck them and their ads, I work my ass off to avoid all advertising to begin with, I never even SEE *ANY* advertisement on the internet, and I change channels on TV whenever a commercial comes on.
I don't even have a real physical address anymore, a measure I took to avoid junk mail, it gets sent to my command, where I happily throw it in the shredder there.
I don't have a ground line, only a cell phone, because I don't want to be bothered by some idiot trying to sell me something.
This is why STORES exist, omfg! What a concept, a STORE!. If I want to buy something, I got to the store, or I look online for it.
Wow, amazing. I don't want jack shit force fed down my throat, and I will go to WHATEVER measures required to avoid it.
All your base are belong to Google.
This is just an extension of us being viewed as consumers. We're no more than sheep to be fleeced as often as possible. And this is done by bombarding us with advertising as often as possible in whatever environments possible. What ever happened to the vendor supplying "value added" and counting that (the inprovement in there reputation) as advertising? I guess some clown in a corporate boardroom can't pocket that or claim it on the quarterly statement to get the mutual funds to buy more of their stock.
"Like fire and fusion, government is a dangerous servant and a terrible master."~RAH
This is great!!!
It means that my level 60 wizard, with a staff of dragon smiting +uber in one hand, can now drink pepsi with his free hand... JUST LIKE ME!!!
Life just keeps getting better!!!
Of blankness, I know nothing.
So, hrm, add the advertiser provider host to /etc/hosts removing the ability to deliver. Further, reverse the protocol, respond to request and deliver other custom banners in place. Kind of like what Steve Mann is doing, but in a virtual environment. Much easier, also, as the ads are already conveniently packaged, with no need to visually identify advertising.
... this could become a pretty effective source of unintentional entertainment. Combine excessive corporate advertising with the destructive physics of Vivendi's HL2 engine and you could have a few very satisfying moments of rage against the machine.
Lose another fistful of change to a faulty Coke vendor? Take out your anger by putting a HE Grenade through one in your next CS Source session.
I could see that being extremely theraputic. >__>;
Myu:
I see commercials in games falling into three categories neither of which would inspire confidence in the advertisers' minds. 1. Quiet in the background ads a la the 'Blade Runner' Geishas, whose real purpose is to provide interesting lighting and some fancy sparks. Players barely notice them or quickly learn to ignore. 2. Developer Revenge: Placing the ads front and centre in either horribly violent or ironic scenes. Pepsi machines coated in pre-scripted gibs, or McDonalds 'I'm loving it' playing during a shootout. 3. Possibly the worst option, enemies branded with the ads, or worse 'This Zombie brought to you by Coke, now back to the game'. Then again, what do I know.
Reverse engineer the protocol and create a your own game server, which can serve whatever images you choose. All sorts of fun to be had with that.
I want to do my part to keep America Strong and I think by playing games with ad's in it, I will be helping. I fully expect Coke AND Pepsi will debate the better cola in front of me as I am entertaining myself in front of some FPS. Lets face it, you play too many games as do I. We don't have time to really be informed about whats important to us, our things. We have been making bad consumer choices for awhile since we've been into Everquest and not paying attention to the ad's that shape our lives really. Without these ad's, everywhere and all the time, we are simply lost consumers pretending to enjoy things of which we know so little about and perhaps nothing of the competition.
I say to you Coke, why are you better? And to you Pepsi, differentiate yourself from your rival, mean Mr. Coke. I say duel! To the victor goes my spending dollar! Hurrah!
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
Plus it makes the game feel more real. (lets just hope theres no Coke ads in games based on other planets/times.. that would do the opposite, it would make the game less realistic)
Really? While playing Doom3, I would have found Coke machines much more immersive and realistic than RoboCola machines.
(lets just hope theres no Coke ads in games based on other planets/times.. that would do the opposite, it would make the game less realistic) But, wouldn't it be reasonable to expect that Mega-Corporations will still be around in the future? A few Coke ads wouldn't be a big deal, but "Unreal Tournament 2006 brought to you by Coke" is a different story.
That's why I ALWAYS try the demo first. Any game worth buying provides a demo. I get a lot of mileage out of playing demos. If I am not bored by the time I make it to the end of the demo (if I even make it to the end), then I consider buying it.
I haven't wasted money on "hyped-up junk" for some time.
The Fat Man Walks Alone
Now you don't have to feel bad about pirating games. You'll know that the designers are making money just by you playing it. You could almost imagine that you're doing them a favor by it.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Does anyone recall ever actually being influenced to purchase something by an advertisement? Companies throw masses and masses of money down these holes... are people actually so deluded as to buy their product, especially considering the stupid gimmicks that are used? Yeah, because I see someone wearing a Coca-Cola shirt, I am going to go out and buy some Cola. Mmmhmm. Right.
Having a Replay TV for a few years, using a proxy filter to filter ads, and disabling Shockwave except when needed, I hardly see advertisements.. Yet, I still don't have a problem spending my money!! Yup, I still have things I would like to buy that I can't even afford yet. It's crazy, but even without seeing those all-important ads, I still seem to know about new products!
In video games, I wouldn't mind seeing a 30-second advertisement say.. in between maps.. if the advertisement made me laugh. If the ads have any sort of entertainment value, then people don't hate them as much. Sometimes video games just seem too serious and I think a funny advertisement every once in a while could lighten the mood and make us realize that the other team isn't necessarily enemies - just fellow gamers.
Plus, ads work negatively if they piss off the viewer. Anything that wastes my time pisses me off. But, if I laugh, then I don't feel I've wasted that time. There could be a big market for creating something for groups of people on teamspeak/ventrillo to laugh and talk about..
Something tells me that these ads are all gonna be boring, can't close, gotta watch, piss-me-off-type ads..
--- We need more Ron Paul!
I have the front page of a patent titled "Advertising in Electronic Games" printed out and taped to my office wall. I wonder if they spent 20 minutes doing a patent search before firing up the ol' business model or if we'll all get a chance to blame the patent system for some corporation's inability to perform a trivial infringement search..
What the fuck comes to mind when reading about this, and how rediculous marketers have gotten. Oh, the great support the developers and producers have given the ad agencies...right...but what about us? What about the player? What, you don't give a shit about us? We're the ones paying your checks! We're the ones playing the games you make. Oh, so I see, you still think we'll support this, and buy it? Once we find out who has the first Ad-Laden game we're boycotting. No if's and's or butt's. I can guarantee it will not sell well because of your ignorance. Who in their right mind would put this stuff in games? Seriously, what have they come to now? How does this make sense at all? Like we're going to pay attention to your stupid shit. Next thing on their agenda is pop-up ads in-game in the UI. Right as your about to kill Monster-A, POP-UP FREE PENIS ENARGEMENT PILLS FREE WITH OFFER!!! -Game Over-
Flat Screen TV for F
I hope they don't even consider trying to Patent this.
I remember in custom Quake 1 maps, I would see bill board advertisements. Really strange actually, walking around a zombie infested underworld like Gloom Keep and there is a big yellow Nikon ad.
"Massive Incorporated is the creator of the world's first video game advertising network. Massive delivers dynamic advertising to M18-34 gamers and allows publishers and advertisers to finally capitalize on the largest cultural and economic entertainment force in the world. With its patent-pending technology, Massive dynamically serves advertising across the largest aggregated network of premier video game titles and delivers measured results on consumer interaction with this brand messaging."
Should be interesting to see exactly what they are going to patent here, and how that would affect the modder's ability to "interfere" with said ad-placements in the game.
I am stunned that the ad industry has once again proved to me that there is no sacred place safe from them. Like others mention in this thread, video games are escapes from reality. I just can't see myself buying a game (full price, no doubt) and then being satisfied with seeing coke, pepsi, HP , Dell, iPod, etc ads and jingles throughout. It would make me sick to my stomach.
Is the juice worth the sqeeze?
put a proxy between you and ad server and replace the images with things you like. Put in your favvourite porn and have "Sims 3: Red Light District", "GTA:1920" with oldtimers, etc
While playing Doom3, I would have found Coke machines much more immersive and realistic than RoboCola machines.
"Drink Slurm, it's Highly Addictive!"
Carthago delenda est!
I pay, on average, $50 to $60 for my games (i get them new, its worth it for the manual+unused cdkey) and i will NOT tolerate having spam shoved into my face during a game that i payed money for. either i start paying under $10 for MORE THAN ONE game, or they keep their ads the fuck away from me. this CANT be legal.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
I dont know if anyone's been paying attention but ive been seeing big screen TV's in games playing ad's for along time, Half the counter-strike games ive played the last 3 months have had verizon cell phone ads in them...
http://www.adsingame.com/ has been doing this for along time...
Time to go back to MUD's.
I dunno... if the game was set on some frozen world with talking bears it would fit right in :-)
TO BE CONTINUED, tune in next week!
The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
SO... now not only do I see ads in games, but I get to look forward to new and exciting ads from time-to-time.
Something tells me this will do nothing to lower the price of a game or even keep the price about the same.
It would be one thing if this would help me, but now I am paying to play a game, I am paying for ads and I am using up my bandwidth to get these ads.
And this isn't like the promise of ad-supported software we've already had the joy of dealing with HOW?
And I suppose these ads aren't gunna spy on me? DAMNIT I PAID! I should have to put up with this shit
See the Pictures of the Flood of '08
Oh great, another area of entertainment slathered with advertising. Intrude on my games and destroy any immersion - what a great way to attract me as a customer.
Next step in advertisement will be the combination of ads in games and this!
<small>upgrades to the latest version of NetHack</small>
bash$
Tony Hawk Underground 1 had McDonalds ads. SSX 3 has 7-up ads. People are buying them and don't seem to care. People who buy these games despite the ads need to be smacked around a bit, they're letting this happen, letting advertisers think we'll stand for it. I sure as hell hope we won't.
Could be a good advertising campaign for female players, though -- "don't have your concentration interrupted by a sudden mess, use the tampons that last!" ;)
Though to be a bit more serious, I always did think it bizarre that guys spending countless hours playing games full of splattering gore will completely freak out at an indirect reference to a period. That's like chasing storms as a hobby, then running away in abject terror at the sight of windshield wipers.
1. Dig an old PC outta the closet
2. Install two NICs
3. Install OpenBSD
4. Setup a bridge.
5. Create a pf rule to block all outgoing connections to the Ad servers IP block.
It's transparent to all ethernet devices and you can tweak the ruleset as needed.
I see it, in future you'll have to fight little penises with you penis-enlargement and viagra-stuff in your favorite fps.
;)
What? fight Terrorists or Mutants? No no no,
Fight against impotence and little penises.
Just check you spam, this will be your gamingfuture
Not quite sure where the hell you got that bright idea, but (at least here in the US of A) copyright infringement is still copyright infringement, whether the rights holder(s) make money off it or not.
Perhaps you mean that the software industry propaganda will be harder to swallow, because the average joe will think to himself "well, if they get paid ad revenues for my playing the game, how can they claim that software piracy is causing them to lose money?"
The possible good, as mentioned would be if games started going down in price due to ad placement. The bad would be if the games get bogged down with ads, or they are so obvious/disruptive as to ruin the gaming experience.
I can think of a few places where ads would be fine by me though:
Lobbies: Much like on battle.net, you've got an ad-rotator banner that announces upcoming tournaments, products, or other ads for blizzard.
Loading screens: Taking a moment or two to load a Jpeg as my loading screen is passing by, not too bad. Annoyance factor goes up greatly for non-online games. Games such as battlefield take a few moments to load between levels, so I wouldn't be too annoyed to have a small banner-rotator here or these.
Ingame: This is where it could get really ugly. Is my game going to lag for a moment whilst the engine contacts adsupyourass.com in game for the newest banner. Is it going to preload a few banners on started. Is my single-player game going to get ad-placement and have the "dial-up connection" icon drag my window off focus just so it can connect to load bannercrap? How about that billboard on the wall that used to read "Eat at Joe's" now advertising blazing speeds of a new video card. Hopefully no pr0n/viagara ads here...
Again,
Who's advertising: Will game companies hawk their new products in banners? Will Blizzard get pissed off when EA's new "Command and Conquer 2008" banner pops up as a banner on the loading screen for "Warcraft IV?" Will the newest FPS advertise sweetass joysticks or new video cards on the loading screen, perhaps during hardware test suggest "recommended" cards if mine is sub-par. How about a banner that pops up "your last game of doom3 ran like shyte, time to upgrade that GeForce FX5200 to a FX6900>"
Time will tell, but I can definately seem some pluses/minuses to in-game advertisement. If it brings down game prices, and isn't too intrusive I really don't see how much worse it would be than nag/banner screens on existing games (shareware especially)
First: Is ANYone surprised that Real is mentioned as being first in line?
Second: Did it occur to them that the 18-34 male demographic is so hard to reach with traditional adverts because they go out of their way to avoid it?
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
Linux firewall + Squid = no advertising!
Fry: They had ads in movies, tv, magazines, windows, clothes, on the internet... but [games]? Never!
Best death? What, die from a naked lady avalanche?
I didn't read the article but i dont think its actually commercials, its just ads, like a billboard in the background, or a character wearing a certain brand, etc
<tin foil hat mode>
That's where it starts, soon they won't be satisfied with just static adds, they will want more, "in your face" type adds. Games will start to have adds on a quarter of the screen, then half. Next, they will pop up every time you frag someone, to try and play off the euphoric feeling you get from fragging. After that they will start to try to find ways to broadcast them into your dreams, and the the terrorists will have truly won.
</tin foil hat mode>
Ok, so that's a bit over the top, but I still don't think that advertisers will be satisfied in sitting passively in a world. They will want animations, sounds, and screen space. My only hope is that this whole thing falls falt, but it won't. Advertisers will go to nearly any length to build brand recognition, and being in games will do that. Moreover, people are stupid enough to help companies out in that area. Ever notice how people willingly become walking billboards for companies (i.e. wearing a t-shirt with a logo), and they usually pay for that priviledge. We might as well get used to the idea that games will be chock full of ads, its going to happen, and no amount of bitching is going to stop it.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
Advertisers tend to be morons, at least when it comes to new mediums. We had this problem when I was the webmaster of our university newspaper. We advertised in print, and online. The ads completely support the paper, no school funds. Well in print, they seemed to have a grasp of how things work. Online, their brains went right out their ears.
They had no problem with the idea that they'd put an ad in print that people might or might not see, might or might not look at, and then it would just influence opinion, not cause a direct sale. However online, if they weren't getting a completely unreasonable click through and sale rate, they whined. Since the ad COULD now lead to a direct sale they expected it SHOULD with a large frequency.
Also note how online ads continue to try and be more and more annoying. People aren't buying enough? Must be that ads aren't in their face enough! Make it more annoying.
I'd have no problem with them used to enhance ambiance (though fake ads, ala GTA 3, can be really great), but I bet they are far more likely to be used in a really annoying way.
Intel Inside Dell Recommends Microsoft Windows XP NVidia: The way it was meant to be played. ATI: The Ultimate Visual Experience Whatever, I'm over it. Where's my gatorade, biotch!
Seriously. Load up Homeworld 2:
:| It's on the bus, it's on the web, it's on billboards in town, it's on the radio, it IS the television, it's on shirts, it's on hats, I CAN'T FUCKING GET AWAY FROM IT! >:|
Aspyr splash.
Vivendi/Universal splash.
Seirra splash.
Relic splash. Not even a splash- it's 3x longer than the others.
You can't click past any of them, either, and you see them all again on the way out.
And there's that nasty turd of an NVidia splash on the Unreal games.
AND THEY WANNA PUT MORE ADS IN THE GAMES?! Not just the load/dump screens?!
I'm sick of paying to see/hear advertising.
How many times do you see the word COKE on the page you are viewing right now?
In fact there is even and poster named vanillacoke!!!
Now whose thirsty?
Why not leave out all the adds in the game and instead put the adds at either the start or the end of the game so that there are no distracting adds in the game. (unless you select the option of wanting adds in the game).
Besides things like Mountain Dew and Jet Moto 2 on the playstation, or Red Bull and Wipeout XL, there have been ads in Half-life before.
There were servers on WON which had maps which were loaded with ads...presumably these ads were run by the companies being advertised. I don't recall what the companies were, but it just seemed like it would have been.
There was rarely anyone on these servers, and the maps sucked.
Also, as to their claims of "micro-segmentation," internet advertisers have been promising that for years and have been almost completely unable to deliver. I'm still getting ads for internet gambling (on sites that should know my interests a little better than that), and I won't even go to a REAL casino.
Why? My guess is they lack a large enough pool of advertisements to have ads available to match up to individual viewers. The closest I've seen is Google, who seemingly have ads from such a broad array of advertisers that they occasionally come up with something I like. (And since I'm usually not logged in, and often not on my own computer, they presumably don't even have a pattern of behavior to associate with me)
And lets talk about intrusiveness for a moment. Putting an ad into the middle of say, 2fort, isn't so bad. It pretty much lacks atmosphere as it is. Putting an ad into say, most Halo or UT 2004 maps, or Doom 3...that would, for the most part, be unavoidably cheesy. Like obvious product placement in movies ("I Robot" anyone?)
This is going to fail. Maybe not fail BIG, but it will fail. BEST CASE it will stick arond like banner ads. Most of the promises they're making to advertisers though, are bullshit. But what do you expect? These are salesmen offering their services as salesmen.
It has to connect to the internet either to download the adds or to send some sort of add updates, from the article: "a client-server system that dynamically delivers advertising into video games within the Massive Network" My question is, why not just block the add server?
I've got two words for you, advertiser: hosts file.
Roses are #FF0000, violets are #0000FF, all my base are belong to you
If a company had to pay the government for every ad they showed, then we could have decent schools and there would be fewer ads.
"That's why I ALWAYS try the demo first."..."I haven't wasted money on "hyped-up junk" for some time."
Darn! There goes my excuse for pirating the game. How dare they give us what we want.
"This is probably why a company that markets this could be very successful."
Successful is when your porn has ads.
But perhaps a choicily blocked port or some smart host files entries will be all thats requried (at least in the beginning) to thwart their ad plans. And perhaps, as with other forms of advertising, it will need some regulation to keep it under control. There seems to be a propensity on the internet that since its a new medium that the old rules need not apply.
since this is being decided without the customers really having a choice, I say lets find solutions.
maybe this data will be fed through specific servers, why then, we may be able to edit a hosts file to fix it.
if its more complex like feeding through the game itself, maybe a mod can be made to change the ads to something moe interesting.
I for one, say hack the living hell out of their code, crack the software and let people make their own choices.
if its too intrusive, then stop playing the game.
I for one rarely go to the movies now because of the ads. I normally just buy a dvd later on since its cheaper and my home system is good enough for me. I'll change my gaming habits as well, but if its a game I really like, you bet I'll start cutting code pieces until I get that crap disabled, DMCA be damned, they have my 50 bucks.
The last movie I saw was the LaserDisc rip of "Return of the Jedi". No product placement there. Before that was the rips of the other two episodes, then "The Fellowship of the Ring" and "The Phantom Menace". Again, no product placement.
Have you ever heard of a toyetic franchise? It's not like they need "real world" product placement (Coca-Cola, Doritos, etc.) when you can buy an action figure of practically every character in the films. And then there's the officially licensed Star Wars pillow cases, lunchboxes, toothpastes, video games, stickers, paper plates, underwear, lego kits, fast food promotions, trading cards, bed sheets..
You know, I kind of miss my Empire Strikes Back bed sheets.
"Now you don't have to feel bad about pirating games. You'll know that the designers are making money just by you playing it. You could almost imagine that you're doing them a favor by it."
Actually it would be the perfect anti-piracy technology. Everyone would hate the game so much they wouldn't even bother copying it.
There's already an ad for nVidia when you start up Unreal Tournament 2003 or 2004.
English is easier said than done.
Will it bring down the price of the game(s)? If so, I'm OK with that. If the price stays the same, or goes up, all it is is greed, and, well, I'll probably pass.
They aren't the only ones doing it. Some 200+ PHXX.NET servers are running ads through the http://www.adsingame.com and http://ingameads.com networks.
They are giving servers out for free to clans in return for populating them.
but this sounds like a great idea to me! In fact, I've seen it happening in video games a bit already and I've notice the potential for advertising there. Its high time someone stepped in and organized this like Massive obviously has.
;)
I assume they are referring to programming advertiser's graphics into the games rather than displaying them dynamic, somehow live. In this case it will be a blast to play old games and see their out-of-date but somehow historically artistic advertisements...
Unless, of course, it featured the phrase "When a dancing Twi'lek becomes the right Twi'lek..." That would be totally sweet.
*****
Dear Mary,
I yearn for you tragically,
A.T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.
This sucks ass. Hard.
Hopefully, marketing people will show their normal propensity at technology... (ie: little to none) and we'll be able to block this garbage at the router/firewall.
This is bad. Really bad. Did I mention it's bad?
A whole new reason for your boss to not let games be played at lunch/after work.
Oh my gawd, they killed kenny's mod points!!!!
thirsty - shit, my nose is itchy just hearing the word.
W - The Cokehead.
I'm replaying Baldur's Gate and - you know when you have to go into a tavern and buy some beer for some rumors from the bartender... This is gonna change my drinking habits.
Right now I'd probably just get the King Cobra rumors.
Massive Inc,
I will make it a point NOT to purchase the products which are adverstised in my games. UNLESS the ads help bring down the price and increase the quality of the experience - which I seriously doubt will happen (see movie theaters' pre-movie ads).
Thanks.
As people who can make a difference, if you don't want to see this spread, you should make some program which will be REALLY EASY to use and get, that would block Ads in the games. If WE do this fast enought, their "project" won't work, and it will be abandonned.
We should really start a big offensive on every kind of ads. Or at least, on the really intrusive one.
It IS our duty.
When Ads will swarm games, don't come complaning.
..i can see it now...
a warewolf scratches YOU for 16 points of damage
a warewolf stops to enjoy a refreshing Vanilla Coke
...for people not reading BOOKS . no ads in those, now are there?
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. -- G.B. Shaw
From the press release:
The company also announced that the first advertiser to participate in the network is RealNetworks, Inc., the leading creator of digital media services and software.
I'm not typically a basher of Real Networks, but I don't suppose I'm the only one to find this par for the course for Real.
Now instead of searching for a game crack that disables a CD check (so I dont have to change cds 20 times a day) I will be searching for one that ALSO disables these stupid ads
They have a name for a program that sends and recieves information in the background and then shows you ads..
ITS CALLED SPYWARE
Gah, Eh, Uh, Bla, AURHG, *spuck*.
See that? That's me coughing up my lunch.
Ok, so LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT. Instead of paying $50, you'd rather wait 10 minute inbetween games watching ad's?
WTF?
Because that's where it's going to go. First, they'll put in billboards, and the game companies will build the games so the billboards have to be there. Or they'll replace the flag grabbing sound with some soundbyte, or random popup windows, text messages, ect. Then, they'll say "huh, that isn't justfying our advertising dollars", and they'll want more, and more, and more. Look at what netzero and juno was turned into; spyware ridden advertising spewing processor hogging hellholes of buggy shitty software.
I'm already offended when I see commericals in games and on the internet, it's like they're spitting in my face. When I see too much advertising, I get anxious, and begin thinking of tearing it down in a fit of rage. Why? Because I know it's trying to get inside of my head and make me want things I don't want, and it's there all the time, banging on the doors. These assholes read psychology books to learn how to manipulate children into being buyers for life, they read CIA manuals on torture to learn to incorporate those into their advertising in order to manipulate people. They even target children to turn them into "life buyers".
Candy-Coated Knowledge
It won't bring down the price of games at all. Nothing ever does. Everyone on all the forums will whine about that.
What it will do is the same thing that cheaper production has done all along the line. It will *keep* the price at $50-$60 per title despite inflation. That's more or less what the price was eighteen years ago. Inflation has changed the value of $50 a lot since then, so games really are much cheaper than they were.
It's not enough that telemarketers were annoying you. It's not enough that MTV was once commercial free and played music. Now video games will incorporate advertising? YOU FOOLS! THIS WILL NOT MAKE YOUR GAMES ANY CHEAPER. THEY WILL JUST RAISE COSTS BACK OVER TIME. BOYCOTT ANY VIDEO GAME/COMPANY THAT USES CROSS-ADVERTISING.
Wait... I said "No Problem"? But I loathe ads! It's the reason I don't have a TV or even a radio!
Ah, but it won't matter in games. See, when you buy a game these days, the first thing you do is download a crack for it, so you don't need the CD in your drive all the time.
You want to put stinking advertisements in my games? Hey, I'll just download the crack *and* an ad-crack.
No worries, mate.
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
Well, you could make a version of Warcraft: Americans and Humans, and give the Americans the CokeLust spell.
;-)
And you could give the Human mages the Adidas spell, for faster movement.
But what really would be interesting to the pro gamers would be team-based advertising to generate income for the pro's
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
The Massive Network delivers ads seamlessly into the gaming environment with no impact on game play or performance, making in-game advertising painless and unobtrusive for gamers, publishers, and advertisers alike. The company also announced that the first advertiser to participate in the network is >>>>>RealNetworks, Inc., the leading creator of digital media services and software.
Ambient [Servlet Based Webapp Engine]
...who here was dumb enough to register with Ad Age?
The Massive Network delivers ads seamlessly into the gaming environment with no impact on game play or performance, making in-game advertising painless and unobtrusive for gamers, publishers, and advertisers alike. The company also announced that the first advertiser to participate in the network is >>>>>RealNetworks, Inc., the leading creator of digital media services and software.
Ambient [Servlet Based Webapp Engine]
As people who can make a difference, if you don't want to see this spread, you should make some program which will be REALLY EASY to use and get, that would block Ads in the games. If WE do this fast enought, their "project" won't work, and it will be abandonned.
We should really start a big offensive on every kind of ads. Or at least, on the really intrusive one.
It IS our duty.
When Ads will swarm games, don't come complaning.
The reason gamers and hackers and all the rest of us computer folk keep getting pushed around and frankly, assfucked without lube, is because we look like (and are) easy targets.
If we all get some form of common backing and whatnot like peaple have in real life (religeon or nationality etc) then we wont have to deal with this shit anymore.
In the mean time i say we do everything we can to blow these fucks right off the face of the internet. To hell with this legality shit, i paid $60+ for hl2... i REFUSE to tolerate popups ingame (matrix bastardized anyone?"
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=221
so now we'll see localised ad content in the games where the characters wear logo'd clothing and trainers depending upon who paid for the regional rights??? I wonder if we'll see sports games with the wrong sponsors having managed to outbid the "real world" sponsors for placement on shirts, trackshoes etc.?
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Any game worth buying provides a demo.
:-(
Be cautious of some demo's. I bought Nerf Arena because I liked the demo. It ran wihout a CD in the drive, and could be loaded on several computers for LAN play. The full version lacks both of these features. (unless you look up no CD in Google.) For a long time the LAN parties simply stuck to using the demo. It was better than the full version and kept us from openly breaking the software license. It even worked with many of the free downloadable maps and textures.
Some LAN games permit spawning so you can LAN play with just one copy. (One of the truck racing games comes to mind that can spawn up to 8 clients) Others do not and require a copy for each player. Most either won't tell you on the box or it's buried in the fine print. Too bad more games don't spawn LAN players.
I have a LAN. The cost of a LAN game varies a lot depending if spawning players is permitted or not. I'm not spending over $100 on a game so the kids can race each other. Getting a game touted for LAN play and find it "broken" because nobody can join the game is not fun. (Spawning is making a client from the CD. The client will play over the LAN to the server. The client will not run as a stand alone game. The server then can support many players over a LAN without needing to buy extra copies of the game)
If I am not bored by the time I make it to the end of the demo (if I even make it to the end), then I consider buying it.
To buy it, the price has to be right. This is more important if several copies are needed for legal LAN play. Setting up a race on a LAN souldn't break the bank.
With Nerf, it's chaep enough to pick up the extra copies and stay within budget or the demo works fine for LAN parties. This is not the case with Need for Speed. Great LAN features, but nobody to race due to a single copy.
Needless to say, Need for Speed (got the boxed set) doesn't get dusted off much. Nerf gets a workout. Someday, I'll find more copies of Need for Speed in Goodwill so we can actualy race each other without violating copyright.
The truth shall set you free!
Coke? Coke coke coke coke DMCA coke coke! Coke coke ...coke.
Coke coke:
1. Coke
2. Coke
3. ????
4. Profit coke!
Coke coke coke, "coek" != coke! Excuse the pedantry. Coke!
I know I'll get modded down for this, but...
Pepsi.
You know you've lost it when you begin signing physical documents with =^_^=
now we have to look forward to the patches containing updates for the ads that got outdated in the original release. This'll be a success if it were to advertise pr0n ;)
Look at what netzero and juno was turned into; spyware ridden advertising spewing processor hogging hellholes of buggy shitty software.
NetZero and Juno are no longer major ISP's either. Finding a balance between getting users and selling advertising space is a delicate balance.
Quick poll. How many avoid GeoCities web pages?... How many use NetZero as their ISP?... How many use Google regularly?..
Guess who between GeoCities, NetZero and Google actualy make a bunch of money selling advertising space? Case closed. Market forces will provide limits on the advertising glut. So will competition.
make me want things I don't want, and it's there all the time, banging on the doors.
It's one of the reasons to buy older cheaper software. Read the reviews. Check out the demo's. You do have a choice. I don't remember any adverts in Lemmings, Nerf, PacMan, and a few others.
The truth shall set you free!
I just pray there will be a way to block these, the reason the 18-34 demographic is so hard to find is because we don't WANT to be found.
Next thing you know they'll have dynamic LCD banner ads in the books I read.
I wish we could get hackers and worm writers to target bull shit companies like Massive Inc.
If they infect my MMORPG with this, I'll quit. I am paying a monthly fee. If they force me to pay for it, and look at ads, I'll give it up.
That's why I gave up cable and got satellite. The cable company forced me to look at a 4 line channel list so they could fit ads in all over the place. Thats what I call "taking it at both ends". I refuse.
If you are paying for it, no ads. If it's free, they have to make money some how, more power to them.
l8,
AC
...or a game where you get a job, but quit so you can continue to skateboard and hang out with your friends...
God, I hate that commercial.
Or, what if you are the member of a small tribe that knows nothing of civilization, until a coke bottle is found by your tribe. You eventually decide the bottle is evil, and set forth to throw it off the end of the world, getting into all sorts of wacky adventures along the way!
Yea, but you fail to realize that when an industry, such as the gaming industry, is controlled by so few publishers and game creators, that they're all going to form a cartel-type situation where they feel they have to stay compeditive. Google was never a profit driven company, netzero and juno lost out to small ISP's and big ISP's, and Geocities sucks because there was adaquete competition and advertising wasn't there. People only have a choice when there's widespread competition in an industry, and when that industry isn't controlled by a few large players. Look at TV, it's controlled by 6 major companies in the US, how many people still watch it?
Candy-Coated Knowledge
Why did I join the Air Force instead of another branch of the service? Because they never called my fucking house, that's why!