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.

Comments

An alternate article

[erick99]

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

Re:Discount.

[FictionPimp]

Sony already does this with EQ.

They popup ad's when you login to buy their expansions, mags, books, action figures, and then they switch the buy and cancel buttons around. If you arn't paying attention, and click accept its yours. No conformation button or anything. Then you have to spend time on the with sony trying to get them to cancel the order where they play ads in the hold music.

Reason 1457 why I stopped playing Massive online games.

Not the first...

[ninji]

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...

Re:Providing it lowers game cost, I'll agree to it

[Technician]

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.