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Refreshing Taste of Sprite Invades Anarchy Online
When in-game advertising was announced as a backbone of the new free of charge Anarchy Online, it seemed like this far off concept that we'd see 'someday'. That day is now. Grimwell has a look at Rubi-Ka after the invasion of the marketeers. From the article: "The advertisements were blinking on various billboards, both in cities and in instanced missions. They randomly displayed ads for the upcoming tournament, the "Rubi-Ka rumble", or the above product placements. Obviously, one or the other of them could be existing through time, human cataclysms, and space travel to the future planet of Rubi-ka, but seeing Motley Crue ads did cause me to wonder when I'd see them touring Omni Entertainment." Totally worth it if only for the screenshots.
I see the developers were reading up on their Penny Arcade.
Seriously though, as long as they're able to avoid television commercial-like breaks in the gameplay, I have no problem with this. My biggest gripe with MMO gaming is having to a pay a monthly fee - so much so that I even gave Project Entropia a try (helpful hint: do not play Project Entropia). Since AO got some pretty good reviews, and since it's being offered for the low, low price of free, I'm certainly going to give this one a try.
Who gives a fuck about advertising in online games? Particularly when the game is free for you to play. MMOGs, in case you hadn't read the giant writing on the wall, are expensive to run. They need to make up for that cost. That's called advertising. It's easy, generates steady income, and can be targeted. Good for them, bring on more ads. If you can't deal with ads, just don't play the fucking game. You'll be saving companies bandwidth costs anyway. The above paragraph is the longest anyone should be discussing ads in free games.
schild
editor, f13.net
Looks like the answer may be https://members.warnerbros.com/registration/us/fee .html
Looks pretty standard, $14.99 per month. Or in other words, way too much
It seems like it'd be ok in this setting, as long as the ads stay on the billboards. In any game with a modern or near-future urban setting, ads can enhance the realism.
If items are sponsored by advertisers, say a Sprite's Water Gun of Death is created, then I'll get concerned.
If there are ads like SpikeTV's ads during Star Trek (animated on the side of the screen, and sometimes with sound), then that's the last straw. A break in the action like a cutscene to show an ad would be horrible too.
If the developers and advertisers tried hard enough you could put ads into pretty much any universe (that has at least a little technology) if you make the ads have to match the world they're in. For something futuristic or modern like Anarchy Online or Matrix, it's very easy to just slap real modern ads on all the billboards and whatnot, but for games like World of Warcraft or Everquest it's a "little" harder ;) I don't know if the advertisers would accept such agreements, but their ads would have to work with the world they're in. You could put the old Wanted! kind of flyer looking thing nailed to a tree that had a black and white ad it would probably fit into the world just fine. You could even theme it to the game where it's like "Ye Olde 7-up" or "Orcs love 7-up". I think "free" is just a little much for such a beast as a persistant world game, but it could definitely lower costs greatly... Another money making idea is you could have an officially sponsered guild in one of those games.. Now it would have to be done tastefully and the developer, advertiser and players would all have to agree to it, but for something like WoW, you could have your guild "sponcered" by 7-up (for example) so instead of the "Generic Clan Name" guild you would be the "7up Generic Clan Name" guild and you could have little 7-up insignias on your characters. By participating in said guild you get to play the game for half price....just an idea, not necisarilly a good one ;)
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
As a marketer and an avid game-player, I love the idea. It brings more realism to the game. While I appreciate the humor and creativity that Rockstar has gone through to create fake products, it does reduce the realism from the world. I also find it exciting that these ads aren't static; they will change over time, perhaps depending on your location or demographic.
One man's Funny is another man's Offtopic.
But to keep this on topic, I fully support the move for in-game advertising, especially if the article is true:
(Emphasis mine.) To this, I say: bring it on!
Something else to consider: will this perhaps eventually fund game development? A company has a concept for a game, whether MMO or not, and they get companies to sponsor the development in exchange for prominent placement? So maybe in the next MMO game we'll see the "eBay Auction House" or the "General Motors Inter-zone Transportation" place? It's a bit tasteless to just throw a company name up when it has nothing to do with the theme of the game, but if it's something like The Matrix Online, where the urban sprawl lends itself perfectly for company-sponsored locations -- just like real life -- then why the heck not?
Companies already spend boatloads of money and take a shotgun approach to marketing, spending millions on advertising for a single SuperBowl spot. Why not spend a fraction of that, fund some game development, and get thousands more impressions targeted at the exact kind of audience you want. ATI, nVidia, and Intel to name a few already use this concept when sponsoring game competitions. What better way to reach their exact target market?
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