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Massive Inc. Advertising Takes Off
Bluecobra writes "PlanetSide, a FPS-based MMO game published by Sony Entertainment of
America (SOE) is now using advertising in-game. PlanetSide already charges a fee of $12.99 a month to play and now users are also treated to Fanta, Coca-Cola, and Deuce Bigalow advertisements." Additionally, Martey writes "A recent patch to SWAT 4 introduces dynamic in-game advertising in the form of randomly generated posters on walls in the game. Provided by Massive, Inc., the game downloads new ads each time the game is loaded. Even more onerously, the game contacts Massive's servers to provide data about the length of time and viewing angles that the player looked at the posters."
If game companies are now allowing ads into their games and claiming that it's a new revenue for them to help improve the quality of games, would it be possible for the game companies to actually LOWER the prices of the games because of the new source of revenue? ...Just a thought...
How can you fit Deuce Bigalow ads into a game about dominating a planet?
As for advertising in other games, I have mixed feelings. For example, I would have no problem at all with a big Coke billboard showing up while I'm tooling around town in a GTA game. It's supposed to be based in a reality similar to our own, so if a company doing this kind of game can make a few bucks by selling ad space, more power to them. Using GTA as the example again, though, real commercials (that couldn't be turned off) on the in-game radio stations would stop me from buying the game. That kind of ad would be overly distracting for me.
As long as ads are unobtrusive (background) and organic to the game setting (no "The monks of Qeynos drinks Coke, why don't you?"), I think they're fine. It certainly doesn't bother me when I play a golf game and I choose the Ping golf clubs, nor does it put me out of sorts to drive a Chevy in a racing game. But if I'm exploring space, there'd better be a damn good continuity reason to be flying between stars and see a giant, flashing Nike logo...
So they show posters of real products, whoop-de-fuck. Either the game's worth paying the monthly fee or it's not, Coca Cola posters aren't going to make or break the game. I just hope they're not stupid enough to actually cause inconviences in the game with the ads.
"Derp de derp."
just so I could cancel my account of disgust
That's a pretty disturbing thought. If the ads are germane to the setting of the game--I support that idea, at least, since I don't want my lv. 97 Superlative Love Ninja to heal up by drinking Sprite--then that'll prompt game creators (or maybe I should say publishers and developers) to set more games in modern/semi-future times in order to make more money.
We'll see more Madden NFL games and fewer Fallouts. More GTA knockoffs (and not Vice City, either) and fewer Final Fantasy knockoffs. More Counterstrikes and fewer HL2s.
You are walking downtown. The year is 2150, and you see a billboard with Jen. Lopez, advertising the release of Gili (I think that was Jen Lopez, who cares) on 1337-DVD format (she did suspended animation-freezing-monkey-hokey stuff to stay alive).. Except there is a giant phallic-shaped object crudely drawn on her forehead, now.
"Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
it's very simple.
they will ignite an arms race, whereby patchers disable the intrusive ads and companies try to bring out more rapid "updates".
eventually though, Insidious Computing will put an end to patchers, whether they be anti-ad patches or no-cd patches or any patches at all. they'll sign the game files and if any alteration takes place that they don't allow, you're not going to make it happen.
they'll try to turn the pc into a very expensive console. i'm not sure they aren't succeeding already. many crippled cds/dvds come with extremely invasive copy prevention systems. they install several low level drivers (starforce) that more often than not interfere with the regular use of the computer. the fact that all these crippleware programs are spy/malware and are installed without your explicit permission, should be enough to anger many.
lots of people have complained about data loss due to these extreme measures. but more importantly, they restrict your ability to back up your own bought software. because copyright infringers have no such barriers, they can crank out copy after copy, even better than the originals in that they don't f*ck up your system.
i have refused to ever buy any starforce games or any games that don't have a no-cd patch. that we consumer sheep (i use the word consumer because if we were customers, we would have a say and we would be allowed to ask for lubrication) take this lying down is a low down dirty shame. i even see some ignorant people who claim that not being able to copy our own software which we bought legally is a feature. if you buy it, you have a legal and moral right to a back up and furthermore you have a "legal" and moral right not to have the disc inside your drive to play.
everyday, more and more i see that our ownership rights, what's left of them are going down the toilet. many rugrats (term i use for the mentally immature) even see this as a non-issue or even a positive thing... meaning they bought the propoganda hook line and sinker. it's depressing enough that i might as well give up gaming altogether. not like every application today isn't also calling home and what not.
i don't see this trend going away... but it could given the right conditions. that's all i have to look forward to...for now.
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
how long till intrepid game hackers start putting ad-blocker mods out for these games?
They let me shoot any billboard I don't like with my grenade launcher, and blow it to tiny pieces.
Track that!
Apparently their's a way to filter the adds from your system but editing your systems hosts file to redirect all the ad provider servers URL to 127.0.0.1.
Now, I've never done this before but it seems simple enough, the problem is, what are the server names? Their was a post on the SoE forums about this but SoE removed it (I knew I should have copied it as soon as I saw it!) But in general, I guess I could wait till it goes live and then snoop my own machine.. But I know someone has this info somewhere. Anyone? Sentack
Don't like the ads? There are two things you can do to protest. You could drop your subscription, never play anything with ads, and grumble about it on forums while the majority of people ignore them and play. You lose out on some fun, everyone else keeps doing their thing. Advertising finds it's home in games, people get used to it, and 10 years from now it looks like movie theaters today with all the advertising that happens there.
The other is my preferred method. Use the advertising model to protest. Make it cost more than it's worth to the advertiser. Create a bot that constantly goes from one ad to another, racking up seconds of view. Get everyone in your clan to spend 10 minutes doing nothing but watching ads every session so the cost of the ads will go up greatly. A few people creating protester scripts and unleashing them to the masses so that you can set it to watch ads all day while at work/school means many, many hours of ads being charged back to the advertising company. The method of advertising becomes very expensive yet the marketing departement does not show that it provides increased revenue. Upper management cans the advertising method as it is now nothing more than a money-hole.
The advertisements are showing up due to the "almighty dollar", why not use the dollar to send them away? I can't afford to buy the adspace and leave it blank, and I still want to play games. If I can do something to get rid of the ads I will - but I won't drop all video games and spend hours on a forum complaining that there's advertising in all the games I used to play.