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Massive Ads In Matrix Online
Gamespot has the word that ads from Massive, Inc. will now be incorporated into The Matrix Online. The ads, like those in sister-MMOG Planetside, will be in the form of billboards and signage. From the article: "One big difference that players will notice is that the Massive ads will be refreshed and updated with greater frequency. Sony notes that current ads in the game for fictional products and services will continue to remain a part of the game. Sony has also said that the ads will not be animated, and will not affect the game's performance. Another effect of the inclusion of Massive ads into The Matrix Online is that player advertising in Mega City will be possible, and Sony might run contests in the future to select player-generated ads and incorporate them in the game. "
Note to self. One more reason to avoid Sony.
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....right? Now that they have all this ad money they dont need to charge per month?
Ok, back to reality I go....
Who would pay for a game with ads?
Massive Ads? That sucks. How about small ads instead?
Does anyone actually have solid evidence that ingame ads like these work? I just really cant grasp the concept of someone running around ingame, seeing a billboard, and thinking, "Oh, I really want that product!"...To me, it seems like something that most players would just ignore. I would like to here the opinion of someone more knowledgeable on the subject.
Sony might run contests in the future to select player-generated ads
....
Like ads from lawyers seeking participants in class actions suits for rootkits?
Or ads from apyware companies with sneaky payloads to piggyback on the Sony rootkits?
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Infuriate left and right
The ads are provided by a company called Massive. The ads themselves may or may not be so large as to be considered massive.
I just wouldn't care.
I think the addition of advertisements into the game would make it more entertaining.
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Of course, that's another point. Now they have two sets of customers: gamers and advertisers. Hopefully they will see that without a sizeable group of the former, the latter won't pay them much at all. So one would think they will try to please the gamers first and the advertisers second. Of course that may be a little harder to remember once the big bucks start flowing in.
The "One more reason to avoid Sony" comments throw me off a bit. I don't see how the real advertising in game versus the fake advertising in game on billboards is any worse. It has about the same impact and print on your brain when you glance at it while killing gangmember05 and AgentSmith09. If anything it would help with the idea that the game takes place in a modern american city somewhere. If you are trying to take a moral stance on advertising in your entertainment, you would have to avoid every tv show and movie you have ever watched because they are riddled with product placements if you actually look for them. The subscription argument doesn't really hold that well either. "I pay a subscription, so I shouldn't have to see advertisements". Paying for cable television isn't any different. Holes in my argument? Yup, but I'm only really playing devil's advocate here, as I could care less one way or the other. I play games to have fun, and I don't think seeing a coke ad on the wall in the Matrix is going to ruin my good time.
Is it a quick cash grab on the developers side, or do they see themselves getting rid of, or at least lowering, the monthly fees.
From a business perspective, dropping the monthly fees could trigger the coming of more players, which means the ad space would become more expensive (a flood of new players may also put some strain on the servers, which, in theory, would be covered by ad revenue).
Still, I don't know what the $ figures are for TMO. However, it still seems greedy to charge people by the month just to look at ads.
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In City of Heroes and City of Villians they have billboard ads for things like huckster type lawyers, bail bondsman and such. They are pretty entertaining to me. Not sure if I'd like a real life ad....
Thoursands of players will be gunned down while gazing at a playboy billboard.
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Hell, when I buy my coffee from a local coffee house, the cup has a car ad on it.
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The billboards are already in-game. They have ads for fictional products, and on occasion have been used to provide storyline hints in combination with the in-game newspaper.
In the original release (pre-SOE) they've occasionally been used to provide ads for WB movies.
Those billboards will be there whether Coca-Cola or "Slumberil" is displayed on them. They'll also allow player-created billboards on occasion, so that the things are not just a bit of polygonal fluff but a bit of revenue, a bit of storyline, even some roleplaying from one or another of MxO's factions.
AO did this, but there was one big difference between the two: you can play Anarchy Online for free. Instead of making revenue from monthly subscriptions, they make their money from advertisers. Last time I checked, The Matrix Online still had a monthly fee... which means SOE will be getting not one but two revenue streams.
My personal view on this is: If you're going to make me pay for a game, don't subject me to advertisements I most likely don't want to see anyway.
SOE's Planetside was the first one to get ads. However, they don't fit in the game at all. Here you are fighting on a planet in a galaxy far, far away and adds for COKE pop up. Matrix Online is a different story. However, I imagine they will do the same thing for Matrix Online they did for Planetside, tell you that the extra money is going to be spent on the game and instead just pocket it. SOE is a bunch of scum bags. However, Massive implementation of this isn't hard and I wonder if someone with more programming knowledge then me make a duplicate system and using a bit of DNS trickery, serve up their own ads.
the only people that play Matrix Online are complete wayners. Seriously who cares if it's full of ads since nobody plays it anyways.
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Ok, seriously.... whoever decided to call themselves "Massive Ads" must have been on some pretty potent drugs.
I mean, that can't really be the best way to advertise *their* service. They could have just as well have called themselves "Really Obnoxious, Intrusive, and Invasive Ads, Inc."
With a name like that, you can be sure I wouldn't be hiring them as *my* advertising company.
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I also play MxO, and have no problem with the billboards. The game takes place in a city, so billboards are a natural part of the environment. They've rotated enough to stay fresh and interesting, and are an unobtrusive bit of extra 'color' to the universe. (I personally liked the Alienware ads.)
At times they've even been relevent to the plot of the game. There was story arc that included coded graffiti on the billboards. It didn't influence me to buy any particular products, but it was fun.
Like most of Slashdot, Sony is on my shit list right now, but frankly I have no problem with them taking advantage of alternative revenue streams like this.
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when Planetside first announced the ads. Though I didn't play that game, I tried to explain to the EQ2 fanboys that it was just the start. That Sony would eventually start putting this crap in all their games, including their darling, EQ2. Its only a matter of time.
I remember Sony said it was going to be genre and game related ads only in Planetside. But the first one many people saw in-game was an ad for fricken Duece Bigalow.