Paying Subscriptions for MMOs with In-Game Ads?

CokoBWare asks: "Next Generation is reporting that NC Soft, makers of the beloved City of Heroes, Guild Wars, and other MMOs have announced that they will be incorporating in-game advertising for their MMO Auto Assault, using an ad service from Massive Inc. NC Soft has made no indication that they intend to change their subscription model in light of this new announcement. I wanted to know how other people would feel paying $50US for a game, plus approximately $15/month in subscription fees, and in addition be served with in-game advertising as well? Is this a good trend for subscription-based MMO games of the future? Should gamers pay for the privilege of having to be subjected to in-game advertising on a monthly basis?"

Comments

It's quite simple:

[robyannetta]

If I'm paying $15 a month, I better not see an advertisment.

If I'm getting the service for free, bring on the ads.

Re:It's quite simple:

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that there should only be ads in a free version of the game. If that happens, they might consider an option to charge a couple bucks a month to get rid of the ads, too.

Re:It's quite simple:

[chrismcdirty]

That's slightly different. There is the middle man of the cable company that you're directly paying. That payment covers the cost of the infrastructure to get the signal to your home. You pay indirectly through the commercials, used by the networks in order to make money and stay in business.

Re:It's quite simple:

[Traa]

"Better not" does not qualify as an argument. We live in a world where you pay for magazines that have advertisements, you pay for TV which has advertisements, etc. I would argue that we, as a collective "feed us"-species have come to embrace this advertisement model as a norm to shave of a few $$ with which we can buy more advertisement ladden services.

Given that you got "+5 insightfull" hints that there is at least a certain group of us, I would say "market", that is willing to pay for advertisement-free content. Yes, I am one of those. But I at least recognize that our 'freedom-means-you-are-allowed-to-make -money-no-matter-what' attitude isn't as grandiose as is advertised by the overlords.

Advertisement = $$. This simply equates to the fact that we will have to shell out extra $$ to allow the games to be how we want them to be. So be it.

Re:It's quite simple:

[Moofie]

I don't know about you, but I definitely choose which magazines I'm willing to subscribe to based on the mass fraction of advertising. I'm happy to pay more for a subscription to a well laid out magazine that isn't 3/4 advertising copy.

Re:It's quite simple:

[SpacePunk]

It's like any media. Ads support the media cost, and lower the cost to the end user. If magazines, for instance, did not have ads the magazine cost to the reader would be above what it is with ads. It's inevitable that ads get into video games in one form or another. Got a magazine subscription? Do they have ads? Yup.

I knew it...

[danpsmith]

It was only a matter of time before advertising and subscription fees both hit you in a package. Cable has been doing this for years with little justification in my eyes. One of the major points in signing up for cable was to get rid of the advertisments, but that idea has been tossed by most cable networks decades ago. Now they are doing the same thing with online stuff. I hope they finally bump into a wall here. I hope this greedy sales model falls right on its face. It's one thing to get us to accept advertising for free services, but when you are paying, and you are online. It just feels so slimy and unnecessary. I hope this project falls flat on its face and serves as a lesson that online, people don't want to pay to be marketed to like everywhere else where they had no choice.

Re:I knew it...

[Urusai]

Parent is correct. Greed is boundless. I personally consider the vasty ad market to be a calculated evil that needs to be expunged. Since the cost of ads goes into the product, you end up paying for the right to be manipulated. This is as corrupt as a government that markets its position on debatable public policy. It gives an entity a say in the direction public affairs that has no business but serving the will of its clients.

Well Life is Tuff

[ResQuad]

Ya know what I'd like to say "Bullshit, I'm never gonna pay for a game that has advertisements". But the reality is thats not going to make a difference. Just look at TV. Most people pay around 50$ (or more) a month, and there are 15mn+ of commercials per hour.

At least with in game ads they aren't stopping you from playing. You can just walk right past them. And if this helps the companies put out better games cause they can afford to spend more time in devel becaues they are making X more per month per person - well great. (And Frankly, I'd rather see adverts than pay more than 15$ a month per MMOG)

Re:Well Life is Tuff

[danpsmith]

At least with in game ads they aren't stopping you from playing. You can just walk right past them. And if this helps the companies put out better games cause they can afford to spend more time in devel becaues they are making X more per month per person - well great. (And Frankly, I'd rather see adverts than pay more than 15$ a month per MMOG)

It won't lead to better games, I can almost guarantee that much. And as far as being able to walk past them, yeah, that's true. But the way I look at it is that it's another place they've taken from us. Another form of entertainment that isn't ours anymore. Another form of advertising that they can use to force brand names on you. People never seem to mind, they always say "well advertising is everywhere else, why not?" And my question is, why is it everywhere else? Why do we tolerate things like the "Tostitos Fiesta Bowl" when the taxpayers paid for the stadium and the fans paid for tickets? We shouldn't. When I hear complacent comments like this one it just makes me sad and it reminds me of a Matthew Good Band song called "advertising on police cars."

Re:Well Life is Tuff

[Turn-X Alphonse]

You forget a very basic rule.

Whoever puts in the money, gets to decide the content.

While it may start with "just an advert here please", it could turn into "Well, I don't agree with that, lets drop it". Could even go as far as "A jail? No! How silly.. We'll goto a coke factory instead! It'll be a EVIL NAME HERE strong hold instead".

Probably unavoidable really ...

[gstoddart]

Basically, these companies are looking for as many sources of revenue as possible. Advertising is just another of them.

There are loads of examples of things the user pays for that have advertising: TV, magazines, movie theatres, movies themselves, etc. You almost can't escape it nowadays.

Now, ask me if I think paying $15/mo for an on-line game makes any sense and I'll tell you NO -- but I'm not the entire gaming market. =)

cost per hour of entertainment

[RingDev]

I'm not the hard core gamer I used to be, but I probably play 4-8 hours a week. So you figure $15/month = $180/year = $3.46/week = $0.43 to $0.86 per hour of entertainment.

Compared to a Movie, I paid $8.25 to see Underworld 2. Run time 106 minutes, but you could theoretical count the travel time and previews as "entertainment" so let's call it a 3 hour event. That puts the cost at $2.75/hour.

For me, $15 is a drop in the bucket. I would prefer to not have adds (specifically since I play high fantasy games usually) but in some games (the NFS series for instance) Ads can be put in the game seamlessly in a way that does not break immersion.

-Rick

Predictions

[BaudKarma]

Prediction: 90% of respondants will react to the concept of in-game ads as if someone was offering to attach live leeches to their eyeballs. Brave proclomations will be made about how respondant will never, ever, EVER pay for a game that has in-game advertising, no matter what.

Prediction: If the game is good, same people will buy it and play it, complaining bitterly the whole time. Until and unless the advertisments get so intrusive that they actually interfere with gameplay, people will put up with them to get their gaming fix.

Re:Predictions

[umbrellasd]

Most players lack the ability to switch off. Do people like television advertising? Most do not. On the other hand, most people will tolerate a great deal as long as their brain numbing distraction of choice remains available.

Anything that enters the mainstream will have advertisements because if there's a way for someone to legally make a dime, it is going to happen, particularly when it feeds off the least common denominator of principle in the population as a whole.

I don't watch television, I don't listen to radio, and I don't play games with ads in them. I personally know 0 other people like that. I've never even met anyone else like that. Sure you meet people that are angry about invasive advertising, but when it comes down to it, there's something in the media that they just need so bad they cannot really turn it off.

The general reaction when I mention this and indicate that a big reason is that I get really pissed when I am interested in something and some fucker comes along and laces that something with every act of manipulation that they can to make me spend money...the general reaction is disbelief and comments about my dubious sanity.

Given that, advertising is inevitable. Just look at it this way. If every single major game producer decides to go in-game advertising, you know without a doubt that gamers will continue to pay to play. Without a doubt. It's a bit like price fixing. Then eventually, the economy will adjust so that a successful game company pretty much needs (read: publishers won't back a game with a lower advertisement-free profit margin) the additional in-game advertising revenue, and there you go.

There's no turning back, and huge economic pressure will arise to starve out competitors that would offer a liberated experience, but cannot do so because the majority of consumers are tolerant and costs are adjusted to require revenue generated by the tolerance of advertising and the profitability of the resulting impulse purchases that occur.

Re:Predictions

[CrayDrygu]

"I don't watch television, I don't listen to radio, and I don't play games with ads in them. I personally know 0 other people like that."

I think most people would prefer a compromise, to giving things up completely. I know I do.

So, I watch TV, but thanks to my HTPC, I don't watch the ads. I listen to radio, but thanks to XM, I don't listen to ads. And when Planetside added in-game advertising, I blocked Massive's ad servers.

But I've got the same attitude behind it all: If you have a medium where I'm forced to watch your advertising, then you don't get to have my money too. TV has no fast-forward, but I can solve that with time-shifting. A first-person shooter doesn't always give you the opportunity to look away from the ads, but I can block them, too.

So XM's a bit of an exception there. They aren't asking paying customers to listen to ads -- they're soliciting paying customers with the promise of ad-free music, and very, very few ads on the other stations. So with them, instead of saying "I'm paying you money, so I don't have to see ads", I'm saying, "I'm paying you money so I don't have to see ads."

Re:Advertising actually fits the theme, so why not

[xzanthar]

Games are a way to get away from real life.

How do you even know there will be a fee?

[brunes69]

I see nowhere in the announcement that NC Soft plans to charge a monthly fee in adition to having advertisements.

Seeing how they *already* have a very popular MMORPG without a monthly fee (Guild Wars), I don't think it is a stretch to think this one won't either.

If the game is good people will accept it.

[Quarters]

"...wanted to know how other people would feel paying $50US for a game, plus approximately $15/month in subscription fees, and in addition be served with in-game advertising as well?"

People pay $5000US for a hi-def set, plus approximately $80/month for HiDef satellite and/or cable service, and are served ads without complaint.

This alone will separate quality from crap

[popo]

No publisher with any sort of standards would allow the game setting to be destroyed this way. I think we'll see the games with low subscribership succumb to this trend, and lose even more players as a result. Its one thing for Anarchy Online, City of Heroes or a game with a futuristic setting to use in-game ads (since ads exist within those worlds thematically), but a Volvo ad in a dungeon?

Ambience, mood, storyline, graphical quality and believability are hugely important in a MMORPG. All I can say is, if my Lvl 20 Monk/Ranger comes across a "Lower Your Mortgage"
ad in the depths of Hell, I'm never playing Guild Wars again. ...Not to mention the inherent problems with advertising Pepsi on some bloodstained field of carnage.

It's all in the execution

[Zaffo]

In-game ads could work in a subscription-based game model, if done right.

The most important thing advertisers (and game companies) have to accept is the fact that their ads will only be appropriate in contemporary-themed game environments. City of Heroes and Enter the Matrix fit this description, and not much else does. They try shoehorning an ad for potato chips (or anything else, for that matter) in a game with a fantasy/medieval setting. The reaction from subscribers will be instant and negative.

Interstitials might work ("While the game loads, check out this tennis shoe!"), but they must be extremely low-bandwidth. Like a simple graphic. They cannot add to irritating stream of data coming and going between the game's client and server because people complain enough about lag and latency already; ads would earn a game company a blue ribbon in the "Fastest Drop in Subscriptions" contest, hands-down. Video or flash are absolutely detested on the Web, and their acceptance in a paid-for game is far below any means of measurement.

Re:Like Cable TV

[ab0mb88]

This is not how cable TV works. Cable TV is like online games are now. You pay for the cable to provide the connection to the content but the actual content providers still need to make money through their ads. This is like having to deal with ads on HBO.

Re:In-Game Ads... No problem...

[Sylver Dragon]

I don't mind blowing up, burning down or melting sideways the billboards inside the gaming world...

Unless the game doesn't let you. For those that haven't seen it yet, Rainbow six:Lockdown on the PC had in game advertisements. Actually it only had one, which was repeated over and over and over again. It was for a movie, The Hills Have Eyes which I will never see, partly due to the ad, also partly due to the movie looking like it is going to suck.
While just about everything else in the game took damage, or at least spawned bullet holes when I shot them, the ads did not. No matter what you did to the posters, the looked good as new. This was tested quite often since the ad had a picture of the main actress on it, which was often mistaken for a taget for a second, and shot. In the end, I'm looking to find a way to replace the image with something a bit more interesting, say porn, before the next LAN (which is how I play the R6 games).
This was bad enough in a game I just paid $50 for, getting that along with the StarForce crap was a real slap in the face. But, the idea of paying for a game subscription and then getting ads as well, just seems like too much to me. Yes, I realize that I'm getting shafted in the same way by the cable company; and that I will probably end up with no choice when it comes to my games; I still don't have to like it.

The problem is

[Sycraft-fu]

The bar is set fairly high, and keeps getting higher. Ok so time was your competition was Everquest, a game that felt like a job run by people who seemed to actively go out of their way to screw their customers. Didn't need a big leg up there. However now there's World of Warcraft. It's a fun game, a REALLY fun game. Certianly the best of the five I've tried and the only one to hold my attention for over a year. Sales figures seem to back that up, with 5 million subscribers and rising.

Ok so people who need their MMORPG fix can (and do) go there, you game has to offer something different or better, if you don't, they'll ignore you for the most part. Thus if you decide that a fee plus intrusive ads is the way to go, gamers will tell you to fuck off, they have something better already.

The reason I'm very anti in-game ads is because I know how stupid advertisers are when it comes to computers. They seem to think that ads need to be extremely in your face, noisy, and interactive. If they aren't getting your full attention for an extended period with lots of click throughs, well they must be failing. I mean shit, look at the previlance of not just popups, but take-over-your-browser types of Flash ads. The web is a non-linerar medium and the closest thing would be a newspaper, where you can skip around as you want, yet they insist that's not good enough, their ads have to be in your face.

See I could go for a game with well integrated ads, I even think they could enhance the experience. For example you walk by a TV and instead of displaying some 3 screen loop with babble sounding audio, it has downloaded some new ads and plays them. Would feel nice and realistic, and integrate in to your experience well.

However that's not how it will go, I'm afraid. The advertisers would bitch since people could just ignore the ads and look at other things (I'll never understand why that's not a problem with real billboards and such, just ocmptuer ads). What they'll want is forced ads on loading screens. So you zone in to a place and it starts loading, but instead of a loading screen you get an ad that talks to you, wants you to click thigns, etc. You computer finishes all it's work in 5 seconds but you spend 20 more being bombarded by an ad before you can play.

Thanks, but no.

Re:Advertising actually fits the theme, so why not

[Andrew Kismet]

Maybe for you - don't cast your opinion on all gamers. I read books too, but not to get away from real life. I play games for the same reason I read books - either as a mental exercise (Ikaruga, Starcraft) or for an amazing story (Kingdom Hearts, FFVII, Starcraft) and sometimes both (Starcraft).
Adverts would be intuitive in a game like GTA, which is meant to be realistic, and Full Auto makes sense too. As long as they're not intrusive, and they stay to realistically-placed billboards, vending machines, a few posters and loading screens, I'm happy. Besides, a McDonalds poster might remind me that I need to eat when playing.

parent is incorrect

[sbma44]

Your statement is not correct. Cable companies like Comcast *DO* pay networks for their content, using your cable fees. This is why cable channels oppose ala carte cable. I don't like the idea of MMOs putting ads in their games, but it really would be pretty analogous to how cable TV works.

Re:Like Cable TV

[Misch]

In the US, Except for the major Network stations, channels don't always get a lot of national ad coverage. The cable company is the one that sells a lot of the ad space.

Re:Missed a point..

[snuf23]

No - YOU missed the point:

"have announced that they will be incorporating in-game advertising for their MMO Auto Assault"

The article is about advertising appearing in Auto Assault NOT Guild Wars, City of Heroes, Lineage or any other NCSoft game.
Auto Assault was pre-sold as an MMO with expected normal monthly MMO pricing. Now as to whether the monthly subscription will be for a game with advertising or if some other model is in the works, we don't know at this time.

Sound Ad's

[X6Gothic6Chik6X]

If you guys think thats bad, Planetside, my current obsession is a 12.99$ a month MMOFPS. It has ads. The started as silent, and were insanly easy to ignore. Some of them were a bit funny to read. Then however, They added sound.

The second you spawn at sanc and step out of the tube, You here the same 2 ads over and over and over. Not just once, then it changes to a difrent ad... the same ads. Over. And over. and Over untill you memorized the god damn thing. One is some Anti-drug thing thats blaring loud depending on your sound settings. The other is something about school.

I dont blame you guys for not wanting ad's in a game you're paying for monthly, but untill you deal with ads that have sound and repeat over and over and over untill you leave the inside of a building, Consider yourselfs lucky.