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:

[tukkayoot]

Some product placement might be acceptable in a game that I'm paying a subscription for, assuming of course the game takes place in a modern or contemporary setting where you might actually expect the products being advertised to exist. It wouldn't necessarily obtrustive be too obtrustive to be playing a GTA-style game and to see billboards on the side of the road as you drive down the city highway. In fact, it might even make the game more believable. It could prove limiting as well, however. If a car game only features GM automobiles as a part of their product placement contract, it might not work out to be as immersive an enviornment as compared to if they populated the game entirely with made-up autos (or those patterned after a variety of different makes of car).

If I'm paying the market price for a MMO subscription (presently, $15/month or so) not a single advertisement had better be integrated as a part of the UI/HUD, unless I can easily and permanently disable it. Integration of ads in the UI might be acceptable as long as you're paying less than what an adless MMO of comparable quality costs, and if you're given the option to pay a bit more to get rid of the ads.

And though I say that might be acceptable, it doesn't mean I want to see it happen. I worry about the old slippery slope. Today you can easily fork over $80/month to your cable company and the majority of stations will still be displaying pure advertising 15% of the time or so. Gaming companies may figure that if people will accept this in television, they will accept it in games. This is obviously not the direction that I'd like to see another medium headed in.

Re:It's quite simple:

[Fulcrum of Evil]

If a car game only features GM automobiles as a part of their product placement contract, it might not work out to be as immersive an enviornment as compared to if they populated the game entirely with made-up autos (or those patterned after a variety of different makes of car).

That's suck in something like GTA - you jack a car and it breaks down 3 blocks later.

Re:It's quite simple:

[NeuroKoan]

How about, instead of casting a fireball in your favorite RPG you instead get to cast a KC Masterpiece fire-spell presented by Ford.

Re:It's quite simple:

[patio11]

If I got 3 extra points of intellect out of the deal my mage would wear Nike. I'm not even kidding. Here's a bidding war, companies: I will wear your logo on my chest, and gladly, if it comes with a stamina boosting enchantment. And it will be associated in the minds of millions of Horde players with a rush of enjoyment: every time they see my mage charging at them, they'll know Coca Cola = honorable kill for free. You work out the details with Blizzard, the one with the best bonuses gets my chest piece. Losers take heart, I've got 10 other locations to auction off bit by bit.

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.

In-Game Ads... No problem...

[__aaclcg7560]

I don't mind blowing up, burning down or melting sideways the billboards inside the gaming world. Heck, I wouldn't mind slashing and dicing the local authorities if they try to arrest me for cleaning up the environment. Whatever makes the game fun. :)

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.

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

[Ohreally_factor]

I could even see where in game ads, properly done, would improve the experience. If someone where to make a Bladerunner MMORPG, it would seem utterly naked if there weren't huge electronic billboards.

However, what would be interesting would be top player endorsements. Imagine if you were the "best" (whatever that might mean in the context of the game) in a game, and your play was subsidized by wearing logos or having logos on your vehicle. A Nascar MMORPG?

Missed a point..

[Daxster]

Guild wars is free to play per month, unlike EQ2, WOW, etc.

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.

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.

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.