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:

[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.

Missed a point..

[Daxster]

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

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.