Gamers Don't Care About In-Game Ads

Next Generation reports on a study indicating that, on the whole, gamers are fine with in-game ads. From the article: "According to the study, 15 percent of heavy gamers are 'unlikely' to play a game that utilizes in-game ads, but one-third said they are 'likely' to play games with ads, while 52 percent said it makes no difference. Also among heavy gamers, 17 percent said ads would actually make them consider buying the advertised products, but only 9 percent of light/medium gamers would do the same."

Comments

Wait, I don't get it...

[PSXer]

How do the three options "unlikely" "indifferent", and "likely" make any sense?

Sure, if you were avoiding games with ads altogether, "unlikely" might be an option. Or maybe it just means that a lot of games don't have ads in the first place so you're unlikely to play a game that has ads.

Does "likely" really mean that you'd specifically seek out games with ads, or that you play a lot of games and are likely to run into a couple that have ads?

As for "indifferent", why is that a choice? How does the fact that you don't care either way about ads have anything to do with the fact that you're likely or unlikely to play a game with ads? It's not like games have a switch, "ads" or "no ads". You play whichever game you want to, and if it happens to have ads, you're "likely" to play a game with ads!

Re:Wait, I don't get it...

[alachua]

I would say it breaks down depending on how bad the ads are. Example; I installed Rainbow Six: Lockdown. I knew it wasn't going to be very good, I played the demo, and read the reviews, however, I owned all the others, and thought maybe it would at least provide me enough fun to justify the $30 I paid for it. By mid way through the first level, the same one from the demo, I had seen so many adverts for "The Hills Have Eyes" that I exited, uninstalled, and sold the game. If there had been one, or if it had been something in the context of the area I was supposed to be immersing myself in, I would have been 'likely' to continue to play. If there were ads during level loads, i would be 'indifferent' as I have to stare at something. -Cliff

Re:Wait, I don't get it...

[antoinjapan]

If you're in a virtual world, modeled on the real world, and there were no tv's, no billboards and no posters everywhere...would it seem real.

Re:Wait, I don't get it...

[DrEldarion]

Does "likely" really mean that you'd specifically seek out games with ads, or that you play a lot of games and are likely to run into a couple that have ads?

It depends on the game. Sports and racing games gain a lot of realism by showing the same types of ads you'd see in real life. I prefer to play one of these games with real ads than with fake/no ads. Other types of games, as well, can benefit - running around a large city? Billboards make sense. Running around an office? Soda machines in the breakroom make sense.

It's all about context. Sometimes, ads can be good and add to immersion.

Re:Wait, I don't get it...

[Ymerej]

Not only that, but I wonder how highly correlated the gamers' statements about their preferences are with their actual behavior. It's one thing to _ask_ people how they think they would react to something, and quite another thing to measure how they actually react to it.

15% is not such a small amount...

[Novanix]

Well I'm not so sure that gaming companies will consider dropping 15% of their customers for ingame ads. In addition as it seems its the heavy gamers who object the most, they may be the ones you don't want to piss off (as they most likely are the ones driving your 3rd party modifications). In addition I am not sure exactly what their numbers mean, 1/3rd will 'likely' play games with ads, how is this different than 'makes no difference'? (Does that mean that 1/3rd is more drawn to playing a game with ads then one without). It also doesn't talk about exactly what it considers advertising, and simply surveyed gamers. What people may tell you they will do and what they will do are frequently two different things. I doubt any hardcore battlefield fans wouldn't play battlefield 2142 if there was Coke graffiti on the side of a building.

Re:15% is not such a small amount...

[sharkb8]

It's a pure numbers play. If a game company estaimates that 15% of gamers will not buy a game because of ads, will the ad revenue make up for the 15% loss in sales?

In other words, will putting ads in a game make more money? I assume it does, becasue we see more and more ads in games.

Arguably, even the 15% or gamers who wouldn't play a game with ads wouldn't find out that there were ads in the game, or that the ads bothered them until after they bought the game. You think Best Buy's going to give a refund because someone doesn't like the graphics?

Besides, if a gamer wants a game as realistic as possbile, there should be MORE advertising in games, just like in the real world.

Re:15% is not such a small amount...

[ByteGuerrilla]

Indeed. Splinter Cell 3 had the most ridiculous adverts in. Like a close-up of Wrigley's Airwaves at the beginning of an FMV. I laughed. I played on. I highly doubt the placement of ads in-game will illict a response to the effect of damaged game sales. That's why they can place the ads there... no one cares, and it's good market penetration.

Re:15% is not such a small amount...

[d!rtyboy]

But those 15% also said they are more likely to buy products for which their ads are contained in games. But this is just market research, which means about as much as how many Edsels Ford sold.

Re:15% is not such a small amount...

[assassinator42]

According to the article, they'd lose 19.5% of their customers. I too question comScore's methods. How do they collect this data anyhow? They have a web monitoring program that has been labeled spyware by some. Of course, they say it's "researchware". I'd say people who let the program spy on what they do "online and offline" are certainly much less likely to care about ads in games.

Re:15% is not such a small amount...

[C0R1D4N]

As long as it's tasteful and fits in with the setting I don't see a problem with it; a Nascar game with adverts on the cars, or hell even in City of Heroes I wouldn't mind seeing McDonald's or other stores out there on the streets of Paragon.

Re:15% is not such a small amount...

[Pendersempai]

"Arguably, even the 15% or gamers who wouldn't play a game with ads wouldn't find out that there were ads in the game, or that the ads bothered them until after they bought the game. You think Best Buy's going to give a refund because someone doesn't like the graphics?"

That's why we have reviews. A movie theater or a restaurant won't give you a refund just because you didn't like their fare either, but success is still (roughly) correlated with quality in those industries.

Re:15% is not such a small amount...

[Babbster]

That's why we have reviews. A movie theater or a restaurant won't give you a refund just because you didn't like their fare either, but success is still (roughly) correlated with quality in those industries

I think you misunderstood GP. These questions about how likely one is to play a game with ads ignore the question of overall quality. In other words, the aforementioned game that is being returned to Best Buy isn't necessarily being returned because the game sucks, bur rather because the hypothetical person didn't like the ad content.

Perceived game quality (gleaned through reviews, testimonials from friends, etc.) will typically be the determining factor as to whether a game is bought, but the question in this article is whether in-game ads bring the perceived quality down. For me, if I'm playing a fantasy RPG and there are Nike "swooshes" on my armor, that's over the line and I wouldn't play. If, however, I'm going down a street in a game set in the present, then a big Nike billboard isn't going to bother me that much (assuming, of course, that the game isn't somehow forcing me to experience that content by taking control of what I look at in the game).

Re:15% is not such a small amount...

[Daegras]

The fact is that you really only see advertising in games within the sports genre. Racing is the biggest (obviously) and like you said, it adds to the realism, so game creators will continue to do it. And as someone from within the industry, I guarantee that the money to be made on advertising FAR outweighs the 15% who claim that they won't play games with advertising.

Re:15% is not such a small amount...

[sharkb8]

I totally agree with you about advertising profits outweighing the loss in buyers, but with that loss in buyers comes a lower advertising rate. Surely Coca-cola would pay less for a game that reaches only 850,000 people than for a game that reaches 1,000,000.

However, if you buy into the free market philosophy, the amount of advertising and the amount charged for advertising will reach a natural equilibrium.

I'd also point out that there's a lot of advertising going into games that people don't even realize. FOr thoseracing games you mentioned, do you think Toyota would kick in a little something extra to always have their new sports car be the default vehicle seletion for racers? And they'd probably kick in to juice the car's stats a little bit, espectially if it gets bumped to where it's the best car in the game.

Mods

[Anonymous Coward]

There will probably be modifications of some sort to remove the ads, for those gamers who hate in-game ads.

Re:Mods

[Minwee]

But if I don't know where to find such a modification, will the authors post helpful advertisements within the game to let me know?

Stop-And-Watch

[foundme]

As long as it doesn't require me to stop and watch the ad, I don't think in-game ad is anything but a subliminal background noise.

For example, I don't mind constantly seeing the terrorists smoking xx-brand of cigaratte, but if my GhostRecon team has to stop every 5 minutes and gather around to have a smokey, I will be pissed.

Re:Stop-And-Watch

[twistedsymphony]

Exactly... Actual in game advertising like that is good in a way. When I see a soda machine it give the game an extra sense of realism if it looks just like the Coke machine in my office break room, instead of some cleaver knock-off or some generic "POP" machine.

Then there's the other side... like EA's Fight Night Round 3, I haven't played it myself but I hear it's like watching a Burger King commercial with some Boxing thrown in for good measure.

Re:Stop-And-Watch

[joe 155]

damn I loved that burger king commercial... shame about the little bit of boxing that thay thought they had to put in. sell-outs.

Re:Stop-And-Watch

[Lord_Dweomer]

Very correct. As an ad exec AND a passionate gamer I've been following this very closely. For the most part, advertisers and the facilitating media company that most of them use for this (Massive Inc.) "get it". They know they have to walk on eggshells when it comes to this new media. But then you get stuff like that boxing game on the Xbox360 where you fight the BK King etc. That is going WAAAY too far.

I've done a writeup on this very story topic on my site which you can read here at The Halting Point and you can read the original Slashdot post that I made that sparked my writing of that piece.

While I'd very much so appreciate the clicks, (even though I've made all of .07 through adsense!), to sum it up for those who don't want to make the jump....there are several levels of in-game advertising in terms of invasiveness. And you can view it as a spectrum. On the far left you have extremely uninvasive and even welcome additions such as sponsorship logos in Gran Turismo. It fits with the game world since the game world is simulating reality and they are expected in that type of game.

Then you have things like billboards in MMOs like Anarchy Online and City of Heroes that, while appropriate for the setting (a city with billboards), still annoy you a bit because its trying to transplant culture from one world (reality) into a made up world where those companies do not exist.

Then you have your extremely invasive product placement with crap like what Sprite pulled in the Matrix game, or what McDonalds pulled in The Sims Online. That is the stuff that pisses off gamers because it is a blatent slap in the face. It doesn't add ANYTHING to the game and in fact detracts from it...all that for $60.

The interesting thing is how advertisers are trying to work their way into some of the more dominant games where the majority of titles are fantasy based like WoW. In my story I wrote a bit about possible ideas for working product placement into those worlds, but it requires advertisers to be able to have the balls to poke some fun at themselves, which I doubt they'd ever do.

Honestly...in-game advertising is only going to get more abundant. Whether it becomes worse or not (ala the intraweb) depends on the so-called "gate-keepers" of the games who will have the final say over how much of a sell out they want their game to be.

I'd expect more corporate sponsored guilds and guild events, more added material (like the CS map Subway made), and other new things we haven't considered.

If it gets to the point though where the games are starting to majorly sacrifice playability and content for ad revenue though, customers will complain and run for the nearest competitor.

Re:Stop-And-Watch

[Anonymous Coward]

Every time this topic comes up, I always remember the one game that would've been so much better with real product placement ads in it... Deus Ex.

If I could walk up to a Coke machine (complete with the ~ logo) and buy one of 5 differently-skinned equvalents to the "soda" item, or instead choose a Pepsi machine and get one of 5 *other* differently-skinned "soda" items, it would've made the urban areas and office interiors that much more realistic. They could've all had independent "tag-lines" that popped up when you used the item, even. It's not a stretch to imagine that, nor is it technically difficult. Other food items could be the same way.

- The TV's all showed static. They could show a commercial instead.
- There were several subway levels that could have posters. The same holds true for other urban areas.
- The guns could all carry brand names of gun manufacturers.

And the thing is, each one of these things, when not overused, would only add to the immersion in the game world. You're supposed to believe that it's 2050 and commercialism and technological tyranny is conquering everything. Having real brand names would only add to that realism.

Re:Stop-And-Watch

[Anonymous Coward]

And the thing is, each one of these things, when not overused, would only add to the immersion in the game world. You're supposed to believe that it's 2050 and commercialism and technological tyranny is conquering everything. Having real brand names would only add to that realism.

What sponsor in the world would be interested in painting their company/brand/product in that light?

Re:Stop-And-Watch

[Lord_Dweomer]

'What sponsor in the world would be interested in painting their company/brand/product in that light?"

You'd be surprised. As long as gamers like the game, and associate liking the game with liking the brand, they are happy. Now, if the game were to intentionally cause the player to do something to "fight back against brands" then I think you might see SOME hesitance.

Re:Stop-And-Watch

[theJML]

I have to agree that ads add more realistic game environments. The coke machine in the office, the Pirelli or Brigestone adds in racing games, etc. As long as the add looks like it's just a texture that's supposed to be there to make things look right, I'm all for it. In fact, I'd say that this should have been done a long time ago! But I don't think that I want to be playing FFXIII and right after I tell my Aeon/Limitbreak/whatever to kill some guy and have some "This asskicking moment brought to you by McDonalds". I mean that's just distracting, and I hope they realize that I will immediately associate McDonalds in this example to an evil corporation that needs to no longer get my or my friends business. (though I will have to say that I've never bought a product because I saw an ad in a game, but I suppose having it there and the usefulness of it being there are two different things...)

Re:Stop-And-Watch

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

Actually I found that whole side quest in Deus Ex 2 about the coffee shops very amusing. Basically, the big commercialist "starbucks style" store was forcing the little family owned coffee shop out of business. Sure it wasn't really product placement, but I couldn't help draw the comparisons on my own. . . then I wanted a starbucks :_( so it worked I guess. . .

Re:Stop-And-Watch

[Rix]

If it gets to the point though where the games are starting to majorly sacrifice playability and content for ad revenue though, customers will complain and run for the nearest competitor.

Possibly, but I imagine the same thing that happens in any other electronic media will happen. People will just strip the ads out.

Re:Stop-And-Watch

[Anonymous Coward]

Advertisers have their game plan wrong. Their business is in annoying people as a means of getting them to buy a product.

You can't buy a magazine without it being literally filled with advertisements. If it's a magazine for finding products to buy, that's great. If it's a magazine dedicated to any other subject, then that's just something to filter out because it's not what you're looking for.

You go to the movies and there are topical ads, and there are stupid ads. The topical ads are the trailers. You're at a movie, and maybe you'd like to see what movies are coming to theaters in the next few months. Then there are annoying ads for things that have nothing to do with movie-going. People just talk or arrive at a movie fifteen minutes after its scheduled start time, because that period of time is completely worthless.

You watch the movie, and increasingly there's an unnatural pause or six as the camera sits in front of a few logos. Just for an example, Spider-Man 2 there's a long pause where you see a Cingular billboard. The Cingular logo is actually one of my favorite logos, but I will never purchase their service because they turned something I paid $10 to watch into a commercial for their phone service. There's a long line of beer companies in the same boat.

You turn on television (which people buy TiVos in order to skip commercials that they're making painfully obvious are unwanted when they're paying $50/month to a cable company to watch television) and advertisers are stuffing unnatural pauses, artificial products references, and even songs about their products into the television show. Just so Chili's knows, after their four minutes of commercial time in Scrubs yesterday I won't ever eat there again. Ever.

Then there are artistic advertisements. I actually think a lot of these are really cool. They don't make me want to buy the products, but they certainly encourage me to view the advertisement and creates a little more respect for the agency that was responsible for making it. Sure, it doesn't do its clients any good, but for a change it doesn't annoy me. Sometimes I wish the people that made them would create shorts and sell them on iTunes instead of ads. I'd buy that for a dollar. It's entertaining.

Then there are ads in places where you want ads. You want to buy or sell a house? That's where I want to see Century 21 ads, along with ads for their competitors, as well as ads for products. I am proactively shopping for information about products. I go over to Pricewatch, and I want to buy something. I go to a site that reviews products I'm interested in buying. I want to see what's available there. That's what I'm looking for, and that's when I want to hear why your product is worth buying.

The problem is that huge swaths of the advertising industry thinks it's going to convince me to buy a brand of shampoo when I'm looking for entertainment. They don't trust that they can sell products to me in those moments when I know I actually want the product. They think that if they annoy me enough that they can drill a product into my head and I'll buy it on an impulse. I'm not going to see a Coke machine in a video game and suddenly like drinking Coke. I don't want to hear an NPC tell me about the cool refreshing taste of Samuel Adams. There are so many avenues for services that advertise products people want, but instead of making venues where people will voluntarily come to learn about the quality of stereo equipment or ketchup, they want to just leech off the popularity of something people already like. That is annoying, and makes people like those things less. All they're doing is making their products more expensive to sell to people whose eyes glaze over the second they see that investment commercial again.

And they really need to not bring this to videogames. They can sponsor gaming events. They can sponsor gamers. They can even sell branded hardware that I'll never buy. But if they ruin the only reason people play videogames with this braindead strategy of turning other humans into zombies, I'll just stop buying their products. I'll modify the art assets in the game so they aren't annoying anymore, and I will just never buy those products.

Re:Stop-And-Watch

[kahanamoku]

The improvement I would suggest to game developers (especially with the increasing use of online gaming, or even say, Xbox Live) would be to have the advertising textures provided over the internet to allow updates to the advertising depending on who was paying for it at the time. There are hundreds of games out there that are set in city streets and a few billboards on building rooftops doesn't look out of place. I'd almost see an attraction in playing the game to see what the billboard has been changed to this week. if they really wanted to be creative, when the billboard changes, you could get guy's running in with rollers who put the new poster up in-game while you watch! ... bah, now I'm rambling!

Re:Stop-And-Watch

[Lord_Dweomer]

To paraphrase your post....you don't want to see ads, unless they're relevant to a purchase you are considering making, or they entertain you. In that instance, you DO want to see them. The big problem is that it is hard to target ONLY people who may be interested in the ad when it comes to mass media like TV commercials. Thus, inevitably some people are pissed off.

The reason advertising is becoming more and more important is because the internet is allowing us to target our ads like NEVER before. So while that problem of targeting the wrong people will never go away entirely, increased targeting certainly helps in that regard.

And just remember, an ad doesn't have to initially sell you on the product to have done its work. You'd be surprised how much clients are willing to spend to generate "brand awareness".

Re:Stop-And-Watch

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is that advertisers should create a draw for ads, instead of being parasites. If you have venues where people go for learning about products, they will go to them. If the advertisements are entertaining, people will watch them. If you annoy them by tossing ads in places where people want to do something that has nothing to do with making purchasing decisions they will be filtered out. There is no algorithm that exists that will make an advertisement relevant to my enjoyment of entertainment. There are lots of ways of correlating my preferences with what advertisements to show me when I'm shopping, and zero for presenting me with an ad when I want something else. I actively go to Amazon.com for suggestions on what I might like. I actively go to Pricewatch to see how much people are willing to sell electronics to me for. I willingly go to Ebay to look for products to buy. I don't watch television or play videogames to learn about brands of beer or what sort of cologne to wear. I actively read product reviews to see what cars, phones, computers, restaurants, and so forth might be worth exchanging my dollars for. That's when I want to learn about the special on crab legs, or what sort of shoes to wear.

It doesn't matter if it's hard. Difficulty doesn't enter into the equation of what people think of brands when they take a crap in the middle of what they really desire. Yes, the clients may willingly exchange money for brand recognition. But in my case it's brand resentment. I am not some genius that is uniquely immune to advertising. I am Joe Middle Class American, and people that irritate me don't get my purchasing dollars. I will seriously never buy Samuel Adams or head on over to Chili's. I didn't buy a TiVo because the recognition brands were receiving from me were positive ones. If the only goal in the life of an advertiser is to trick a company into paying them millions of dollars to shrink the growth of their already oversaturated brands by pissing on the people they're stuffing them on, then mission accomplished. As more people spend more time on the Internet where they can filter out ads instead of exchanging money for passive mediums that they cannot control, advertisers are going to have to just find a way to replace content entirely with ads because people are just going to block them out entirely. Ask Google how many Ad Sense ads I've ever clicked on. The answer: zero. I filter them right out.

Re:Stop-And-Watch

[cthellis]

What did Sprite do in the Matrix that was so foul? A) I thought it was AO they were advertising in, and B) there isn't much that can "snap one out" of the Matrix, as it's supposed to represent our modern day--drudgery and advertising in all. I see billboards in there, and even if things show up on soda bottles or whatever... why would I care? In the Matrix, at least, it's part of the scenery. Tacky sometimes, sure, but it doesn't drive one completely out of the game world in the way it does with Anarchy Online.

In much the same way, I don't care about advertising in games... so long as it doesn't kick me out of the game world. I might find some things stupid and annoying advertising ventures--as I do in the real world--but I'll treat it as that. Only when I'm ripped out of the game does it really matter to me.

AO suffers from it, as does CoH, but I can't see it mattering overall in games like Matrix or the Sims. (Or billboards in modern day racing games and the like.)

Re:Stop-And-Watch

[Drantin]

If you want surprise advertising, examine the packaging for the game Darkened Skye. There is absolutely no mention, at least on the package I got, that the game has any spnsors in the way of candy conglomerates... Then you play the game and it turns out that Skittles(tm) are the source of all magic...

Re:Stop-And-Watch

[KlausBreuer]

Well, I *do* mind.
Perhaps it's because I don't have a radio or a TV, and am thus simpy not as used to advertising. I ignore signs, and get highly irritated in cinemas, when they try to flood us with ads for 45 minutes (!) before the actual film starts.

Thus I can say here and now that I will refuse to buy any game with ads in it.
I have lots of good games. Still play the classics (have a look for "The Ur-Quan Masters", for example). Mind you, I buy quite a few games per month.
If ads start showing up, this will very suddenly stop, and I'll use the money on other things (taking my GF out for pizza, for example ;)

Ciao,
Klaus

Re:Stop-And-Watch

[KDR_11k]

I think it'd be "Why not buy a refreshing Final Fantasy Potion (TM) drink? It comes with a code to enter into your game for a free potion item!".

Re:Stop-And-Watch

[KDR_11k]

I don't know if "Sprite" (aka The Coca-Cola Company) had anything to do with it but the fight in the underground station that had the walls plastered with Powerade ads was pretty excessive. There were scenes where those things took up 90% of the screen area.

Re:Stop-And-Watch

[drinkypoo]

This is why the clueful read reviews of games before purchasing them. Typically there's a reason if you haven't heard of a game before.

No problemo

[Ohreally_factor]

I have no problem with in-game ads. It's those interminable in-game focus groups and surveys that make a game unplayable.

Re:No problemo

[WillAffleckUW]

I have no problem with in-game ads. It's those interminable in-game focus groups and surveys that make a game unplayable.

That's why I always carry a few fragmentation grenades and an auto-loading shotgun to those meetings. Then, I get the cash for attending, plus I get a nice bodycount from all the marketing droids when I spatter them against the walls ...

Re:No problemo

[Ohreally_factor]

Seriously, though, how do you get past the Final Boss Marketer without buying something?

Re:No problemo

[PeelBoy]

How would you feel if you were paying for HBO and they started displaying ads in the corner of the screen during the movies you were watching?

If you're not paying for the game then whatever. They gotta make their money some how.

Why should you have to see ads in the game if you already spent $60 for it?

If people put up with it.. things won't get better.. they'll get worse.. eventually you'll start seeing more and more ads in your games and THEN it will become unbearable.

It's just like going to see a football game these days. The entire stadium is an ad. Each entrance is an ad (Yeah they're naming each entrance gate after brands now..).. in Reliant stadium the floor is painted on the inside like a big coke symbol (red with the white swerve) and then you have adds all around the inside of the stadium and displaying on the jumbotrons.. It fucking sucks and it's only getting worse. Eventually I bet the players have to wear ads on their uniforms and go by "Pepsi #35".

Sigh.

Re:No problemo

[WillAffleckUW]

Seriously, though, how do you get past the Final Boss Marketer without buying something?

The trick is to keep your wallet in your left hand, hand it towards him, when he takes the bills out (ka-ching sound), you get the exit doors open - right then, toss the frag grenades behind you over your shoulder (eight-second delay), use the autoload shotgun on the FBM, put your wallet back in your pocket, then use your left hand to Search For Money on his bloody corpse - usually you get all the bills back, sometimes you get a bonus amount depending on how good a shot you are.

Then sprint for the doors and roll to the right, so the blasts won't get you. Don't go to the left, they have the Product Display area and I always end up clipping a table and sprawling and then the grenade blast either gets me or I take about 50 percent wounds.

Re:No problemo

[Ohreally_factor]

Are you kidding me? Games like WoW and the various Lord of the Rings would be markedly improved if there was in-game advertising. Can you imagine if the Nazgul were driving Hummers? That would have been awethum! (I actually think Peter Jackson missed a lot of very lucrative product placement opportunities in LoTR that would have improved the trilogy. I'm sure that readers who are imaginative and agree can suggest where they would have placed products in LoTR.)

Re:No problemo

[spun]

When they first started playing real ads in addition to previews at movies, I took to screaming "Hey! We didn't pay to see ads here!" which usually drew applause from the rest of the audience. I don't do it anymore because no one seems to care now.

In a game, it would depend on how the ad was done. Seeing a can of Coke on a table? Absolutely ok. Seeing a big billboard for Coca Cola? Bearable. Having a Coca Cola "bug" in the corner of the screen constantly? Bordering on annoying. Being forced to watch an ad before I play? Unnacceptable in a game I paid for. Having the game stop every ten minutes for two minutes of ads? Rage... building... Urge to kill... RISING! Hehe, I have tivo, I don't even put up with that shit on TV anymore.

Re:No problemo

[PeelBoy]

I agree, but you know it's going to eventually go beyond a coke can on a table and that's what bothers me.

Advertisers see how big the market is and they'll want a piece of that. They'll be willing to pay for it, and game companies aren't going to turn them down. Especially with the rising development cost of games.

Eventually we'll all be wishing games didn't have ads kind of like how we wish regular TV didn't have so many ads.

Re:No problemo

[PeelBoy]

hahahaha that's pretty funny

Re:No problemo

[kthejoker]

I don't get this logic. Movie theaters don't make any money on the actual showing of the movie - that all goes back to the distribution companies (conveniently owned by the moviemakers themselves.) They make their money on advertising and food sales (both of which are rising due to slumping sales.)

But more to the point, ad revenue is used to offset the price of the things you buy, and at a rate considerably higher than the increase in price that would occur without it. Without ads, movies might cost as much as $15-$20 a ticket; games, $75-100.

In fact, this is more or less the "social contract" we as society has with advertising: they subsidize the art we patronize (movies, games, television, magazines) in exchange for agreeing to hear their spiel on various product. And because they are targeted advertisers (a 1% sales success rate can pay for an ad in many cases), they lower the cost of the art by more than what we as individual consumers could do - even in a collective.

Re:No problemo

[spun]

Movie theaters don't make any money on the movie for the opening weekend and perhaps one or two weekends after that for a big blockbuster. Beyond that they take in a percentage of the box office, which gets larger as time goes by.

As for the rest of your comment, I remember when movie theaters didn't show ad shorts at the beginning of movies. I also remember the price of movies back then. If your argument held water, the price would have dropped when they started advertising.

Re:No problemo

[kthejoker]

That's not true at all. If it costs you $10 to sell a product, and you are selling it for $12, and suddenly prices rise and it costs you $13 to sell the product, you can make up that extra dollar by either:

a) raising your price (to increase revenue)
b) bringing on advertising dollars to reduce your own costs

Which is what the movie theaters did. They didn't tack on advertising dollars to make an extra buck, they did it to make *a* buck. Period.

Missing Result

[HunterZ]

They also forgot to mention that 87% of statistics are made up.

Re:Missing Result

[Midnight Thunder]

They also forgot to mention that 87% of statistics are made up.

Or was that 52%? ;)

Re:Missing Result

[Solra Bizna]

According to Homer Simpson, it's "fourfteen" percent.

-:sigma.SB

Re:Missing Result

[Anonymous Coward]

They also forgot to mention that 87% of statistics are made up.

Source please.

Re:Missing Result

[PMuse]

"42.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot."
--Steven Wright as Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist

(but surely he was not the first to make up this particular statistic)

Ignored?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think most gamers just tune out ads, just like many people now tune out television commercials. The holy grail of advertising is appealing to that 18 - 24 demographic, but the reality is that many people simply ingore ads due to, I believe, overload.

We are constantly bombarded by ads every day and the more you see them, the less effective they get. Im not likely to buy a product I see adversitsed, anywhere, unless I hear something about it from a friend.

That should be the true goal of marketing agencies right now, understanding how word of mouth works and how to better harness it to promote their products.

Re:Ignored?

[corsec67]

heh, like the following hypothetical conversation in a mmorpg?

  Get ready to attack!
  OK.
  Did I mention that Mountain Dew is refreshing?
  WTF!?
  I didn't say anything

Re:Ignored?

[Ubergrendle]

Based on some media studies I read in university sociology courses (~ 10 years ago), the aggregate effect long term of advertising is most important.

We all know that advertising for high-end products are to plant a 'need' -- thing cars, drug companies, etc.. .something we don't need. But most retail advertising is more subtle, with more modest expectations. They want to establish brand conciousness, the need will come later.

Example: I need to buy toothpaste. I go to the store, and see 10-20 brands. OMG how do I make a decision!?! Oh thank goodness, Crest/Aquafresh/Colgate is there...i'll take that reliable, dependable brand name.

Most people of Gen-X or later are cynical enough to 'tune out' advertising and recognise it for what it is. However, when given a choice, we'll still take Coke over RC Cola, Tide over Generic Brand, or Sony over Chinageneric.

Re:Ignored?

[Anonymous Coward]

Totally OT, but your sig is fantastic.

Re:Ignored?

[Anonymous Coward]

"However, when given a choice, we'll still take Coke over RC Cola"

Well, that's because Coke actually tastes better than RC.

Re:Ignored?

[Anonymous Coward]

People buy whatever is cheapest, unless they have brand experience. Watch people shop at Walmart sometime, and see how many APEX DVD players they sell and how many Sony DVD players they sell. People buy coke because they like how it tastes. Lots of people but RC Cola (that's why it's even available) and lots of people switched to Pepsi taking away Coca-Cola's domination of the bottling industry.

People do develop brand loyalty, but it's from brand experience rather than advertising. If you liked product X from a company, you might try product Y expecting it to be as good. If you get a lot of products from that company that you like, you choose their products over competitors. If they start selling you crap, you look elsewhere. You buy Tide because after 4,000 washes it still washes your clothing. If Joe's Soap Powder cleaned your clothing, made it wrinkle free, and made it look brand new you'd switch to it so fast Tide would leak blood out of its anus.

Re:Ignored?

[Tim C]

Reminds me of a game of Quake 3 I was playing a few years back; one of the other players killed someone and said "That frag was brought to you by Kellog's Frosties! They're grrrrrreeeeaaaatttt!!!"

You probably had to be there, but it was hilarious at the time...

(He was kidding, of course)

Re:Ignored?

[KDR_11k]

The mental image of combining gibs and cornflakes is just disturbing. I suppose that's how Chicken McNuggets got invented.

I care...!

[__aaclcg7560]

As long I can shoot up, blow up, or burn up the ads in game. I care *very* much for in game ads.

Re:I care...!

[Mishotaki]

nah.. all ads are undestructible! bulletproof, shatterproof, nuclear-weapon-that-explodes-2-inches-away-proof cuz we all know it'll pay more when you got you cover from enemy fire behind ads... "the whole world got blown up by that nuke... but we can build our shelters with the ads!" ^_^

WTF?

[PeelBoy]

How can that be? I'm not fine with it. I'm not going to buy a game and then turn around and have in-game ads forced down my throat.

If it's product placement in like.. GT5 where you can buy a GReddy turbo what ever.. I can *put up* with that.

But billboards displaying real ads? Fuck that. No way. Especially when the game probably cost $60 bucks. I won't buy it. Period. Not if I know it has ads in it.

At this point in my life.. NO game is a must have. Except maybe a simple Nintendo game (New Super Mario Bros.) and Gears of War which I really want.

Re:WTF?

[onecheapgeek]

Put the righteous indignation down before you hurt yourself, son. There's a limited supply left, and most of us would rather it be used for something we are forced to do, not something which occurs in a voluntary activity.

You're part of that 15%. You are represented. Do I care if I'm playing PGR or something and a billboard for a new product flies past? Nope. Do I care if there's a Coke truck on the side of the road? Nope.

Speak with your wallet and save the tissues for important occasions.

Re:WTF?

[mythosaz]

Amusingly, I *enjoy* seeing a Coke truck along the side of the road. It seems realistic to me, and it's a lot less annoying than the "Cohe" truck with the near-Coke logo. My real world has ads everywhere. I don't mind when my gaming world has them to match. [When appropriate.]

Oh, sure, nobody wants to see a Nike branded sword in EverCraftWars, but we *all* want to see Nike clubs in Tiger Woods 2007.

Re:WTF?

[PeelBoy]

Fuck that you wouldn't be playing a game if you wanted realism for crying out loud.

Jesus christ people.

This is why I have become such a die hard Nintendo fan over the past few years.

I don't EVER see ads in first party Nintendo games.

So yes. I do speak with my wallet.

When I play games like Tony Hawk it almost makes me SICK. Not only is the game NOT any more fun than the first few versions it's got all kinds of sell out bull shit in it.

You guys sure seem to cry hard enough when it comes to seeing more and more ads in the movie theater and other places and you're actually going to sit back and say you ENJOY seeing ads in games?

Eventually games are going to turn into huge advertisments that you PAID to watch with little new game play, outstanding graphics and TONS of ads and we're going to think that's what gaming is all about.

What happens when you start seeing Coke and Pepsi ads in Star Wars games? You're going to be fine with that? That's going to be realistic to you? Greeeaaat.

I guess you guys won't mind when 3 mins of commercials on TV gets bumped up to 5 mins and 30 mins of them before a movie starts gets bumped up to an hour with a break half way through the movie for another 15 mins of ads.

Next thing you know they'll be beaming them into our heads while we sleep like in futureama.

Re:WTF?

[Osty]

If it's product placement in like.. GT5 where you can buy a GReddy turbo what ever.. I can *put up* with that.

That's not really product placement, and I wouldn't be surprised if they had to pay Greddy to use their name and logo. Now if Greddy was the only brand of turbocharger you could buy in the game (look at Need For Speed: Most Wanted, for example), that would be product placement. In GT4, it's "realism". Perhaps only Greddy supplies a turbo for the car you're trying to modify, so the only turbo you can buy is a Greddy. Modify another car and you may have a choice of different brands, or Greddy may not even make an appropriate turbo so they're not listed.

The same is true for the cars. It's not product placement to be able to drive a Honda Civic or a Ford Mustang. It's "realism", and Polyphony Digital paid for a license to use those cars. If you were playing Ford Racing 3, that's advertising. Ford paid to have that game made using only Ford products. And it's not just cars and car parts. Real-life tracks in games like Gran Turismo have the same problem of advertising vs. licensing. Polyphony Digital can't just go and take pictures of the track and use them for textures, because those textures may contain real ads that PD doesn't have the rights to use. If they want to use all of the same ads as the real life track, they're going to have to go to each advertiser and try to get the rights (either convince the company to pay for the ad space in the game, which they probably won't go for, or pay the company a licensing fee to use their already-existing advertising). That's why you'll see a lot of "placeholder" ads with stuff like "Sony" or "GT" on them (or "Microsoft" or "Xbox" in the case of Forza), because they couldn't get the rights to display the real ads. In this case, though the ads are still advertisements in the real world, they're not advertisements in-game. If Polyphony Digital or Turn 10 (the Forza developers) took the EA route, they'd just replace all real-world ads with the ads of companies who paid them. You'd get to race at "Burger King Laguna Seca" instead of "Mazda Laguna Seca", and that would just suck.

Re:WTF?

[Osty]

Fuck that you wouldn't be playing a game if you wanted realism for crying out loud.

Not necessarily true. The parent mentioned PGR (Project: Gotham Racing). Most of us can't go out and buy several $100+K cars and then go race them, so we turn to video games instead (because $60 for a video game you can play any time you like is much cheaper than $200 for an afternoon at the track with your daily beater). Depending on how you like your racing games, you may prefer realism (Gran Turismo, Forza, GTR), and there's nothing wrong with it because it's something you enjoy that you can't go out and do every day. Perhaps calling it "simulation" is more clear, because the games are not realistic in the sense that you can't do in real life what you can do in the game.

You guys sure seem to cry hard enough when it comes to seeing more and more ads in the movie theater and other places and you're actually going to sit back and say you ENJOY seeing ads in games?

Depends on the game. I would expect to see ads in a football game, as there are ads lining the stadium (which sucks, but that's "realism"). Similarly, in a racing game on real tracks, I'd expect to see ads along the tracks. Now just to be clear, I'm not asking to be advertised at, at least no more than I would be if I attended a stadium or track in real life. What I'm looking for is realism in an experience that I can't have in real life (no way am I going to be able to toss a pigskin in the NFL or compete in an ALMS race). What I don't want is ads in the interface. The HUD, UI, etc, should not be "brought to me by Samsung" or have Burger King logos all over the place. EA is the worst in this regard (NFS:MW actually embedded a Cingular ad into the HUD!)

The ads I'm talking about really aren't ads or product placements. In fact, for developers to do it right they'll probably have to pay licensing fees to use the ads.

Re:WTF?

[PeelBoy]

it's not exactly a giant poster displaying an ad either.

product placement might not have been the best words to describe it.

it makes the game more realistic having all the different brands, but it's an uneeded ad. in my opinion. just one that i'm more capable of putting up with.

did GT1 and 2 need it? No. I just did the Turbo upgrade and I was happy. Why did I care if I was getting an HKS or GReddy turbo?

I don't. It doesn't add anything to the game. The gameplay is still be the same either way.

You know why I think they are starting to put ads in games more and more? Because development costs have risen so much. Why is that? because gamers think that the latest and greatest hardware that could possibly be dreamed up and the coolest graphics in the entire planet are REQUIRED to have a good game and as a result of that we all get to pay $60-$70 a pop for video games that have fucking ADS in them.

I'll be sticking with Nintendo this round. I'll probably get a 360 because my 2 roommates have them and I love multiplayer games with friends who are in the same room or house as me. Gears of War with all of us having our own TV will be sweet. But trust me. I don't look forward to spending all that money and you won't catch me buying games that I know have ads in them. If they ALL have ads I will be purchasing very few or no 360 at all.

Do you think Nintendo will throw ads in their first party games any time soon?

Re:WTF?

[mythosaz]

Correct. 100% Correct.

We don't want Pepsi ads in our Star Wars game, but if I don't see Catholic Healthcare West logos at AT&T Park and Chase Field when I'm playing MBL 0x, I'm missing part of what I *know* to be at those fields.

My NASCAR car better be covered in ads -- and if there's not a huge Tide logo on one of them, I'm disappointed.

Sure, this is mostly sports-related so far (much like my original post had comments about Tiger Woods and Nike [and Ping, and....]) -- but it extends to things that happen in a simulation of the real world. If I end up on a cross country police chase down I-10, I demand a traffic jam in Phoenix and a bunch of billboards for Arizona home builders.

Nobody wants "Drink Pepsi" on the hud of their FPS. Duh.

Re:WTF?

[PeelBoy]

Blah. Yeah. I know, but it's still not even close to being realistic and if it was 100% realistic it probably wouldn't be any fun at all. or it would be for 1 version of the game.. but 3 versions later? it would be old.

but think about it this way. who really likes to see ads? I mean come on. If you ask the world if they would rather have no ads in tv most of them are going to say HELL YEAH. That's because there has pretty much always been ads and we're sick of it.

Most games these days don't have ads. So I guess most people don't think they care, but they do.

If ALL games had ads in them for the past 5 or 10 years and you did this poll asking if people would enjoy games WITHOUT ads everybody would be like hell yeah get rid of those fucking annoying ads. You know its true.

Well it's going to get to that point where most all games have ads in them (It's just too huge of a market to ignore.. way too many people play games for advertisers to ignore it.. Also the cost of developing games for hardcore gamers is getting way high and they need other ways to make money off the game with out making the price of the game too high).. You know we're all going to be regretting this one day. Thinking back to the good old days of not having ads constantly being thrown in our face while we play games.

Our kids will probably never even know what it's like to play a game that doesn't have ads in it.

I dunno. Maybe I'm wrong? Maybe I'm not. What ever. I just know I don't enjoy ads in games and it's not going to be the occasional Coke truck on the side of the road for realisim. It's going to get worse and worse.

Re:WTF?

[PeelBoy]

Besides how does seeing a Coke truck on the side of the road help in any way at all with the game play of a game? You want realisim make the car drive better. Make the track more realistic. Any truck could be on the side of the road. The code ad doesn't fucking change anything. Your car still drives the same. It's still just a truck on the side of the road.

Get real.

I can't believe people are sitting here saying they actually WANT ads in games. LOL. That just blows my mind.

People pay for things like HBO and IGN subscriptions to avoid ads(among other reasons) and you guys are sitting here saying you enjoy ads? haha.. insane.

Re:WTF?

[KDR_11k]

I don't EVER see ads in first party Nintendo games.

You didn't buy Pikmin 2 I take it?

Smoke 'em if you got 'em

[Ohreally_factor]

What if the actual mission is to rescue a pallet of Camel non-filters that were accidentally dropped behind enemy lines? (If you don't like cigarettes as an example, how about Cheat Commandos O's?)

Skewed survey

[Aim Here]

Of course this is only a survey of people who are so advertiser friendly as to sit and tell a bunch of market researchers what they think. People who strongly dislike advertising are no doubt fairly strongly inclined towards telling those market researchers to fuck off instead of giving free clues as to how to target their insidious mindraping propaganda more efficiently. I know I am.

Re:Skewed survey

[MindStalker]

Dude, you should totally opt to join focus groups. You can give weird answers and throw them off. DO it carefully enough so they don't think your lying and you get free stuff for being SOOO helpful! :)

I'm in that 15%

[rAiNsT0rm]

I happily make up a small part of that 15%. I play games to escape real life, not to be thrust right back into it with ads for Subway and other out of place product placement.

The _only_ exception I would make would be a completely free MMORPG that was subsidized with some sort of innovative advertising. MMO's are not all that immersive in the first place due to the people who play them and their actions for the most part, so being able to casually play an MMO for free would be something I'd be willing to bend on.

It needs to stop. A clear message needs to be made about it and quick, before games and gaming become another Hollywood filled with garbage.

I'd also say that the complaints about the Subway ad were way over 15%, so I'm quite sure I'm not alone and that the actual number is higher than 15%.

Re:I'm in that 15%

[Ohreally_factor]

The _only_ exception I would make would be a completely free MMORPG that was subsidized with some sort of innovative advertising

Wouldn't work. If you made it free, the target audience would stay home, play until they starved to death, and never buy anything.

Re:I'm in that 15%

[snuf23]

And yet Anarchy Online has free ad-supported play for the basic game. If you want the expansions you have to pay to play and subscribers don't see ads.
Runescape - the browser based MMO also has free play with ads.
Of course the fact that Anarchy Online is somewhat ancient (in MMO years) and looks like crap may be part of the reason you don't see tons of players staying at home starving to death playing it.

If it lowers the cost of the games

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm all for it. It's like newspapers and magazines - which would be expensive if it weren't for the fact that both the advertiser and the subscriber are sharing the costs.

Now if only my phone and DSL worked the same way....

Free clues?

[BitterAndDrunk]

You've never been in a focus group, apparently.

They feed you!!
Actually, many of them will pay you $100 (or more) to do their fancy little group thing.

Re:Free clues?

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

I got pizza and a $100 best buy gift certificate for telling someone why their product sucks. Considering I'd probably have bitched about the product either way, I'd say I came out ahead.

Re:Free clues?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently I just make more than you do, and therefore value my time more than $100 and some snack food. Enjoy that c-note, it's provided by making everyone else's life more annoying.

In Game Ads

[TacNuke]

I for one, dont care about in-gadrink pepsime ads

Misleading

[Telastyn]

It's not that gamers don't care, it's that they're not going to change their purchasing decisions based on the ads. I don't know of anyone that wants contrived ads in their games. The only things that are decent are things that add to the game, such as actual restaraunts in Crazy Taxi, or EA's use of actual songs for their soundtracks (in Burnout for example).

Re:Misleading

[Lave]

The only things that are decent are things that add to the game, such as actual restaraunts in Crazy Taxi, or EA's use of actual songs for their soundtracks (in Burnout for example).

Just nitpicking - but did you play the first burnout? It had a beautiful adaptive soundtrack that would increase in BPM, number of instruments and intensity as you went faster or as time ran out. It was completely adaptive to what was happening as it was being composed on the fly, and made the game far more intense and enjoyable - in my opinion.

By comparison the later generic MTV drivel adds nothing to the game and only takes away from it. Again in my opinion.

At the very least a good compromise would be to hire the latest MTV starlets to compose a progressive adaptive instrumental to serve the same purpose as the songs in burnout 1 - but that would require a lot of work, talent - and more importantly (and tragically) those type of songs wouldn't fit on an album anywhere and so not lead to "horizontal sales" - so not being worth while.

PS I will defiantly be basing my purchasing decisions on ads. Even if it means me giving up on future gens and filling out a back catalogue of current ad free games.

Re:Misleading

[Telastyn]

I did play the first, though admittedly not much and some time ago. I found the soundtrack [in 3 at least] to be pretty appropriate. Perhaps I just liked the novelty of real music with my game after decades of hit and miss composition.

Re:Misleading

[mcvos]

The only things that are decent are things that add to the game, such as actual restaraunts in Crazy Taxi, or EA's use of actual songs for their soundtracks (in Burnout for example).

A couple of years ago I had an idea for a bicylce simulator where you'd be a bike courier racing through the streets of Amsterdam. Had to make money in order to fix your bike and all that. Which meant bicycle shops. So why not use real bicycle shops? And why not ask them for money for such a promiment role in the game? And while I'm at it, since it's a real city, why not shop other real shops too? And sights; if the graphics are done right, it might even draw a few tourists to the city.

It was a nice idea, with lots of opportunity for advertising that really belonged in the game, but it's probably never going to happen. Not by me, anyway.

Simple, did you fill in the poll?

[SmallFurryCreature]

Most polls mention something like this. 45% said Yes, 50% said No and 5% said don't know.

What they don't say, 35% told us to fuck off and die or just ignored us when we tried to talk to them.

Same with online surveys how many people on being asked to fill one in just ignore it?

When it comes to surveys about ads you can't ignore this group. After all what group is most likely to be irritated by time wasting ads. Those who happily spend time filling in a survey or those that don't want to be bothered.

Can I asume you don't like filling in survey's either as well as hating ads?

Then that is the reason people like you (and me) are not reflected and you can get in our eyes skewed results.

I think ad agencies are idiots. You got the fact that people are trying to escape ads. So what do you do? Try to pacify the group still watching ads to avoid losing them or go after the people who ran away and bombard them with yet more ads? I already use adzapper. What is next should I DOS adservers to make them stop? I DO NOT WANT YOUR ADS. Get it in your fucking skull. Game makers, learn from TV, they have lost the young male audience to the internet and games. It hurtst them but they got other groups. You ain't. Pester those young males and you will loose your only market.

Is this going to be like DVD's again. (watch a pirated movie without ads or pay for a dvd and be forced to sit through endless ads) Shall we in the future not just have hackers remove the copy protection but also the ads?

It ain't like games even come free like tv. STOP BEING SO FUCKING GREEDY.

I remember....

[j2crux]

I remember the first day I saw an NFL Street ad inside of Madden 2004. I knew at that moment that there was going to be an explositon of ad sales in games. Now if we can create and adblock and filterset.g updater for consoles I think many would be much happier! :P

This is Bollocks.

[Lave]

Disclaimer - this post includes angry fucking retoric, and swearing with an english slant

I hate the way that these advertising arseholes have found an untapped niche, where people relax away from the fucking stressful world and realised they can rape it of it's innocence and beauty in exchange for a quick buck. It isn't ok and it isn't right.

The marketing dickshits are currently at step 2 of their plan. The stage where they tell us all we are ok with what they want to do - to soften us up for when they fuck over our games. I would bet a large amount of money these are rigged surveys. Or at least the ones that give you options like:

If games contained advertising then would you:

a) stop buying games altogether

b) Buy more games than ever before.

If you saw a product advertised in a game then would you:

a) Buy it

b)Kill yourself

And don't just think you can just play nice fantasy and sci-fi games that avoid this advertising. You won't. Those games will dramaticcally fall in production when the industry realises that without the advertising revune these projects ar emuch less rewarding.

Oh and I know how games with no loading screens are really important to you. But your fucked. They will have no incentive to decrease load times when they use them as billboards. If anything they will increase.

Give me the game or free and I haven't a problem with ads. But if I buy the fucking thing with my own fucking money then I bought the right to have a few beautiful hours of my life sans adverts for fucking once. (like how slashdot works). There is no in between. If your business can't support those revenue models there is something fundamentally wrong with what you are doin and no amount of advertising will save you.

Re:This is Bollocks.

[PeelBoy]

Exactly. You read my freaking mind.

It's driving me nuts that people here are actually saying they WANT ads in games or they just don't care..

I mean how can you not care? I'm not saying we should all do something about it. We all know it's going to happen eventually. The money is there and unless we all quit playing games it's going to happen if we like it or not.

but how could people not care? If every game already had ads and you asked everybody if they would like the ads removed who is not going to say yes?

I'm fine with ads in content I didn't have to pay for (regular tv, etc..) but in games? that I paid for? That I play to remove my self from reality after a hard days work? ugh.

Re:This is Bollocks.

[geminidomino]

And don't just think you can just play nice fantasy and sci-fi games that avoid this advertising.

Hell no. The first game I saw with ads in it (I don't play racing/sports games) WAS A Sci-Fi RPG. You might have heard of it. It was called "Xenosaga: Episode 1"

Do NOT give that fucktard your email address in the beginning or you'll be getting spammed throughout the whole game.

Re:This is Bollocks.

[AbRASiON]

This post needs a +5 informative and I for one _WILL_ download illegal hacks, cracks and so on to remove the ads.

Infact some games I will have to assume are completely free and subsidised thanks to the ads, hence I'll download the entire game - not just the hacks!

Re:This is Bollocks.

[drinkypoo]

My first time (should I be sharing this?) was playing Wipeout XL, with its ads for Red Bull. The ads worked, too; Red Bull was the first significant "energy drink" in the US and I bought it the first time I saw it, and have been hooked on it since. At least, when I'm driving at night...

Two conditions

[Bongo Bill]

I have no problem with ads under the following circumstances:

-If the game is noticeably cheaper as a result, or

-If the ads are unobtrusive.

Re:Two conditions

[PeelBoy]

What are the odds of either of those happening?

Re:Two conditions

[d3ac0n]

Somewhere between ZERO and ZERO.

Advertisers, we hate you.

Re:Two conditions

[Bongo Bill]

Fairly good, actually. Consider the shareware games that circulated about a decade ago. Those games' prices were reduced considerably due to the advertisement: you didn't even have to pay for them at all! And, of course, there are unobtrusive ads in many sports games. And let's not forget the handful of ad-supported MMOs out there. Don't feel like paying for them? Okay, here's a stripped-down client with some ads, and a free account.

I should point out at this point that by "unobtrusive" I mean merely that they don't force you to respond to them or draw your attention to them in a way that itself is distracting. If it's just a prominently displayed texture with a similar color scheme to the surrounding events, then it doesn't bother me.

Just because they'll tolerate ads, doesn't mean...

[interiot]

The survey asked whether gamers would tolerate games that contained ads. That doesn't meant that gamers and developers are enthusiastic about adding advertisements.

Will the best-loved games of the next decade contain in-game ads? How would Tolkien have reacted if his mythology had been required to include products and services from the real world? If, instead of pulling out lembas bread in the movie, would it have been better if Sam would have pulled out Go-GURT® brand Yogurt? I can't help but think that product placements mar otherwise highly-polished stories.

Is it just me..

[ADRA]

or are their methodologies flawed? I could care less if Ads were in games, but I'd want full disclosure that they -are- in there. Also, if you're making money selling ad-encumbered game, I want a stiff discount on how much you're charging me for the game.

It relates to my movie watching habbits.
DVD
I buy DVD's for the purity of the movie without useless marketing crap. I don't buy DVDs that have no ads, period. If you wanna bleed a bunch of wankers for advertising, lower your prices for ad encumbered -low end- versions of your movies that maybe don't have the special features, etc..

Movie Theatre
Since they're so full of ads these days, its almost impossible to drag me out to any multiplex-type movies. I see indy's cause its still a fun experience.

TV watching
I expect Ads, but the programming is relatively cheap, so I don't have a problem with the annoyance of ads for paying less.

Re:Is it just me..

[Monkelectric]

I don't buy DVDs that have no ads, period

Is there some resource to find out *WHICH* DVDs have advertisements before you buy them? I seem to find out afterwords. I am *INCREDIBLY* pissed about the Season 2 Dead Like Me box set having a two minute unskippable anti-piracy advert, *ON EVERY DISC*. You just paid 50$ for a box set and they're reminding you not to pirate it. From now on I pirate anything with an advert.

Re:Is it just me..

[Rix]

I am *INCREDIBLY* pissed about the Season 2 Dead Like Me box set having a two minute unskippable anti-piracy advert

Like me, you'd never have even known about it if you'd pirated it in the first place.

Re:Is it just me..

[Ahnteis]

www.dvdshrink.org

Remove everything but the movie. No more unskippable. No more hassle.

Re:Is it just me..

[Briareos]

I don't buy DVDs that have no ads, period[.]
[...]
I am *INCREDIBLY* pissed about the Season 2 Dead Like Me box set having a two minute unskippable anti-piracy advert, *ON EVERY DISC*.

Now you've got me confused - are you pro or contra ads?

On one hand, you "won't buy DVDs that have no ads", but on the other, you're "*INCREDIBLY* pissed about [...] a two minute unskippable anti-piracy advert".

Make up your mind, would you?

Re:Is it just me..

[Monkelectric]

That was the parent comments typo, mr funnyman.

Not preferred, just more noticeable

[CousinLarry]

I think this shouldn't be read as an endorsement of in-game ads, but rather a preference for in-game elements that have more effort and thought put into them than stock filler items do.

Usually billboards and soda machines are just slapped in games with some sort of corny, fake logo or slogan that is 60% joke. If these fake, filler billboards had all the attention-grabbing research and professional media strategy and design behind them that real ads do, well, of course players would feel more strongly about them. But they are filler: of COURSE nobody cares if they are replaced with somethign marginally more interesting and planned.

This doesn't imply AT ALL that people like "real" ads simply because they are for real products. It only implies that players favor more complicated, visually interesting elements over rubber-stamped, fake looping background elements.

Invasiveness of advertising

[cdogbert]

When it comes right down to it, I think the majority of people will only become annoyed with advertising when it interferes with their gameplay. When you take people out of the gameplay experience to recognize that a certain product is in the game, then you've crossed the line. I haven't heard of very many people complaining about the billboards that are now common in racing games, or even having the player use a licensed product in the game (guns, cars, or sporting equiptment, anyone?)... but a lot of people are going to get turned off when "product placement" becomes almost like viewing commercial in the game.

Re:Invasiveness of advertising

[VoidWraith]

Let me be the first to complain about billboards in games. I really don't like the billboards in Burnout 3. Why? Its the same four or five ads over and over and over. Plus, they are almost all for other EA games. I find it annoying. Then there's this one for Axe deodorant with a sunglassed face of indeterminate sex that is just disturbing.

Maybe if they had thirty real billboards, it would make them more money and would annoy me less.

Re:Invasiveness of advertising

[Anonymous Coward]

The cute thing with say, cars, in games for example is that up until now, companies like EA have PAID THE CAR COMPANIES a licensing fee to use the real names of the cars in games like Need for Speed. Other companies, eg: Rockstar, have refused to license car names, the result being Midnight Club 1 & 2 which use fictional cars (Midnight Club 3 caved AFAIK, haven't actually played that one).

Now all of a sudden, the car/cell phone/gun/fast food/etc. companies want to pay the game devs to include their products when in the past they've threatened legal action for this very action? Huh?

Just something to think about...

Aside: ironically, my i'm not a bot image is "perplex" ;)

Yeah NG's audience

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, what might NG's demographic be? Because I can tell you _I_ don't read it so...

Also depends on the ad

[sterno]

Frankly I don't mind ads as long as they don't distract from the game environment. If I walk past an ad in the game and it starts making noises or the overall content doesn't really fit the game, it bugs me. I've been playing PlanetSide since it came out and they added the in-game ads a little while ago. I actually have them blocked because they annoyed me so much.

The basic problem with the ads was three things:

1) Some ads were intrusive, making loud noises, etc
2) Almost all the ads didn't fit into the context of the game
3) I was still paying $13/month for the game AND getting ads

To can't say I'd reject a game outright based on ads, but it's all a matter of context. The game will have to have that much more to offer or be cheaper because of them. Also, I'm really not cool with the notion of paying a monthly fee then having to see ads on top of that.

Re:Also depends on the ad

[Firehed]

I agree. In context, I wouldn't be that bothered if the retail cost of the game dropped slightly (as it doesn't, I'm quite unhappy about even the most in-context ads). However, anyone who's played Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory will know that the ads shown within the game are extremely out-of-place and seriously distract from the few-years-in-the-future environment. While SC:CT isn't an MMO, ads combined with Starforce and an overpriced game isn't a good combo, and that combination has stopped me from reinstalling and giving it another play. Having your enemies talking about an "upcoming" game that in context would have been a couple years old is quite distracting from the environment, as are the screensavers for upcoming-but-past movies.

I hate ads anywhere, but the complete disregard for context and customer satisfaction really bugs me to no end. It made an otherwise-excellent game for me into something with relatively low replay value and it became something I was much less likely to recommend. I try to avoid games that have ads within them, not even so much because I hate them but because they're never in context and thus are very distracting.

So...

[AgentAce]

Which game publishing company paid for this delightful dandy to be placed on the front page?

What the hell?

[GigG]

Please help entering the code: 2,2,7,6,6,4 [xccr.com]

What the hell is that?

Re:What the hell?

[LunaticTippy]

GP, please change your sig. Either provide a faq link or give 'er a rest. I, for one, am getting sick of seeing this OT subthread in every article you post to.

Here's some light on the subject

Pass the popcorn

[Sylver Dragon]

What I can't wait to see is who gets sued when one of the ads hosting servers gets hacked. For example, this topic reminded me about the ads in Rainbow 6:Lockdown. Since I first played it, I thought it would be funny to replace the in-game ads with porn. Now, the ads are just comming from some web server, donwloaded and then displayed, how hard will it be to find out what site the game is looking at, redirect the host to a local web server, and send whatever images I want?
How long before someone decides it would be funny to hack the ad server and goatse everyone playing that game?

Re:Pass the popcorn

[meringuoid]

Since I first played it, I thought it would be funny to replace the in-game ads with porn. Now, the ads are just comming from some web server, donwloaded and then displayed, how hard will it be to find out what site the game is looking at, redirect the host to a local web server, and send whatever images I want? How long before someone decides it would be funny to hack the ad server and goatse everyone playing that game?

* forwards this post to Jack Thompson *

Re:Pass the popcorn

[Sylver Dragon]

Hmm, use Jack Thompson to stop in-game ads. Brilliant!

Re:Pass the popcorn

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, the ESRB will simply rerate the game to Mature since the game disc contained a hyperlink that could be changed by a third party mod.

no biggie

[pupstah]

Yeah, as long as I don't have to sit and watch and ad, billboards/signs/radio noise/etc are all perfectly fine in my gaming, and can add to 'realism' when done right. Even the fake ads in BF2 give a sense of blend.

Pay to See Ads

[cheap_tibet]

If a game I buy has ads, it better cost less than a comparable game without ads. I think that it probably won't work out that way, though - look at what happened to cable TV. It used to be that you paid extra money so you didn't have to see ads, now we pay the same amount for 200 crappy channels and commercials more frequent than on non-cable channels.

Overall, though, as long as the ads fit the theme of the game, I won't mind too much. I don't want to see an ad for Pepsi in a fantasy roleplaying game, but it might be okay in a World War II-era game.

Re:Pay to See Ads

[BoxSocial]

Yeah and then how long before developers stop making games where it wouldn't be appropriate to advertise and we end up with even more shitty World War II shooters than we get at the minute?

I think the issue is zero benefit for gamers

[TheAxeMaster]

Think about it, games aren't going to get cheaper. That's because they've already worked the public into being (relatively) comfortable paying what they pay for games. If the game makers add in game ads, they won't lower the price, they'll just use it to increase profits. It won't help in immersiveness, people are trying to escape that crap, not get more into it. There are a very few games where you could replace the nondescript coke machines with actual coke machines but it would be more distracting than anything. And they're going to use MY bandwidth to change the ads around? I don't think so! I personally won't buy a game if I know it has ads in it, because it doesn't benefit me one bit.
 
I think one of the only places where it works is sponsorship bits for sim games. Like it was mentioned earlier, getting a greddy turbo for your car in a racing game or some brand name clubs in a golf game. Then maybe the advertisers will be too busy arguing about why one person's brand of clubs gives them more of a benefit than the others to think up any new an annoying schemes. Ads anywhere else it will be annoying, out of place and invasive.

Re:I think the issue is zero benefit for gamers

[FLEB]

It won't help in immersiveness, people are trying to escape that crap, not get more into it.

I disagree. Well-applied, advertisements and other added micro-realism can help an "escapism", by helping with the suspension of disbelief. More "escape from reality" can come from doing or being unrealistic things in the world you already know than having to swallow both a new role and a new world.

Granted, it's a tightrope, as advertisers need (ought) to give up some freedom in how the player may interact with their ads, and game designers should only portray the product placements in a realistic light. Unfortunately, many advertisers and trademark-owners can't give up that control, and games either end up genericized or plastered with unnatural ads.

Re:I think the issue is zero benefit for gamers

[d3ac0n]

Sorry buddy. You are DEAD wrong on this one. The only, and I mean ONLY places where ads MIGHT fit in, MAYBE is in games set in modern-day settings, and in places where one would expect to see ads. Which basically means Sports titles, and THAT IS ALL.

Frankly, I'm with the guy above you. I HAVE ALREADY PAID a pretty penny to play that game, and I'll be DAMNED If I'm going to allow my expensive Cable Modem Bandwidth be used so someone else can make a buck!

Don't even get me STARTED on the privacy issues involved here. What most people here fail to understand is that the companies are collecting personally identifiable information via the game that they can then use to sell and make more money, or spam you with more ads!

Think about it. Let's take a game like Planetside. Massive, the ad company, has placed thier putrescent ad engine into that game. The ad engine generates a unique SID based on hardware and software information on the PC. This SID accompanies any and all "viewing" information that is sent back to Massive regarding which ads you looked at and for how long. This info can be tied to your login to the game, which is tied to your billing information and your e-mail address.

Let's say you have a Fanta ad in the game (Planetside did actually have those for awhile) and you spend a large amount of time looking at those ads. Massive can work with SOE (the Planetside game company) and it's advertisers to then send you SPAM e-mail with Fanta offers and ads, or send them directly to your home or billing address!

This becomes a HUGE invasion of privacy, done on the backs of gamers, so some greedy corporations can make another buck pissing us all off with invasive and annoying ads. (Don't even get me started on what all those ads do to your framerates!)

You can read more about it at my blog, http://wearyman.blogspot.com/2005/08/privacy-lies- and-videogames.html

We gamers need to tell advertisers that we can't stand the ads, or there will only be more of them, and they will be more intrusive and obnoxious. And we will still have to pay top dollar for the games, just to be annoyed.

(No ads on my blog, BTW. I would never do that to /.ers.)

in-game ads

[Anonymous Coward]

that's weird 'cause i'm a gamer and i hate the idea of in-game ads. but, who am i to say.

It depends upon how relevant the commercials are

[Anonymous Coward]

If I'm playing Super Mario Galaxy, are the commercials going to be about 'shoomz?

Re:Just because they'll tolerate ads, doesn't mean

[PeelBoy]

When they spend 3 or 4 years and 50 million dollars to develop a game that caters to the hardcore gamer those ads are going to be real tempting to throw in there regardless of the fact that they might not want too. Especially when advertisers are waving money right in front of their faces and talking about all the untapped market.

Re:Just because they'll tolerate ads, doesn't mean

[loraksus]

If, instead of pulling out lembas bread in the movie, would it have been better if Sam would have pulled out Go-GURT® brand Yogurt?
No, but take for example a games like F.E.A.R, Doom 3 or Duke 3D. A coke, pepsi or vending machine isn't exactly out of place, and to be completely honest, not seeing one is odd. Ditto with billboards, or anything "painted" on the side of a building (instead of the same boring texture over and over).

And, of course, it would be pretty damn strange to have a coke ad in an RTS, although IIRC, Blizzard had rotating banner ads in the online game rooms in Starcraft (not quite "in game", I know, but...)

I can't help but think that product placements mar otherwise highly-polished stories.
The fact of the matter is that most of the games out there are actually pretty shallow, so filling them with advertising doesn't do all that much damage. That said, if you want to, you can make in game ads annoying. If every 10th building is a mcdonalds or whatever... yeah, there you go.
I realize that you do have to fit all your maps and textures onto a cd or dvd, so there is a limititation on the game designers there, but that really isn't an excuse.
I would miss the usually funny in-game ads for ficticious products in FPS's though.

Depends on the kind and the presentation of the ad

[Opportunist]

It highly depends on the kind of game and on the way the ad is presented.

If I play a fantasy game and my trusted war horse is a Fiat (cheap) or a BMW (expensive), that would kinda kill the mood. Imagine saddle bags in a medieval setting in striking white with a BMW logo on it.

I can, though, see a sci-fi setting where I can pull some Red Bull from a vending machine that boosts my power (or even lets me fly :)).

Same applies to banners. Ads on race cars or as banners on the side of the track actually add to the realism. If I come to a fantasy town and see some billboard, reminding me that I should refinance my home is silly.

Do I Care? Yes and No.

[KermodeBear]

As long as the advertising isn't too intrusive, I don't really care all that much.

Let's take, for example, a game like the original Half-Life. There are some vending machines in the game with some made up logos. What if they were replaced with Coca-Cola logos instead? Well, considering that the game is supposed to be somewhat 'today' with a sci-fi theme, it would fit and it wouldn't be obnoxious. If it helped in lowering the cost of the game (which it never would, but hey, we can dream) then even better.

Now, if I was sent on a quest of some kind to get someone a Gatorade to quench their thirst, I would be a bit miffed and I would be less inclined to buy the product in the future. Or, if the product placement is just way out of place (So, in Xen, the aliens drive a Yaris, huh?) then they're really in trouble.

All in all, I don't really want advertising because I don't see the benefit for me. But, I can't say that it is going to change my game buying behavior which is all the companies ultimately care about.

Where do I sign/vote?

[Some_Llama]

I'd like to voice my opinion of a gamer who is very mainstream and controls the purchasing decisions for 2 toher young gamers in my household.

I will not buy games with ADs, leave my games alone, leave me the frick alone, and go somewhere else.

Can I have one Fricken place IN THIS WORLD where I can indulge in a pleasure and not intruded upon with ADs?!?!?!

I ALREADY PAID FOR THE GAME!!!

Hands off, for the love of all things good and pure, please stay away.. where does this shit end?!?

Leela: Didn't you have ads in the 20th century?

Fry: Well, sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio. And in magazines and movies and at ball games and on buses and milk cartons and T-shirts and written in the sky. But not in dreams. No, sir-ee!

This Story Means Nothing

[cbnmedia]

What a waste of vitual ink

Bullshit!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sick of advertising. I have never been stupid enough to buy something based on advertising. When I need something, I look at what's available and make a real decision. Clothing, food, insurance, computer stuff, whatever.

I use an adblocker for internet browsing, I have to have a spam blocker for my email, am I going to need an adblocking hack for my next gen game console (if I even get one)?

Crazy Taxi

[Allison Geode]

I hate in-game advertisements, but realistic product placement in a reality-themed world is acceptable. crazy taxi did this: you had to take people to *real* locations, like Tower Records, or the Levi store, or KFC... granted, it seemed a little odd that people wanted to pay a taxi to go to KFC, but then again, the way I drive, it seems a bit odd that they'd get in the taxi at all.

in my opinion, if product placement can add to a gameworld, awesome. but collectible Bawl's bottlecaps in "brotherhood of steel" = "NO, GOD NO, FUCK NO, LEAVE ME ALONE!"

People who legitimately prefer China over $ony

[tepples]

However, when given a choice, we'll still take Coke over RC Cola, Tide over Generic Brand, or Sony over Chinageneric.

I don't know about you, Ubergrendle, but I actually prefer RC to Pepsi and Pepsi to Coke (unless it's Cherry or Vanilla Coke).

I also prefer Chinese DVD players to Sony products. Chinese brands are more likely to play (S)VCD and other formats in addition to DVD-Video, to play both PAL and NTSC all-region discs by scaling the video, and to be easy to region-unlock. Compare to Sony and its DRM, rootkits, lack of PAL support in NTSC PS2 consoles, and comparatively restrictive licensing of physical media formats (Betamax, MiniDisc, Memory Stick, UMD).

Re:People who legitimately prefer China over $ony

[Ubergrendle]

I agree on both your counts -- i like RC Cola, and rarely pay from brand-name electronics (knowing its all usually manufactured in the same facotry).

Advertising is targetted at our passive decision making abilities, not our rational mind. Early TV advertisements attempted to convince the consumer to buy something through rational arguments... but it was a losing condition, as people are naturally distrusful of salesmen (as they should be). Modern advertising (post 1967) all focuses on 'experience', feelings, emotional response... areas where rational thought are absent. When you're watching TV or a movie, your rational centres in the brain shut down for the most part...we really are drones a la the matrix. ;)

Computers and electronics are a notoriously difficult market to sell in, because the consumers are so educated and so pragmatic. I'll spend days researching and collecting opinions on an LCD purchase for my home PC, but when it comes time to buy a drink at the newspaper stand... .5 second decision to pick a coke (unless I have a prior brand preference).-

As long as it fits in

[mh101]

I remember the first time playing Need for Speed: Underground and rounding a corner and seeing a big McDonald's billboard. I thought it was kinda weird and out of place, mainly because it was so obvious and stood out like a sore thumb. A real life billboard wouldn't have been so bright compared to the darker surroundings.

As long as it looks natural, as much a part of the surroundings as a tree or fence, and it's not a fictional world, then it's somewhat acceptable (I still think it's a sign of them selling out though). If it's a real life setting, like the Seattle course in Gran Turismo for example, then it fits in. But I don't want to be playing a Simpsons video game and see a Coke ad.

Re:As long as it fits in

[triso]

But I don't want to be playing a Simpsons video game and see a Coke ad.

Why, does Bart drink Pespi?

Re:As long as it fits in

[mh101]

I don't think I've seen anyone drink Coke or Pepsi on Simpsons (Disclaimer - I haven't seen most of the newer ones from the past few years). Perhaps a better example would have been if there was a giant "Miller Lite" billboard instead of "Duff". Or a Futurama game with Coke ads instead of Slurm.

Re:As long as it fits in

[mh101]

What I meant was, AFAIK Coke does not exist in the Simpsons universe, so there shouldn't be ads for it. Nothing against Coke... I'm a Coke drinker myself.

Yes, we do care about in-game ads

[WillAffleckUW]

but we're too busy blowing things up or swinging on vines to register our protests.

Anarchy Online

[blackraven14250]

In-game ads, in some situations, make the game world more realistic. Look at Anarchy Online for a great example of this. The only problem with this implementation is that there's not enough ads, so you ended up seeing ads for Motley Crue and Sprite Zero all the time.

Not suprising...

[Sigma 7]

In game ads are generally ineffective as there were plenty of games that included fake ads. Duke Nukem 3D, as one example, littered the first level with ads for upcoming attractions. None of these movies existed (and were considered in-character). The only real advertisements would be in the arcade, where 3D realms advertised there other products as arcade games - and even then, at least one of them was a joke (an ad for Duke "Don't have time to play with myself" Nukem.)

For product advertisements, these are likewise marginally effective. Most people treat them the same way as the othe joke ads and do stuff with them - (e.g. on ads that show a woman, shoot two well-placed bullets) or otherwise make an awkward situation with them.

Of course, Agressive advertisment generates plenty of revenue, but pushes away players in most cases (e.g. having a negative gain.) AFAIK, this single game is the sole exception where ads do not push players away.

I already get in-game spam

[andi75]

Gold sellers are sending me mail in-game.

Re:Depends on the kind and the presentation of the

[Yer Mom]

I can, though, see a sci-fi setting where I can pull some Red Bull from a vending machine that boosts my power (or even lets me fly :)).

Worms 3D already had Red Bull as a power-up. I think it made you move faster, but I only played the demo for a bit before deciding Worms should have stayed 2D :)

Then you're a rare breed

[Moraelin]

Well, maybe _you_ realize the value of being subtle and respecting the (potential) customer, but, well, look at internet advertising. (Which in all fairness you do mention.) There the fucktards won the game, so to speak.

It started decent enough there too. Most sites had one small banner on the first page. Nothing in-your face, nothing insisting to stay on top of the text you're trying to read, no fake UIs, etc. Where that ended, well, you know that already.

Maybe _you_ realize what's wrong with that, but there are plenty of psychopaths which basically don't care. They don't even care if it actually helps their paying client sell more products, as long as at the end of the day they have their smoke-and-mirrors "we produced X thousand clicks" statistics.

And belief in "they'll realize the customers won't stand for that" is, no offense, wishful thinking at best. We used to think that about Internet ads too. If you took anyone from the early 90's and told them that 10-15 years later ads would be full-screen animated layers in front of the actual content, extra pages with FMV ads each time you click on a link to an article, etc, they would have said the same. "What? The users will never stand for that kind of thing, and the ad providers know it!! People would stop going to that web site!!" It didn't quite work that way, did it?

Yeah, I'm bitter, but I prefer to think of it as "grapefruit flavoured" ;)

And if you still think games are immune to that, I have an example where it did already happen. At one point I decided to give Planetside another try. Guess what I was treated to, after it downloaded all the patches? A whole fscking FMV ad for their other planned expansion packs, and I wasn't allowed to skip it either. I found it outraging. Not only it wasted my time with the huge ad itself, but it wasted my time to download it as part of a "patch". But I guess the marketroid that came up with that couldn't care less.

So at least at one company (Sony), the marketting guys/girls were already able to impose that kind of a heavy-handed slap in the paying customer's face.

And here's what else I can see coming and I'm definitely not looking forward to:

- heavy-handed blatantly-in-your-face advertising that breaks any suspension of disbelief. (E.g., I can live with having Coca Cola machines and bars selling Coca Cola all over the place, but if they go and make Coca Cola be the mana potions and work some blatant advertisment quests into the main line... well, there goes suspension of disbelief right there. Sorry, there's _no_ way I could take such a universe seriously. Maybe as a parody, but not seriously. E.g., I can live with Yahoo! ads on billboards, but don't freaking go and change my PSO Mag into a floating ad banner for Yahoo! like Sega did. That was one subscription cancelled right there and then.)

- ad providers insisting that all ads are non-cacheable and loaded directly off their servers, so they can personally count the number of hits. See web pages everywhere which would load in 1 second otherwise, but end up taking 10 seconds to load because of the ads. I'm _not_ looking forward to seeing the same effect on games' level load times.

- publishers starting to accept or reject games and settings not based on their merits, but on how suited they are for in-game advertising. E.g., rejecting a great game like Jade Empire just because Coca Cola ads would look out of place in it.

Re:Then you're a rare breed

[robson]

Well, maybe _you_ realize the value of being subtle and respecting the (potential) customer, but, well, look at internet advertising. (Which in all fairness you do mention.) There the fucktards won the game, so to speak.

Have the fucktards indeed won, though? Yeah, there are a lot of irritating ads, but hasn't Google done quite well with text-based minimally-invasive ads? (In other words, might it be too early to announce a winner?)

Update the headline, survey is inherently biased!

[casemon]

"15 percent of heavy gamers are 'unlikely' to play a game that utilizes in-game ads, but one-third said they are 'likely' to play games with ads, while 52 percent said it makes no difference. Also among heavy gamers, 17 percent said..."

Headline is inaccurate, the survey exclusively targets fat gamers... which is to say, oh... uh all of them, so nevermind.

Neopets

[kria]

I was going to type out a long subject, then decided to keep it short and sweet.

Neopets is funded through advertisements (and a probably tiny amount for their premium service, but that's relatively new. I have no numbers, this is a guess.)

Ads on Neopets are:
1) Banner Ads
2) Games
3) In-Game items
4) Non-Game locations that can be visited

The only ads I've heard people complain about on the boards I visit (yes, I'm 29 and I play Neopets. Shut up.) are the banner ads, and like any other, they can be turned off with the right software.

It's an entire site with millions of users, supported this way.

billboard-type stuff is fine

[mehu]

I actually bought Jak & Daxter after seeing a billboard for it in the background of one of the Ratchet & Clank games (and after noticing that R&C used the rendering engine from Naughty Dog, which does J&D). Eventually got all 3, actually, so there's a direct sale. Of course, it's impossible for their marketers to know that, as there's absolutely no way of tracking it.

Covered By 1Up Yours

[EXTomar]

And I agree with the general conclusions on the topic:

- In game advertising won't reduce the price of the game.
No one should have any illusions that if a $60 game has paid advertising in game that it will come down to $20. Producers will just pocket the extra revenue.

- In game advertising makes sense in some places and is in fact expected while others it sticks out like a sore thumb.
For a game like Grand Turismo, sponsorship is a part of the racing experience. You should see logos and other other stuff trying to get them to notice their car products. This is tolerated and even expected. However if you are playing in World of Warcraft and you see an advertisement for "Buy a Burger King Whopper and wash it down with a cool Pepsi because PVP is hard work!" that seems to offend people.

- In game advertising is not "traditional advertising" so one shouldn't treat it as such.
If in game advertising is a "necessary evil", then do something fun with it. Instead of having a static image on a billboard as you drive around in the game, do something fun with it. In sand box games Grand Theft Auto, instead of just putting billboards around the city that say "Eat Burger King Whoppers!", how about actually putting Burger King stores in the game? This might be risky to the corperate suits but it might pay off well if they can work closely with the game designers.

That's the scary part, and it happened before

[Moraelin]

Frankly, that's what scares me the most. If ads become common place, how do you think publishers are going to respect that? I'll tell you how: by stopping publishing medieval games completely. Give them a choice between:

A) an interesting game set in a refreshingly new medieval setup, like Jade Empire, _but_ you can't put Coca Cola and McDonalds ads in it, or not without massively losing more sales than it's worth in the resulting player outrage (even if EB Games won't give you your money back for that, you _can_ warn other potential buyers that the game is nigh impossible to suspend disbelief in. People tell their friends whether a game or a movie was good or bad all the time.)

B) Yet another cheap CS clone set in the modern day. Probably won't be a bestseller as such, but you can recoup at least half the development costs out of ads alone.

Which do you think the average publisher will choose? It's not even speculation, it's a rehash of what's already happened. You can already _know_ what the publisher will choose, because they all have already made a similar choice in a similar situation.

See, there was this dark age in the second half of the 90's, and first years of the new millenium, when everyone produced yet another FPS and most were just unimaginative "me too" clones. On the other hand, genres like adventures skirted with extinction. And the funny part is that it wasn't because gamer tastes had changed. The adventure games market was actually not only alive, but _growing_, yet everyone abandoned it.

You know why that happened? Because FPS were cheaper to produce. You only needed to license any cheap 3D engine, throw together a couple of levels and skins, and call it a game. You didn't need to spend money on scripting a story or complex animations for the interactions or anything. You could make a FPS on _much_ less money than an adventure, so you'd make a profit even if you sold a lot less copies.

So we already know what the publishers chose: the game that was cheaper to produce. Now throw ads in that equation and it's the same situation all over again. I can just see every single game being simply whatever kind or setting promises to rake in the most ad money. And whole genres like medieval RPG disappearing just because they're not that good a place for ads, and they cost more to produce without ads.

And if you're not scared yet, consider this: there was an exit out of that "me too" FPS age, in the form that eventually FPS too needed scripting and animations, so the cost gap narrowed over time. On the other hand, if we do enter a dark age of in-game ads, there may never be a way out. Once publishers start choosing games based on how suited they are for ads, there's no obvious exit from _that_. Whole genres may not just temporarily skirt extinction, but may go extinct and _stay_ extinct for ever.

If you work in marketing, please kill yourself.

[lneely42]

There's a reason that gamers are indifferent to in-game advertising, if this is indeed true. Assuming this study was conducted on an American majority (which is usually safe to assume), they're bombarded with advertisement everyday at almost any given time during the day.

Advertising has become something of a "norm" in American society, and I'm pretty sure that is becoming more and more widespread as time goes on.

I fall into the fifteen percent that despise in-game advertising. I think it's a cheap fucking ploy to bombard me with more ads than I already see. Fuck, I'm staring at an AMD, a Sony, and a Microsoft advertisement as I type this. (A good number of you are probably at LEAST staring at the Microsoft ad. It's called Windows.)

Maybe I should expound. I guess I don't mind when someone just HAPPENS to be smoking x-brand or drinking some brand cola. Fine. It's unobtrusive. On that same note, take a game like the newer Need for Speed games (Underground 1 and 2 and Most Wanted). The games have BECOME advertisements in themselves!

Anyway... that's enough for my rant before I go off on a tangent. My two cents on the subject. -LN

Common Sense

[maumedia]

Does anyone else find these studies somewhat pointless? It seems like some basic common sense could be applied, and companies can skip these self-serving focus groups. If the game is a must-have, kick-ass, breakthrough title, then ads won't really impact sales much. "well, you know, I'd like to play the best game of the year, but I can't look at a Pepsi logo occasionally." Unlikely. If the ads are extremely jarring or out of place, they probably won't go over well. If Fable 2 has a billboard for Gatorade, expect much flipping out. If the ads are unfocused or regionally misplaced, then they'll likely annoy. Eg. if Canadians have to sit through ads for US telecoms, or if they advertise the next Dr.Phil book in GTA4 or something. Common sense: If they do things tastefully, then it will go over well. If they don't, then they get what they deserve. And some people will bitch no matter how they do it. And I think it's clear that if they don't reduce the price of the game somewhat to account for signifigant new revenue, they will generate ill-will in their consumer base. Money talks. As much as people hate marketing, if they could purchase GTA4 for $30 because it was sponsored by Coke, Nike and Honda, it WOULD make the game more attractive, and represent a positive mindshare return for the sponsors.

Re:Common Sense

[rAiNsT0rm]

You've missed one other key point in the uselessness of this study. The gamers who are opposed to in-game adverts are _not_ going to take a freaking survey about advertising! So the entire premise is wrong and completely pointless.

In another post on this topic I brought up the CS Subway ads, way more than 15% of players complained about it... so I am certainly not alone in my aversion to in-game ad's as are quite a few others.

But there's an upside

[JonTurner]

I have no problem with in-game ads. It's those interminable in-game focus groups and surveys that make a game unplayable.

Yeah, but unlike real life, when a person comes up to you in a game and asks "Excuse me sir, do you have a to share your opinions about..." you can go postal & shoot them. Can you say "target rich environment?"

"You wanna know my opinion about beef jerky? Well, here's what I think... BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM! -click- (reload) BLAM! Anything else I can clear up for you today?"