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Take-Two Signs In-Game Ad Deal
Gamespot reports that publisher Take-Two Interactive has signed a deal with the Double Fusion company for in-game ads. The company has been signed on for somewhere around nine of titles in 2007 and 2008. From the article: "'With respect to dynamic ads, we can only serve dynamic ads as platforms authorize that,' Double Fusion CEO and president Jonathan Epstein told GameSpot. 'And right now, Sony and Nintendo, who have been very busy launching platforms, are still formulating their policies in that regard. So our arrangement is contingent on those platforms authorizing in-game advertising in the first place, and then authorizing Double Fusion as a vendor. We're hopeful that during the time of the deal... we'll see such authorizations and approvals.'"
So, I'm not going to buy it any of their games that contain in-game ads. And if they add it through a patch I'll demand my money back. Going to vote with my wallet.
I get very worried about this whole idea. Ok if its a FPS set in a city or somethign similar and they want to have live add on the bill boards and TVs around the city - then fine - I don't see a problem. But if they want to try and replace a loading scree with a "commercial break" or "a word from our sponsors" then I for one will be looking for a crack to disable it - or taking the game back to the store!
$_="Slashdotter";$syn="OTT";s;..;;;sub _{print shift||$_};s!ash!Perl !;s=$syn=ack=i;tr+LLEd+BLAH+;_"Just Another ";_
Let`s hope we`ll have Adblock for games too.
Ok. I know the reason they are making games is to make money but at a certain point, doesn't it just get greedy? I mean, the whole point of advertising someone else's product is to make money. So I have to buy the game and then sit through shitty popups with bee's that wont stop buzzing while I wait for it to load just so they can get even more money?
Freedom is a state of mind. A mind is a state of being. Stay the fuck out of my mind and my being. - Corporate Avenger
Anarchy Online already does this. They just display game ads on billboards ingame. I fail to see the problem with this and why people are crying/up in arms over it.
I'm The Slime by Frank Zappa
I am gross and perverted
I'm obsessed 'n deranged
I have existed for years
But very little had changed
I am the tool of the Government
And industry too
For I am destined to rule
And regulate you
I may be vile and pernicious
But you can't look away
I make you think I'm delicious
With the stuff that I say
I am the best you can get
Have you guessed me yet?
I am the slime oozin' out
From your TV set
You will obey me while I lead you
And eat the garbage that I feed you
Until the day that we don't need you
Don't got for help...no one will heed you
Your mind is totally controlled
It has been stuffed into my mold
And you will do as you are told
Until the rights to you are sold
That's right, folks..
Don't touch that dial
Well, I am the slime from your video
Oozin' along on your livin'room floor
I am the slime from your video
Can't stop the slime, people, lookit me go
I know everyone is generally against the idea of ads in games but personally it doesn't bother me that much. At this point I am completely oblivious to ads, I don't even notice them on websites anymore and when I'm in a game it's probably going to be grab even less of my attention as I'm focusing more intently on a task than when I'm just viewing a website. That said, there will surely be a limit to this tolerance. If there bright red blinking ads or "punch the monkey" billboards it might garner some attention and surely will distract from the game, but I hope this will never happen. The key here is that the ads be incorporated into the style/genre of the game. If they're blatant and annoying, users will revolt, if they're tasteful (if internet advertisers even know the meaning of this word) and it helps reduce game cost or increase game quality it might be worth it in the end.
"I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability."-Oscar Wilde
Guess I'll have to add Take Two to my personal boycott list, right there alongside EA.
When the reviews came in for the new Battle Field game, and they made note of the non-optional in-game ad delivery system (which, at the time at least, was not printed on the box) it was the last straw, and I immediately took every EA game I owned and turned them into my local trade-in for store credit. I also vowed to never again purchase any game from EA. Ever. Even despite my overwhelming desire to play spore. If I am given an EA game as a gift, I will politely accept it, and tactfully inform the gift giver of my intentions and of my boycott of the company. They lack respect, and are becoming just like commercial TV; another fine service I no longer require.
I play to escape, what I wish to escape is the constant in-my-face barrage of unsolicited suggestion. I will not pay for services that exist to provided such suggestion.
-Buddy of DoQ
I won't buy their games (unless there's a way to block the ads). I'm already full of ads in my life; i don't want more and more.
-- Rastignac was here.
In-game ads could add realism, if done properly. Having ads in the background of sports games would be OK (they're there in the background in real life, anyway). Having miscellaneous brand-name billboards, stores, and trash in urban environments would be OK (unlike having those unnamed vending/soda machines standing around). Now, if everything were the same brands over-and-over, that would be annoying (it's not like City 17 has only Pepsi cans laying around, unless the Combine prefer Pepsi).
System Shock 2: What if instead of the unnamed chip bags, you could pick up Lays or Fritos or Ruffles in different flavors? What if there were different types and flavors of wine?
Splinter Cell series: What if you could pick up a Coke or Pepsi can and throw it for distraction? What if the vending machines were name-brands?
Now if they're thinking about having Wal-Mart ads as loading screens, or something, then that's different. I'd rather see "Loading" than a clothing ad. As long as the ads are appropriate for the environment, then I think it's OK; just as long as they don't overdo it.
I don't reply to Anonymous posts; if you have something to say to me, identify yourself or I won't reply.
Advertising in popular media is basically a fact of life at this point. It's far too profitable to do away with. The only reason this bothers me is the fact that every example of in-game advertising I've seen is far too obtrusive.
I've accepted that this is where games are going. Now that there is a larger and more accepted base of consumers viewing a product, the natural next step is to sell them things while they are entertained. The issue is maintaining the integrity of the original product. It's the same reason pop-ups are frowned upon and generally associated with low-class websites.
The occasional poster or soda can is fine by me. It's a matter of fitting in with the game in question. Things like sponsored loading screens are out of the question, though, because we all know for a fact that it would result in longer loading times (to standardize payment for advertisers).
In-game adds are huge money grab by game publishers/studios. I can understand if titles were free or even reduced in price, but you are required to pay full price for the privilege of watching adds.
This being said - in advertising you are the product, as a result its no loner about making games that are entertaining, its about getting most adds shown to maximum amount of gamers. Most advertising is designed to be intrusive, distracting and is a waste of your time.
Come on, folks. We don't know exactly how this is going to come about. Others have mentioned that advertising or some kind of sponsorship can be eaily integrated into the game to add realism. Would you feel offended by advertising if you had to pass a "real" billboard advertisement in a street racing game? Personally, that wouldn't bother me at all. As long as the advertising becomes part of the environment and doesn't come across like a brick in the face, I don't see it as a problem at all.
What I do have a major problem with is not so much unobtrusive advertising but also that we still have to pay full price for the game! That's the part that really pisses me off! These companies should be implementing a dual-format game: you either pay full price for the game with no ads or you pay a reduced price to get advertising. But charging me full price while still putting adverts in front of me is where they risk losing my sale. If the advertising is not going to reduce the price of the game, then why the hell should I bother to pay the company when they're just going to get even more money that won't benefit their customers at all?!
And, no, the exucse of "You're keeping us in business" is not a viable answer. There are plenty of game companies out there - some large, some independent, some downright small - to compete for our money that neither shove advertising nor in some cases bother with draconian copy protection on their discs! Those are the companies that really deserve our money, so we have plenty of options other than buying games with advertising. It's too bad that companies like Take-Two apparently think they're doing us a favor by making their games available so that we should feel privileged to buy advertisement-laden games. In fact, we're doing them a favor by keeping them in business. Throwing adverts at us while still charging full price for the game will make me much more apt to not keep them in business.
We'll just have to see how they handle this.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
Would these in game dynamic ads be a wonderful "side" bonus to the added apace allowed for by HD-DVD and Blu ray?
I never understood people's problems with in-game ads, especially since they've been around almost as long as video games themselves. The most obvious tie-in is licensing, from the bad (E.T.) to the decent (Simpsons arcade game). Then you've got games that are one giant advertisement (7-Up's Cool Spot, the new Xbox Burker King games). Then you've got the toy-based games (Barbie, Bratz, Pokémon), sponsored games (Ford Racing), etc. And plenty of games have straight-ahead advertisements (Honda ads in SSX3, Jeep ads in the Tony Hawk series).
I think good advertisers know that you can't annoy gamers, you want to deliver a good value for the game, and you want the game to (Warning: Marketing speak ahead) "deliver the brand's core values": something that the $3.99 Burger King games do very well.
I think the games that have exploited ads so far will be the ones using the new ad technology. I don't see the Mario flower being replaced by a Thinking of You 1-800-Flowers Bouquet(tm). But it would be interesting in Madden for the stadiums to have advertisements for local businesses. And micropayments could be replaced by being forced to watch a 60-second Old Spice "ultramercial" while you download a new costume for your character.
If the game you love doesn't have any advertisement content, it's unlikely to have any in the future. But for sports games, racing games, and the like, I can see this definitely being widely adopted. If we wanted to stop it, we should've said something ten years ago.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
I think we all agree that ads in games are fine as long as they don't ruin the immersion. In a car racing game, it is comon to see adds along the side of the road in certain sections of a track. This is fine. If I see an add for Burger King in WoW or if the ultimate helmet drop from Nax is the Burger King guys head, then it becomes a problem. As long as they can keep with the theme of the game, they are fine. As soon as they cross the line, people will get irritated.
The thing that really bothers me is that this is not done to any benefit of the consumer. For example, I go to a movie and before it starts I am watching commercials. Are my prices lowered? Heck no, it is more expensive than ever to go to a movie. Now, I refuse to go to movies. I'll catch it in the $.99 rental bin when it falls of the new release shelf.
If adds become intrusive in a game, I will not buy the game. Period. Unfortunately, companies are too stupid to understand why their consumers are leaving. Instead of thinking "hey, now with the added ad revenue, I can give them a cheaper game/movie ticket and that will increase sales and profit", they are thinking "I am not making enough profit, I better jack up the prices and find a way to insert more ads". If you treat your consumers well, they will become loyal. If you treat them like crap, they will dump you. I don't understand why companies don't catch on to this.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
Nascar games have had In-Game Ad's for a long time and people don't have a problem with that.
The idea of having a realistic environment by having real-world products is all well and good, but under the current system this won't happen. In the case of TV, no station can sign a contract to advertise Coke and to refuse all ads for Pepsi, or to advertise Pepsi while excluding Coke -- it's the law.
However, advertising in games doesn't fall under the same legislation, and I guarantee that companies such as the above will not sign contracts that allow their competitors' products to be advertised in the same games as theirs. Any argument about "realism" is lost when the advertising presents a monopoly.
If video-game advertising is to become mainstream without detriment to the consumer, the advertising market must be regulated. Write to your MP/Senator/tribal warlord today.
HAL.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
The movie industry got greedy and started showing commercials for half an hour before shows. The effect? I started avoiding movies unless I really really wanted to see one. I'm probably not the only one. And now they are complaining of falling revenues. The quality of movies lately has a lot to do with it, but I think the inclusion of all these commercials in the theater also is having an effect.
I expect that if in-game advertising become prevalent, we'll see the same effect. I'll certainly avoid games that make me watch ads.
I honestly believe that placing ads in *any* game will ruin the immersion of the game. The most recent game, BF2142, that tried to put ads in games caused me to not buy the game at all. Not only was BF2142 a clone of Battlefield 2, but it had advertising too. I think that EA knew that their new game was unorignal and basically Battlefield 2 rehashed, that is why they added advertising to milk the genre. Besides, one can easily put the ad servers in the hosts file on their computer. This is exactly what I did with Planetside(When they added advertisements), and it worked very well. Advertisements simply won't work in video games,
Maybe the next GTA will be populated by annoying advertising mascots. That might actually be fun.
Anyone else remember the furor over Battlefield 2142 in-game ads from a few months back?
One of my friends who's a diehard addict to BF2 downloaded the demo and said it took him three full rounds to even notice the ads, and that they didn't bother him once he did. I've heard the same from my other friends who are fans of the series, which leads me to think that this really isn't as big of a deal as people on Slashdot and Digg make it out to be. Of course, there's sales figures as well; I don't think EA's noticed a drastic drop in the number of copies of BF2142 sold as compared to BF2, though I'm basing that off of observation (stores not having the game in stock and online discussion) and sales charts.
Take Two is a different company, yes, but they're undoubtedly smart enough to make sure that the ads won't intrude on the game itself.
Game publishers exist to make money. This is a method for them to do it. You can complain about paying for a game that includes ads; by that same logic, you could complain about buying a DVD (trailers before the main menu) or a magazine and boycott those too. Unless things change significantly, this is a trend that's only going to continue.
Goo goo g'joob.
For games that use Steam authentication, one needs an "account" to play a single-player game, a shared-screen multiplayer game on a home theater PC, or a multiplayer game on an isolated LAN. A lot of people boycott Steam games because of this and are likely to boycott games from other publishers for the same reason. So between take it or leave it, a lot of players will choose to leave it and try another publisher's game in the same genre.
You're muddling two different, and internally diverse parties (theatres, studios (and a host of distributors)) but the problem you point out is true. The television commercials played before the film starts is part of a bigger problem in the movie theatre business. As theatres consolidate and decisions shift further into the reaches of corporate money-manufacturing hive-minds, there's a loss of focus on the very real CULTURAL institution that movie theatres are. The goal isn't to run a successful theatre in the traditional respect, so much as it is to run the most profitable theatre possible. Profit is an important element of success, obviously. A successful theatre should be profitable, but it should also maintain the experience and the mystique that should come with experiencing a film in the cinema.
The idea of the most profitable theatre possible is the driving factor behind things like the TELEVISION ADS played before the trailers/films at some theatres. THIS DEMEANS THE EXPERIENCE OF THE CINEMA. In the drive for diversification and expansion of their revenue base, the inclusion of generic television advertising before films could be the noose around the neck of the industry.
Home theatre systems continue to get better, this is well acknowledged. DVDs are sometimes issued less than six months after an initial theatrical run. Not to mention the obvious implications of the Internet. Yet people still continue to the movies, and they will continue to do so for some time. If DVD releases were simultaneous with theatrical releases, some people would still go to see at least some portion of their movies at a theatre.
That is, as long as movie theatres get their act together and remember what they're supposed to be providing.
Hey guys, I'll hook you up: Nobody pays $10.25 to sit in your house and watch movies on your TV. Not even if you have fantastic cable. Start focusing on being successful theatres again. If that means losing out on the income from pre-show TV ads to maintain the aura of the silver screen, I'm sorry.
Please, someone have a heart. You ARE cheapening the experience with this and other such tactics. When that magic is gone, the biggest screens and the loudest speakers won't bring back the masses.
Movie theatre.. what's what? Oh, a building people went to for advertising and entertainment, way back..
[Wow, this is so fucking OT. Fuck you mods. Fuck you. Look at my fucking karma. Look at that sad-ass shit. Look at my comment history. Do I deserve this shit? Fuck no.]
One issue is that cinemas have to pay most of the money they get from ticket sales to the movie's distributor. That's why they use ads and concessions, to make the money they don't get from ticket sales.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
ads in game and stupid and ineffective. For real results, they need to be incorporated into the gameplay from the beginning. I think it'd be much more effective to drink Pepsis in WoW to heal yourself or shoot Pepsi cans out of your grenade launcher in Unreal Tournament :P
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Since TV and web content is free because of advertising, this means we all get free games! Right?
Um... I'm right there with you about the in-game ads. But for the ads before a movie... just wait to walk in until the movie's ready to start? I mean really, if they bother you THAT much, no one's forcing you to show up early. To me they're just something to watch while I wait for the movie to start.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
You could always just, you know, turn up late.