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.'"

Comments

not authorized on my PC

[El_Muerte_TDS]

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.

Re:not authorized on my PC

[Aladrin]

While I applaud you for 'voting with your wallet' (not enough people do this, I'm afraid) I have to disagree with your view.

Ad revenue has pretty much been proving to be significant for a company. A famous search engine comes to mind. And game production costs ARE rising.

I only object to in-game ads if they are obnoxious and/or annoying. Billboards in a city, or product placement are fine. I'm on the fence about loading screens... I'm afraid they'd abuse that one pretty quickly. (Minimum load-time, etc.)

In the end, it simply matters whether the ad placement was tasteful or not. If not, then I'll be another one 'voting with my wallet.'

Worrying

[simm1701]

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!

Re:Worrying

[cliffski]

As someone who once had the toe-curling job of implementing in-game ads for a game (shudder), I can 100% cast-iron pledge an assurance to you, that if you had ads on loading screens, the minimum duration of that loading screen would be hardcoded in the game and written explicitly into the advertising contract, regardless of what spec your PC was.
They would probably also want assurances that the art assets, sounds and code for displaying the ad was sufficiently encrypted to make it difficult to remove, AND contractually oblige the developer to automatically replace any such 'cracked' ads detected by any patches.

Yes, they really are that fucking evil.