Slashdot Mirror
More Advertising in Your Next Xbox Game
ejwong writes "TheGameFeed is reporting on Microsoft's plans to offset Xbox360 game costs with more in game advertising under its subsidiary, Massive. In-game ads are gaining popularity and the wave isn't going to stop. Publishers see this as a huge potential for increased game revenues to help offset the rising development costs for the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii. The question is how far will they go, and how much are gamers willing to take?." From the article:
"If you plan on picking up an Xbox 360 title this month, then you're probably picking up one with Massive's in-game ads. Titles such as Crackdown, Def Jam: Icon, MLB 2K7, and Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 are all part of the Massive network showing off ads from Dell, Intel, Discovery Channel, Intel, NBC, Verizon and even the Navy among others. "
We pay an obscene amount of money for the content, and then pay again in eyeballs for advertising. Anybody feeling screwed yet?
Seems that every day, another piece of news shows up telling me that I got out of console gaming at exactly the right time.
This generation just gets more underwhelming by the minute.
Games are getting more and more expensive to produce. This seems like a reasonable extra revenue stream, unless taken to extremes. The market will adjust itself so it's not taken to extremes.
If it does, I will not buy it.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
I don't have any problem with in game ads. If it helps them generate revenue for future development, that can only help create incentive for future games.
Plus, with some games, it makes them more realistic...to have an actual Pepsi, Nike, Pizza Hut, etc. ad in the game rather than just "liberty city pizza".
I would only have a problem with it if the ads took over the game, or they were intrusive on the game play.
For example: If it's just a subway sign, or billboard in a FPS, or those signs hung up around the stadiums in sports games...those are fine...
But if the game actually cuts to a commercial between loading screens...then that's not cool at all.
Microsoft's plans to offset Xbox360 game costs with more in game advertisingBR>
So the games are going to be cheaper right?
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
On racing games the ads only enhance the experience.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
will the processor wars never end?
being vague is almost as cool as doing that other thing...
Besides the immersion being spoiled (at least for me), just think how out of place the ads are going to feel a few months from now.
When I saw that huge axe ad in burnout i thought what's doing it there? it's just so big and outstanding.
Please stop the advertisements in games!
Maybe with marketing. But not with any gamer I've talked to.
None of those games are going to be cheaper to buy because of their ads, which is the only way the gaming community is going to like this. If I can get what would have been a $50 game for $20 because it has ads, I might consider buying the game. But I'm not keen on paying "full" price for a game with ads.
What? I own Crackdown, and I haven't seen a single in-game ad for any real world products - mentioned or otherwise.
Mods: Disagreeing with me != my post Offtopic / Flamebait.
World without hate or war, invaded. Tragic?
Play this tons and haven't seen one ad. In fact I was impressed at the time they took to name a lot of buildings with fake names that gave the city a sense of life.
But I would demand my money back if they did the kind of crap the movies let people get away with (Ads where trailers used to be, etc.)
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Every crackpot conspiracy theorist knows that this has happened since the days that a red monkey threw barrels at us.
I, for one, remain unopposed to and unaffected by ads be they in games, tv, music videos, etc.
Yvan et Nioj!
I had this idea a long time ago, but, as you can guess, I didn't pursue it. now someone else is going to make millions on what could have been my idea.
I don't mind so much in racing games, but if I see a Wal-Mart logo on my needler in Halo 3 then I'm gonna be pissed.
As long as the ads are done well I don't care if they are in my game. We see all kinds of stuff in games that would normally have an ad on it in real life. I don't know how many games have fake ads for products that don't exist to ad to the realism. It doesn't make a difference to me if the vending machine my character walks by says Soda or Cocoa-Cola. Honestly if done correctly in game advertising could really add to the realism of games. Yes it could be very easily overdone and become invasive but if done correctly it could improve games. How you say? Extra income! If the game developers themselves got cash for incorporating real world products in games they could spend more money developing the games and afford to hire better talent. This could be a very good thing for games then again if done wrong it could be the worst thing ever. Only time will tell.
WTF?
May as weell just link to a post I made on Livejournal. It says everything and has screenshots to boot
t ml
http://community.livejournal.com/gamers/2152581.h
I like muppets.
Oh, so I guess the $70 CDN I dropped for Crackdown wasn't enough, they have to make even further revenue by showing advertisements in my game?
If they're going to start using these irritating not-too-decent tactics to make money, I'd like to see a reduction in the exhorbitant friggin prices for games. Give me a break, it's not like Microsoft is strapped for cash. But hey, no worries, right? I guess now I know not to buy any titles related to this "Massive" subsidary.
It's all about how they're used.
For example, Def Jam: Icon probably benefits from in-game advertisements because environments would look more like the real world. Def Jam: Vendetta and Fight for NY had spectacular character customization thanks to the real world clothing labels you could buy and wear in-game. I think if Grand Theft Auto or other modern day games used advertisement, the games would be more immersive.
Heck, even post-apocalyptic games could work advertising in well. I think it'd be cool to see broken down billboards for Coke or Target in a dead city or something.
However, what DOESN'T work is when the advertising sticks out. Crackdown had a terrible billboard advertisement for the Dodge Charger when it first came out (it's now switched to Intel). Why would there be an advertisement for a car company that didn't exist in game? Maybe if they included the car as a drivable vehicle, it would work, but instead it just looked awkward. The free version of Anarchy Online had similar problems, what with animated Navy ads with full sound and really outdated movie posters.
So I don't mind in-game advertising so long as it increases immersion.
When some of the benefits comeback to the consumer. If im fighting in a city I'm not going to be annoyed by adds that MAKE SENSE IN THE CONTEXT THEY APPEAR. If I'm in a city and they year ingame is 2507 I don't want to see Martha Stewart Spring collection on a billboard.
Advertising in games works when they are advertising a BRAND not a product. If advertisers could accept that then ads would not be obtrusive.
You mad
I still like to see certain movies in the theaters, but in order to get a good seat, you need to get there early and submit to a constant barrage of advertising that you just paid $9+ for the privilege of watching.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Where are the Days of Pitfall, Tetris, Mario, ect....? Just fun and simple entertainment not over taken by advertisements...
Not A Troll!
This contamination through advertising is a perversion of the original spirit of videgaming.
What we need is a return to the old days, when videogames were lovingly assembled by hand, one at a time, by well-compensated individuals working together in anarcho-syndicalist collectives.
See, I don't really care if there are in-game adverts in games like crackdown...it's a city, it will help it feel more like a real city.
That being said, if they are going to make money from advert companies putting their shit in there, then pass the savings..make third party titles 50 bucks and first party titles 40 bucks.
Also, don't do it like they did in Fight Night Round 3. I know boxing is like Nascar in that most of the money comes from advertising, but fuck. Give that shit a rest.
Living With a Nerd
I refuse to play games that have heavy advertising tie-ins. If there's a billboard in the background, it's not that big a deal, but a lot of games bring the prducts into the actual gameplay. I stopped playing Tony Hawk when one of the missions involved "50-50 grinding the McDonalds Arch!", or whatever the hell it was.
Same with Fight Night: Round 3. I didn't mind getting Under-Armor and Everlast gear, since it was at least related to the game, but having a huge Burger King ad taking up half the ring? And unlocking "The King" as a trainer? Ugh. I especially disliked Madden 07 for the xbox, which made you sit thru a "Sprint PCS report" at the end of every drive. The strange thing was, the Sprint ad was present in the xbox version and was absent in the xbox 360 and ps2 versions.
These game companies have to be making a fortune in advertising revenue. After all, they're delivering a captive audience to the advertisers: if you're playing a game, you have to be looking at the screen. Yet the games that advertise cost as much as the ones that don't. Screw that. It's like the commercials before movies. If you're charging me the same price as usual, while subjecting me to a new barrage of messages trying to get me to buy shit, then I don't want your product. I'll wait for the DVD, or in this case, buy a different game.
For all we know the moon may be as conscious as a poet or a realtor, and extremely weary of its monotonous round. - HLM
So that means the games won't be...
Oh... really? Still $60?
Nevermind.
Game... blouses.
...ads in a game like CrackDown actually (maybe I'm crazy but at least to me) more immersive in that it seems a bit more of a 'real world' setting type. I'm not explaining this very well, but it seems very much in line with the urban setting of CrackDown (heck they have to decorate those boards with something anyhow.) Now, if I see ads for the R600 in Oblivion...
Loading...
Hey, I could advertise a 360 console repair buisness on there, given the horrendous reliability of the 360.. .LOL...
I recall a recent Slashdot post - In Game Ads May Just Not Work - that basically stated that very few people could remember the names of the companies who advertised in-game like that, as the player is too immensed in actually playing the game to really notice. So what's the verdict?
If the answer is yes then who really gives a shit. I mean as long as we don't have billboard ads in the middle of a fantasy forest does it matter? The ads in Crackdown didn't bother me a bit. Didn't even notice them until someone pointed them out.
All comes down to delivery. If the ads are well integrated in to the game in a natural way, then it's a bonus. I'd much rather see in game TVs playing ads (which is what real TVs tend to do) rather than a static image, or 4 frame loop of a guy pretending to talk or something. The only problem will be if it is something stupid like a full screen ad that you have to sit and stare at before you are allowed to play, or otherwise invasive in the game environment.
My guess is that console makers are going to limit them mainly to the former kind. Since they have to bless all games that are going to be released, they can maintain this kind of control. I doubt they want to see their gamers get pissed off.
Advertising isn't bad when it's done well. Product placement in movies is often a very nice thing, as it feels more real.
It's inevitable: advertising exists in our world and it will soon extend to virtual ones as well.
Will this lead to cheaper games? Nope
Will this lead to better quality games? Did it ever lead to better quality TV? (answer:sometimes)
Will we be able to cope with all of the extra mindless-consumer targeted advertising being flung at us in 1080p and 7.1 surround? Enh... who knows.
What it will lead to is a better sense of realism. So what if these evil, manipulative advertisements make you switch to drinking Coke and staying free with Stay-Free for a few weeks. When you start your next game (or, if the advertisements are dynamic, when the game switches them for you), you'll be drinking Pepsi happily as an Always girl... I promise!
I mourn the fact that the floodgates have been opened, because I think this will lead to the inevitable decline of the quality of games. For the moment- sure, it doesn't hurt anything, it might even add realism by having actual products in the game, but how long until some game developers are sitting around going "ok, so then we have this level where they walk through a forest and..." "what are you thinking bob? a forest? we can't stick ads in the middle of a forest, how 'bout a 10 minute long cutscene where they are on a subway instead, and ads flash by" "But Jim, the game takes place in 1047AD!" "Hmm, you're right, this whole setting needs to be changed"...etc. Of course, that's the more subtle way that ads will ruin games, the obvious fact is that advertisers don't f*cking realize that people get tired of their f*cking ads, and they keep pusing more and more intrusive ads on us. For people who say "ads will only go as far as players are willing to put up with them" - see the internet. People develop pop-up blockers and flash blockers and ad blockers to avoid ads, and marketers just keep comming up with new ways to spew their crap forth into our minds- single mindeldly bent on infesting every single facet of our lives with ceaseless messages to buy buy buy their soda and pills and toothpaste.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
adverts around the ground of football/soccer/basketball etc will be ok AS LONG AS THEY ARE NOT ANIMATED. If they are - bye bye wont be buying it
if im playing some kind of game where you are in a futuristic/medieval/post apocalyptic environment, how are they going to fit in with the environs? "Foorsooth my leige, try this brown effervescent elixier and watch your teeth fall out!"
If there is an ad break between levels or at the start of the game, forget it.
in GTA though you could put ads in the radio easily enough.
Heck they already show powerbars, and stuff fromt eh North Face and even werid Japanese jello like stuff they should be a shoe in.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
I just got done beating Crackdown and don't remember seeing any ads. If I had paid for in-game advertising... I'd want my money back.
I eat Karma for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That's why I don't have any.
Software is expensive to develop.
And games are getting more and more content added which has got to be paid for somehow.
Provided they don't take this advertising thing too far (e.g. they invade your privacy or start interfering with the gameplay) I much prefer it to the other methods of revenue generation such as micro content or episodic content, or outright increasing the price!
it Depends on HOW the ads are delivered. If I have to deal with ads like I do in the theatre before the Movie, or on a DVD then it's over for me.
I'd accept an ad that is a part of game play.... A billboard for Pepsi as I drive in search of the next pedestrian to run over wouldn't be bad. Or real ads in the stadium just like you'd see if you go to watch a real sporting event.
But there is probably something in between the innocuous and the obnoxious that will be a line for me that goes too far for someone else.
I know that the really good games cost a small (sometimes a large) fortune to produce..... thousands of manhours, artists, programmers, layout people, scripters, a good game can be more complex to produce than a good movie. To make that happen someone has to pay for it. If advertising caps the price of a game, or better yet reduces it, I'd accept some level of in game ads.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
Dear Consumer,
Thank you for noticing our ad in your video game. We appreciate the glowing praise, as we pride ourselves on our outstanding advertising program.
In answer to your question "what's [it doing] there:" Thank you for noticing our ad in your video game.
Sincerely,
Axe Marketing
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
If it bothers you, just don't buy the game.
Buy a cool, refreshing Coca-Cola instead.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
I'm going to cite Crazy Taxi as a good example of this. The advertising is well placed and does not significantly interfere with game play (in fact, it may make it seem more realistic). I for one was never offended by any of it.
That's not saying I trust MS to make the correct decision when they outline the in-game advertising guidelines. . .
Per Square Mile, a blog about density
Advertising is really beggining to reach the level of absurdity. I can understand the line of reasoning behind putting advertisements on non-cable TV, but this strange trend to put advertisements into content that the consumer already has paid for boggles my mind. Yes, advertising to cover the costs free services makes sense, but when it goes towards a pay service it is nothing but greed and trying to sodomize your customers for more money.
I stopped going to baseball games because our stadium here is so peppered in ads that it distracts from the game (heck, when ESPN or such is broadcasting the game, sometimes they even pause the game for ads on TV). Our local school buses (whats left to them, most kids now being forced to use our shoddy public transportation) have ads on them. You buy a new computer and it is covered with useless services which pretty much amount to the same thing as ads. Hell its beginning to seem that a good portion of online "user" content is nothing but ads. Avertisers are now turning to strange manipulations like sending nice looking women to bars to through our nonchalant comments like "Man, my new copy of MICROSOFT WINDOWS VISTA makes me steamy and hot!".
What ever happened to quality selling a service?
I really think that ubiquitous advertisement is having bad consequences on people psychologically and sociologically. Advertisements depend on people not using judgment, and encouraging snap judgments based on no information, which, last I checked, is not a desirable trait. Second they further fragment society into little classes. "I'm a Nike person, who likes Coke, and runs Windows!", "Oh yeah? I'm a Reebok person who drinks Mountain Dew, and has a Mac!" Call it brand loyalty or idiocy. Hell I even knew a girl with the Nike swoosh tattooed to her arm (willingly, Nike has nothing to do with it), she didn't understand my laughing at her like it was the most absurd thing I've ever seen. She really thought that "Nike" meant something (not the goddess, the corporate symbol), which is the ultimate goal of these companies.
To get a little postmodern here, advertisements try to manipulate us to live in some realm of arbitrary symbols. They try to manipulate us in all ways except rationally. The whole game is creating a need where none really exists, and this extends beyond individual products, to the whole class of consumerism. We actually beleive, now, that we need various consumer goods to survive, and we need to update these every product revision. Take cell-phones for example, how often have people told you that they couldn't live without them? We don't need consumer goods to survive. We don't need to upgrade them daily.
The new form of ads are even subverting the best way to find quality products, word of mouth. How can you trust anyone when shills are spending millions creating artificial word of mouth? I'll continue blocking all ads online, not watching television, and staying away from sporting events, and boycotting services with obnoxious ads (as opposed to innocuous or clever ones saying what a service actually does).
Yes, you can tell that this whole issue pisses me off.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Sorry to break it to the industry/advertisers but this is the wrong way to make a profit. The only time when in game adverts are allowed is on freeware/shareware. Software/Hardware that is paid for should never have adverts forced on people.
I really hope they enjoy finding themselves new jobs once the fallout of this stupidity becomes obvious to these oblivious people.
Btw, names of people who approved this crap would be appreciated.
Support your local school shooter, give them your firearms.
If the games become cheaper or free, I might agree, otherwise... no.
I don't own a console nor do I play commercial games, I think commercials might even augment a realistic game (as in racing) but I don't want real stuff that reminds me of this world in my fantasy game.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
I'm looking forward to see a dragon in WoW flying around with a banner tied to its tail with the words "Drink more Coca-Cola." /sarcasm
But I wouldn't care that much if the price drops to $5/game and $0.50/month subscription.
As I think about this, I realize that effectively, most sports games serve as one giant advertisement for the major league franchises they emulate. When you play the latest EA Sports Hockey game for example, you're playing with simulations of the *actual* lineup of players at the real games. You're playing in recreations of the real sports venues you pay for tickets to see the real games in. The league even gets to make rules about what can and can't be done in the games! (Remember when all the fights were banned from the hockey games because the NHL didn't approve of it being in them?)
Games like Gran Turismo? Same thing. You don't play with made-up cars. You play with officially licensed replicas of real cars sold by real auto-makers, who get to put their name badges proudly up on your screen. Again, they even get to dictate things like "No virtual car damage is allowed when you wreck!" - despite it making the games less fun to play.
Wait, I thought charging us $60.00 per title was the answer to rising game development costs.
I work on a game that uses Massive advertisements in-game (it was even one of the mentioned titles), Major League Baseball from 2K Sports.
Costs to develop a successful title these days are crazy! Development is only one aspect of those costs. The licensing fees alone would blow you away (especially on a sports title where you have to deal with leagues, players associations, broadcasters, etc). In addition there are costs associated with marketing, legal, etc.
It's true that premium games in this generation now cost 20% more than last generation ($60 compared to $50) and most consumers aren't happy with that so developers and publishers are looking at alternative revenue systems to offset the rising costs without raising the cost of the product directly. In-game ads are one large revenue stream that developers are tapping into. There also looking at micropayments and pay-for-content type systems.
My SIG is a SG-552 Commando
...NOT make more money. They're struggling to stay afloat.
This entire subject is once again being misrepresented. Its not ads they are putting in the games, its product placements. Kinda like the Oakleys in Mission Impossible, or the Dodge trucks in Twister. There is a big differenc between ads and product placement. So, basically this is nothing like cableTV ads and much more like movies.
That said, product placement in movies can get bloody irritating these days too.
This is exactly what stopped me from getting BF2142 (besides EA's notoriety for releasing beta software). How exactly will the game target advertising to you? By sending information to the publisher about your web browsing habits or at the very least scanning your web browser cookies/cache.
Resistance is futile. Your technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. You will become one with the morgue
I believe that this will slowly lead to games that are directed toward advertisements. For instance, who would write an adventure game in the middle of the forest if you cant grab big bucks by advertising coke and nike? Game developers will follow the $$$ in advertising, leading to crap games.
Error reading device 'Signature'. (A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail?
Blockbuster movies already rake in money from product placements and other advertising methods. Despite the inevitable protests about targetting children (anybody bought a Happy Meal lately?), it wouldn't surprise me if blockbuster games follow suit. What would annoy me most though wouldn't be so much the beautifully-rendered Nike T-shirt worn by the game's main protagonist, as much as a heapload of splash screens and animations at the start that I can't skip. I paid money to play a game, not watch advertising jingles!
09F9 1102 9D74 E35B D841 56C5 6356 88C0
I was thinking this subject should be more advertising in your next game. Xbox certainly isn't the first do this. I recall similar efforts in earlier games from other vendors and even on PC titles. I fully expect that as the costs of making games go up so do the revenues. If someone is willing to pay money to put an ad in the game I'd normally expect to see there anyways then fine. Just don't go subliminal about it and put goodyear on anything other than the blimp in the sky.
If it doesn't cut the price in half it isn't worth it.
I hate advertising in games SO much; the same with movies. Product placement is fine but damn it don't make it so obvious! Fucking takes me away from the story in the game/movie.
Product placement in games is however NOT ok, unless it cuts the game price in half as I said, maybe then I can put up with it (it will still be annoying).
If the ads hurt a game, the game will suck and will fail.
If ads dont intrude in an otherwise good game, it will probably succeed.
In either case, there's hardly any news here. There've been ads in games (and games that were ads themselves) since the very beginning.
The only new thing is these are being sent over the internet. Big whoopty doo.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
i think it is more realistic this way...just look outside in a city and see how much advertisement there is...
The article mentions the Wii in that sentence, yet the Wii is by far the cheapest to develop for, by several hundred thousand, and in some cases a million or more, dollars. I'd say the Wii is the least likely to ever get ads in its games. One more reason to avoid the Dreamcast 360 and Rapestation 3 at all costs.
"Sufferin' succotash."
My company pays for my second life account so long as my avatar walks around with a large sign reading GOLF SALE.
Update. I know, second life isn't subscription, and that all objects have the resolution of a 1992 internet jpeg.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away....
Cable Television's (or 'Paid Television') primary selling point was the fact you could watch a sitcom/movie or whatever without any advertisements. After all, that's why you paid for the service and ABC, CBS, NBC were free and paid for via advertisements.
Today, I refuse to buy a Television, because even with paying for the service, "Basic Cable" even, you are bombarded with advertisements and I'm left wondering... "why am I paying a monthly bill for this for?".
So, I invest in DVD players and other media. Much much better. I can put a DVD in my computer, and jump straight to what I paid for, no hassles, no interruption. If, I had to watch advertisements on the DVD, I would likely get annoyed enough to ponder the possibilities of alternatives; and that's with advertisements before or after the main feature.
If I have to be interrupted during the main feature, we have a huge problem then.
So, advertisements before the feature film, game... OK, that's barely tolerable, but tolerable noless. If I'm playing a PS2/PS3 or whatever game, and during game play I'm interrupted with a advertisement? That is bullshit, through and through and regardless of the quality of the game, it's going right through the window... window pane and all. The interruption to load the next map/scene is tolerable, but it should never be tolerable for the loading screen to be an advertisement, because once they get granted that modest mistake, then the precedent will be laid to say that consumers enjoy the occasional advertisement. (While the load screens currently are a matter of technical limitations 'speeds of DVD/DISC reads and all', they will magically remain long after those limitations will be gone if we allow any advertisements at all.)
If the game is for free, off the shelf... sure, load it up with advertisements. But, if I pay one measily dime for it, it had better not have a single advertisement. At all, period, 'nuff said, good-bye, shut up, go away, up your's, to hell with you, fuck off.
This has the potential to become a serious problem, but most likely won't be taken that far for a while yet. I don't mind the occasional billboard or poster on the side of a building, but only so long as they aren't intrusive or distracting. If the camera pans automatically to an ad and the player cannot look away, then I'll avoid that game. If the ads have sound that you cannot escape (even if it's masqueraded as an in-game element, such as ambient sound from a TV that you walk past), again, I'll avoid the title.
Besides, what about those games set in the distant past or future? Did the Roman soldiers enjoy a can of Coke before engaging in battle? Do you think it's appropriate to hear about Subway's new Mexican Chicken sandwich for only $6.99 when you're running through the corridors of a futuristic space station? How will this affect developers' creative freedom over the location and time period of their own games?
I don't know about you, but I play games to *escape* the real world. Not to be reminded that I could be saving money by switching insurance companies.
The game developers get revenue even if someone pirates the game this way. A work around might be to find a way to block the ad servers like Ad-Block does for Firefox, but then you might have 404 error textures in game.
Mod me down with all of your hatred, and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
...isn't the ads.
It's the change in who is the game developer's customer.
Currently, for the most part, the product is the game, and the customers are the players.
With advertising content in games, the product is now the gamer's eyeballs, and the customers are the advertisers.
Game content will be dictated by what the advertisers like, and not what the gamers prefer. This will just further re-inforce the franchise problem, where game companies are only interested in publishing the next Halo or Madden.
Good thing I have lots of unread books.
How long until we see Adblock for the Xbox 360?
Gamers tend to be intelligent people (No, I'm not karma-whoring, really!)
I wouldn't give it long until they realise a router can be used to block advertising by making rules to restrict traffic from certain domains..
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
It's not tv. It's HBO.
2142 did not snoop web browsing habits; a few blogs misread the disclaimer and claimed it did, but the disclaimer was somewhat different than the reactionaries made it out to be. DICE clarified things (it only reported what ads you saw in the game), and others investigated it, and nobody produced any evidence that the game did anything at all outside of the game itself.
If you want to argue a point, don't use deliberate misinformation that has been publicly proven to be false.
Hunt your preferred prey at Aliens vs Predator MUD. Join the war at avpmud.com port 4000
So their putting ads in games to offset the cost of making games, but not the cost of my buying the game? Gimme a break. The video-game industries profits are at an all time high and they need MORE money? Last time i checked http://www.futureshop.ca/ Metroid Prime 3 and Super Mario Galaxy were 69.99! Thats 70-fucking-dollars for a video game designed for a "kid-friendly" game sytem? I think not. Thats the great thing about profits and piracy being so high, they don't need my money and the games are easy to find.
Put a wii-mote to my head and paint the walls with my brains.
If they are network based adds, it should be fairly easy to block them, If they are on the DVD itself I think most ppl could be bothered to wait a few days in order to download a free and cleaned up version.
I don't think this is a big deal, I dislike adds with a passion and filter them out aggressively, only adds I still allow are the google text adds. I will even follow the links at times if they are relevant to what I am looking for....
The only people who are going to be upset in the long run are the game makers and their advertisers.....
when done right, the ads bring a real world aspect into the game that aids in suspension of disbelief. Seeing how Crackdown did it, I just wish EA had the foresight to do it for Madden. Sure the actual instadium ads for each stadium would be best, but failing that real brands in the real places would have been a very satisfactory comprimise. Do I love Intel so much that their Core 2 Duo "billboards" improve my life or my ability, no but they make the game that much more immersive.
There's a fence, on one side is the developers, on the other side is gamers. I recently hopped that fence. The biggest thing I noticed is developers are gamers too. most of them buy games and play them. Shocking.
The reason I bring this up is that while 60 bucks is a lot for a game, I learned the true cost of games. Everyone wants the next GTA and so on but look in your instruction books, there's a LOT of people involved in a sandbox game. Even a regular game now takes crews of 20-40 people to produce. Then if you look at SNES games you'll have groups of 10-20 people. Development time is about the same but the cost for producing the game has only increased. It's true that companies are getting more money but the size of those companies have expanded.
Claiming a pc is a better version is just foolhardy because companies are avoiding the PC like the plague for the most part because there's no money there, you can produce a game on the PS2 and the PC and the PS2 will out sell the PC with a large factor because piracy is just too common. In addition every PS2 sold will play your game, not ever PC sold will play it.
So if they can get money from advertising all the more power too them as long as they know how to handle it properly. Games like crackdown worked for the most part because it felt like part of the world. As long as people don't start doing stupid things with the advertising this is something developers will have to embrace and in theory gamers will have to also. It'll produce better games in the long run and perhaps more support (and DLC) too.
People bought and loved this game, even though it has the most aggressive in game ads ever. I mean, The King becomes your trainer at one point. As long as it fits the theme, shouldn't be a problem.
Personally, I play games to get *away* from the real world. I want my gaming experience to be entertaining and exciting, and part of that is a total lack of connection to the real world and reminders of its stresses.
One of these stresses is being bombarded all day long by unwanted advertising. Advertisers have no right to my eyes, ears, attention, money, bandwidth, CPU time, capacity of my mailboxes both physical and digital, or any other aspect of my life or mental space. They are intrusive, unwanted, annoying, capacity-sapping leeches. I block them when surfing websites. I block them from my email. I block them from my physical mailbox. I use time-shifting and DVD ripping to block them from my TV. I show up at movies 20 minutes late so I can catch the start of the feature, or simply download it instead if I don't feel like paying $30 for a ticket and overpriced popcorn. Or, more and more commonly, I simply don't watch the flick at all. I've stopped reading the newspaper because it's 75% ads. Now I get my news online, ad-filtered, about subjects I'm interested in and usually before it hits the local birdcage liner.
The only time I ever want to see an ad is if I am specifically in search of a product. Otherwise, they can stay out of my entertainment, out of my life, and out of my damn games.
Now please don't take this out of context, advertising doesn't work in all genres. If I were playing WoW and I saw a billboard for snacky smores I'd be downright pissed.
I have absolutely no problem with ads so long as they fit the environment. Are there billboards on roads in real life? Yes! So put them in games, it makes them seem more realistic. Are there advertisements in stadiums? Yes! Then by all means put ads in the sports games. As far as I can see, the games on that list all take place in environments where one could reasonably be expected to see ads.
Where I draw the line is putting corporate logos on loading screens or putting them anywhere where I can't look away. Like if I were playing GTA and all the cars had pepsi logos on the roofs I'd be mad.
Oh, a lesson in history from Mr. I'm my own grandpa.
Coka-Cola Drink that gave you 20% speed boost?
Just an item in a vendors slot, no billboards.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
and then there will be a box developed by hackers to intercept the signal for the advert and put up something else. Sort of like the advert blocker.
Sigh....
When will they learn.
See my art -> http://herbevore.deviantart.com
http://youtube.com/watch?v=xKbEsEGXW04
"Just the fax, ma'am."
I have been playing a lot of Crackdown for the past week or so, both single user mode and co-op mode, and whatever ads I saw were not very intrussive.
You are running and jumping around a small city, and sure, it has billboards and posters. We were having so much fun that we did not pay attention to the ads at all.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
That was actually a real ad. At the time that game came out, 7-Up was printing their name on the bottles upside down like that. It was supposed to signify turning your expectations upside down or something like that.
So the next question is, how can we use this to our advantage? most XBox live traffic traditionally goes over an encrypted tunnel, but has anyone tried sniffing to see if the ads are being downloaded over the Live connection, or if they're coming from an open internet connection (standard http/https).
If they are, then there's nothing to stop us spoofing our own ads into the games. I don't know about you, but I would LOVE to see Fiestacat staring down at me from a billboard while I rocket juggle some pathetic fucker in Crackdown.
Even Jesus hates listening to Creed.
Quote : "Man, my new copy of MICROSOFT WINDOWS VISTA makes me steamy and hot!".
I am on my way to buy a bunch of copy of Vista. Which bar is it and how does the hot and steamy woman look like ? Age ? Name ? More detail is needed to ship (or even better bring manually) all those ncie shiny new copy of windows vista.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Ah, just tivo it... eh wait.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
Super, now small dev's won't be able to just sell games they'll need to maintain them.
And their revenue will be spread over years, good for big established dev's but really bad for small houses.
And of course this will fall into the hands of publishers not developers further tying the two together and breaking the new business models developers are using to get out from under.
Dev costs might be up but so are publisher %'s and they're not gonna stop until developers are work for hire.
We need some kind of "Adblock for games" project. As a private project a few years ago I managed to replace the textures holding the adverts in the Xbox 1 version of Burnout 3, which was possible using a hacked Xbox. Unfortunately we cannot (yet) change the content on Xbox 360 discs as they are signed. I read TFA but I couldn't work out if the adverts were stored on the game disc or sent over the network. I suspect the answer is both - there will be a default set of adverts on the disc for people who don't connect their Xbox 360 to the Internet and new ones will be sent over the network for those that do. For network ads it may be possible to block or redirect them at a router level.