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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.
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?
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Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
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.
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.
yeah. until you're in the middle of your frag fest and suddenly the game pauses.. and an advert starts to play..
"busy killing your friends? take a short break to go down a refreshing glass of joe-kola.. this game of death-killer-2000 brought to you by joe-kola.. kill more people hyped up on joe-kola, it's what the killer craves.. it's got electrolytes! we now return you to your slaughter"
and the game unpauses..
"i remember when games didn't have commercials.. no. really, they didn't!"
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
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
How is it illogical? He doesn't want ads in his games, so he's going to vote with his wallet. Makes sense to me, though I doubt I'd go as far. Whether or not adverts interfere with enjoyment is subjective. You can't just tell him that adverts in videogames don't bother him. It doesn't work like that.
And why do you think he's a hypocrite? There is no evidence of this. None. What the hell?
Must be an example of dual-core advertising.
The road to hell is paved with Cat 5 cable.
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"
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.
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
... unless the game is really cool. ... or fun.
I am going to research if a game has ads and if it does I will not buy it unless it is really cool or fun.
Or all of my friends are playing it.
Right. But that's it. It the game is really cool, fun or if all of my friends are playing it then I'll put up with the ads, but otherwise I am NOT buying ANY game with ads.
Unless it has a good demo.
So that's cool, fun, lots of friends, and a good demo. But otherwise NO ADS!
Although sometimes I buy a game because it has a pretty box.
Or maybe it includes a strategy guide or a book of concept art. I'm really into concept art.
But I'm drawing the line there. Cool, fun, friends, demo, box, books. If you do not have one of those and you put ads in your game then I WILL NOT BUY IT.
Unless it is really inexpensive.
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."
I haven't been to the movies in quite a long time. When I do go to the movies, I go see IMAX features.
I allow my daughter to watch commercial free childrens television, for which I pay. She is getting a bit old for the programming, so I'll probably disconnect the cable soon. She has her own computer, and I encourage her to make movies and music of her own with her webcam and microphone. She's too active to sit around mindlessly watching a screen.
I haven't bought a music cd in over 5 years. Instead, I have a collection of instruments and simple recording gear, and I have bi-weekly jams with my friends. My girlfriend listens to underground techno she gets from creative commons sources, which I also enjoy.
I do not buy magazines, and have not in over 5 years.
I do not like commercial sports, I find them boring. Instead, I practice Capoeira with my friends and go rock climbing.
I do confess, I take cabs quite a bit.
Satisfied?
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
How long until we see Adblock for the Xbox 360?
Hardcore or PC gamers are, yes. But your talking about a Console here. Most people want to plug these in, slide in a disc or cart, and play. They don't want to configure their IP, setup a firewall, edit router settings, upgrade to 10,000 RPM drives, configure SLI and memory timings to get the best performance. The line between PC and Console is thinning, but it's still going to be a very hard line to break.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
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.
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