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Are Optional Ads Worth The Trouble?

Posted by Zonk on from the opt-in-opt-out-do-a-dance-all-about dept.

azuredrake writes "NCSoft's City of Heroes has just announced that in-game ads are being added to the game, provided by an advertising firm Double Fusion. However, unlike in many games, the ads being brought to CoH have been defined as 'always optional'. The publishers see the ads as a purely additional revenue stream, not as something that will ever allow advertisers to affect game content. Commentary is available at Gamasutra. Is making advertisement volunteer-based a viable way to get around cynicism? The tone of these ads seems to be 'check them out to help the game'. Are there any sites or services in which you'd voluntarily look at ads to lend a hand? "

4 of 245 comments (clear)

  1. What I want to see by Kierthos · · Score: 3, Funny

    Is if any advertisers end up being specific to hero-side or villain-side.

    Microsoft as a loyal supporter of Lord Recluse, perhaps?

    --
    Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
  2. This reminds me of monkey island... by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 3, Funny

    and their blatant sales pitch about Loom.

    It was funny :)

  3. this would be incredibly annoying by suck_burners_rice · · Score: 2, Funny

    I really think that television-style advertising maps well to the computer. Every several minutes, the entire computer should pause while full-screen commercials play for several minutes. The ratio should be something like 4 minutes of computing, 5 minutes of commercials. There should also be some sort of mechanism in place to make sure that the user is actually watching the commercials, not just taking a coffee break. It could be something as simple as flashing a random number at several random points during the commercials, and then requiring the user to enter the last number shown prior to regaining control of the computer. If the user cannot enter the number, or makes a mistake, all of the commercials repeat, with ten additional minutes of commercials added in as a penalty.

    --
    McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
  4. Make the players do it by SL+Baur · · Score: 3, Funny

    I think it would make a fun daily quest to have one of them be to just fly around Shattrath carrying an ad banner behind you.

    That would be the best of both worlds. Don't look up if you don't like in-game ads and if you don't care, do the daily.

    I suppose for this to really work, it would have to be possible for both Alliance and Horde to shoot you down while you're advertising. That sounds like fun, actually.