Are Optional Ads Worth The Trouble?

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? "

Comments

Wikipedia

[MinuteElectron]

When advertisments on Wikipedia were first suggested (to help take the pressure off the funds crisis they were seen as in at the time) voluntary enrollment was suggested. It never got enough support, however. It was a reasonable idea since it is, in some respects, insulting to ask for donations when you could be tapping in to such a large revenue source (even with voluntary enrollment the money generated would be huge).

Re:Wikipedia

[Idiomatick]

If anybody would it would be wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Wikipedia They have a whole section insulting theirselves...

Re:Yes, with a however

[Gokee2]

.We need, Google to start a competitor to Paypal, so I can donate some small amounts of money to the sites I like. ( Google Checkout https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=sierra&continue=https%3A%2F%2Fcheckout.google.com

new adblock for firefox beta5

[blackest_k]

http://adblockplus.org/devbuilds/

rather annoyingly firefox beta5 isn't compatible with the mainstream release of adblock however the development build here works fine.

All i need now is a method to remove the gray tramlines running down the page on slashdot. the nesting soon reduces me to 20% width comment 20% side bar 60% tram line. god knows what mobile users get.

Re:Optional ads still break immersion

[arthurh3535]

And someone who didn't even research this. City of Heroes and City of Villains *has* billboards with fake advertisements. If you opt out of the advertising, those face adverts stay. If you opt in to the advertising, they simply show real advertising.

This really is a win-win for NCSoft this time. Paragon City and the Rogue Isles will become 'more real' to me.

Re:Except...

[Rajani_Isa]

Presumably in-game ads like this aren't going to measure performance by click rates, since clicking would take you out of the game. They may measure it by camera focus time (ie, if the ad occupies at least 25% of the screen for 10 or more seconds). It's just going to be impressions, and you have to get within a certain distance of a billboard for it to count.

Re:Doesn't offend me when it is on COH.

[quanticle]

Well, even that's not entirely unrealistic. For example, take my college campus. Coke has negotiated an agreement with my school for the vending machines to dispense only Coke products. If you want to get something else, you have to go off campus. It is rankling, but its not a real inconvenience, since the campus is in the middle of a city, and its trivially easy to go off campus (i.e. cross the street) to get your Pepsi fix.