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Ads Retroactively Added To Wipeout HD, Soon Others
An anonymous reader writes "American users of Wipeout HD might have noticed that there's an advertisement showing up all of a sudden during loading, both during online and offline play. This, according to a poster on the well-known gaming forum NeoGAF, is being done covertly. The writer suspects that the display software was installed during update 2.01, and the ad-content is now being snuck in. Gamasutra has a story on the company responsible for the software to deliver these ads, Double Fusion, which said it plans to launch in-game advertising in 'another handful' of PS3 games by the end of the year. So, what's next? Can we look forward to fighting the Kool-Aid Man and zombified Mars bars in Uncharted, or is there anything that can be done to hinder companies from adding advertisements retroactively, without the customer's prior knowledge?"
This is only going to work if the ad server is not on Sony's delivery system.
And here I was planning to buy the DLC this week. I'm seriously reconsidering that idea. :(
I think if we want to protest this, refuse to buy the expansion release. Unfortunately the reality is you'll likely end up in the minority as most of the sheeple out there don't care enough to fight this.
Some ads and product placement make sense in the context of a game. In sports stadiums or racing tracks, they may even ad realism. You just have to do it right.
But a video during a loading screen -- and worse, making it ten seconds longer? That's NOT acceptable.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Read the summary?
How do you boycott something when the advertisements show up several months after you've bought it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
Here in the internet backwater country we call Australia we get a limited amount of bandwidth usage quota.
Every time the PS3/game downloads advertisements it uses my limited quota...
If I run out of quota I either have to buy more, or suffer 64kbit shaping...
And I consider myself lucky, some ISP's charge 18 cents per meg when you go over your quota without the ability to buy more.
I don't mind ads in web pages, or even sensible advertising in online gaming because they constantly require money to upkeep - but a game I've PAID FOR download and am playing OFFLINE doesn't cost the provider a damn cent!
Bullshit. I bought the game for $20 without ads. What the hell gives them the right to change the game content of something I've already bought and paid for (a year ago!) Next they'll be changing the music or lyrics of song I bought.
Yep. I'd estimate in my experience for every 20 or so people who say "Screw them, I'm not buying that", 1 will actually follow through.
I've boycotted a hell of a lot of games over the years due to copy protection, greed of the developer etc... I realise my boycott makes no difference to the company. But it does make a difference to me.
Sony will make more money from the advertising than they'll lose from disgruntled customers sadly, until such time as the consumer at large grows a set and stands up to say "Enough".
so long as it is not offensive, what's the issue?
The point is that a change to the game's content could make them have to go through the ESRB review/rating process all over again, causing delays and maybe additional expenses for them. It'd be a way of making it a bit more of a hassle for them to assume that the game you bought with no such advertisements has now become a billboard.
I think ESRB makes an exception for "online play" (I'd speculate this is because of the difficulty/undesirability of censoring the other players) but it seems there were changes to offline play as well.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
So, what's next? Can we look forward to fighting the Kool-Aid Man and zombified Mars bars in Uncharted
If they were to start advertising like that, I think it would be welcome in a sense. I don't like the idea of a fullscreen ad taking up my screen when the game is loading (although it's not as though I have anything better to look at while loading).
If companies got really creative and were to add in special characters that pop in from time to time it could be more entertaining and feel less like they were cramming advertising down my retinas.
Picture a giant Sour-Patch man skateboarding as a competitor in a Tony Hawk Game. Or a Coca-Cola bottle skiing down the hill in Winter Sports 2.
Entertainment and advertising all combined into one may be fun and enjoyable. And may upset less people here at Slashdot.
I think you might just have a case here for the ultimate retroactive boycott: the credit card issuer chargeback.
They sold you a game. Then they added a double-dip, "secondary monetization" to what you already paid for. I'd call up MasterCard and see if they've got your back on this.
Honestly, the studio or publisher that did this needs to get hit hard. Ads are for freeloaders, not for paying customers.
From what I understand, chargebacks are a pain in the ass for retailers. They're also one of the few scenarios where the deck is stacked in the favor of you the customer. That's because the merchant really wants to be able to take $MAJOR_CARD but you as the customer can choose among several major credit cards. A small percentage of affected people doing this really would get some attention, methinks.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
To be simple, greed knows no limits except those limits imposed by morality and by law. And in the case of modern business, there is no such thing as "morality" and so law is the only limit recognized by business. To be clear, unless laws are present to prevent it, 12 year olds will make your clothes and shoes in factories as can be demonstrated even today. Without laws, there would be billboards covering ever scene and location imaginable. I have no doubt that business would have no problem playing ads in your dreams if it were technically possible, and of course, legal.
There is nothing more important to modern business than money. Nothing. Not quality. Not human life. Not nature or the environment. All of that has been lost. It would be nice if that sort of morality could return, but I just can't imagine how. The story of how it was all lost would be an interesting story to hear. I just know we had some morality at some point and it was lost... I feel the loss.
Any players notice traffic to ad servers? Post the hostnames and people can just map them to 127.0.0.1.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
I rather think if this were a game I had already paid for, sans ads, that suddenly started showing them I would find the change quite offensive.
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I paid for the game. If they want to inject advertising into it, they should lower the price. This is Sony having it's cake and eating it, too.
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