Slashdot Mirror
Personalized In-Game Advertising In Upcoming Titles
Scythal writes "In-game advertising provider Massive Inc., acquired by Microsoft in 2006, has signed up or renewed contracts with several publishers, notably EA, Blizzard Entertainment, THQ, and Activision. Eagerly anticipated games like Need for Speed: Shift will feature the technology that continuously collects 'anonymous' information about users, sends them to the Massive database for analysis, and downloads advertisements to be shown in the game. All that happens insidiously, without the users' explicit consent and out of their control, which raises further concerns about privacy, security and quite frankly, customer abuse. Would you feel concerned about software that collects personal information and sends it so that you get more personalized ads in a game you paid for?"
(More, below.)
"The technology has already been implemented, and was present in older titles. For example, Far Cry 2, released in October 2008 by Ubisoft Montreal, had it. You could discover that if you cared to read the manual up to the last pages: 'This game incorporates technology of Massive Incorporated ("Massive") that, when activated, enable the presentation of in-game advertisements and other in-game objects which are uploaded temporarily to your personal computer or game console and changed during online game play. As part of this process, when Massive technology is activated, Massive may have access to your Internet Protocol address. Your Internet Protocol address, and other basic anonymous information, available to Massive are temporarily used by Massive for the general purposes of transmitting and measuring in-game advertising.' However, it seems the technology was not used at the time, for some reason. This time, be assured it will be. How are we supposed to react to something like this? Shouldn't it be called adware? And, gratified by the success of this technology, what would be the next logical step of companies like Massive? Wouldn't they seek new publishers and use it in other software?"
This may lead to a new generation of hackers: people who use their spare time to patch the games to remove those insidious ads. Should we call them adkers?
Heavens no. This is from Microsoft and has the evil bit set. Mr. Jobs would never let something like that befall his faithful.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
No it just means more money for the people who produce games, so they can have more money...
Only way in hell I'm going to buy such a game is if it's free.
Huh?
Good thing i dont play games.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
.. after she saw all those dp adult ads on that soccer simulation game. And she has not even seen the ads popping up lately on dad's golf game...
...The more attractive my old Megadrive and SNES look.
Heavens no. This is from Microsoft and has the evil bit set. Mr. Jobs would never let something like that befall his faithful.
Actually I think evil takes 4-bits. Why? It's a HEX.
Sorry, I had to nibble.
You are my new Jesus!
I don't even buy games on release date anymore because the &^%$&^&%! DRM don't work on my 64bit XP (it IS in the drive, you stupid fucking thing!)
You have a curious self-censorship policy.