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In-Game Advertising Makes Games Better?
Pretty much every time we hear about a game launching in-game advertising it sounds like a horrible idea that will only serve to detract from the experience. However JJ Richards of Massive wants you to give it a chance, claiming that if done correctly it can not only work, but actually enhance the overall experience. "In fact, according to Massive's research, gamers like ads. Here's the caveat: they have to add to the gaming experience. He describes a game that takes place in Times Square. With no ads, it's not real at all. With generic ads, it's a little better. 'Now imagine Times Square with ads you just saw on television or read in a newspaper—the latest movie release or television show or a new car model,' he said. 'Imagine further that it is up-to-the-minute, whether you played your game today or six months from now. That is much more realistic.' His argument is that gamers consume the experience of ads, not just the ads themselves. 'The ads add to and enhance that experience, and our research shows that it is highly effective for both game play as well as advertisers.'"
Sure, but you culs always do like it's done in some other games (Formula One racing Simulator, for example) where real life Marlboro, Camel. Michelin, etc ads are replaced by fake products (Colten soda, Frantic tires, etc). The result? A very realistic environment without the real life ads poisoning.
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
He is right in that aspect that real-world products, trademarks or ads in real-world game can go towards players experience.
I rather see real Coca-Cola cans coming from the vending machine than some made up or close so "Joca Jola" name. It breaks the illusion.
Even if the gameworld doesn't take place in real world, but lets say future, it can still count for the user experience. It improves the scifi experience more when player can think "oh McDonalds is still around" and game designers can put more detail in to the game by coming up with some funky stuff for them.
But this also has the problem that trademark owners usually dont like showing their products in bad light and going even so far that the game is not allowed to break their cars and so on.
It's not a bad idea - but it can be really bad if done incorrectly.
I agree with this. While it sounds like mere rationalization to sell more ads, the reality is that ads are everywhere, and if you want realism, you need to replicate everything in the environment, including those pesky advertisements. I notice the fake ads in some games all the time, and it is a little jarring and detracts from the immersive experience.
My problem with advertising in games isn't that I am fundamentally opposed to it - in fact, if it can make producing games more lucrative or cheaper for me, I'm all for it. The problem is when you get two or three companies sponsoring an entire in-game world, and every other billboard is displaying the exact same advertisement. That breaks my immersion much faster than a made up product. But, it costs time and money to negotiate these deals, so it is much easier to get two big advertisers than the twenty or thirty that would make for added realism. If advertisers and game producers didn't have to deal with negotiating a new deal each time, I imagine the diversity of in-game ads would go way up. Perhaps there is a business opportunity to be found here.
You have to remember that the ads are integrated in the gameworld. Or atleast should be, not like how Wipeout HD did it.
He has a good point in that if you have a supposedly realistic world and lets say Manhattan or Tokyo, it's not really real without any ads. Surprisingly, fake product names break the illusion too (unless you can do them with humor like in GTA IV - but thats not always the case in more serious games). Real ads can add up to the player experience, if integrated correctly in to the game world.
No, we really, really, don't. I hate ads with a passion, and I can't imagine a situation where I would rather have any space in-game taken up by an ad display than a blank space or a simple generic texture.
This goes double for ads that require an internet connection to update and waste my bandwidth for something I have no interest in.
And lastly, I can not imagine finding anything relevant in an in-game ad: Wow, the new Ferrari is out! I must buy one immediately! Hey, the cinemas in Left4Dead 2: The Bloodening advertise the newest RomCom, surely a must-see!
I play games to fucking escape my ordinary life, not to have the worst aspects transplanted into it, especially since most games don't have realistic (as in "real-world") characters in them, anyway ("90% of all genetically enhanced super-soldiers agree: Clearasil is the choice of space marines!").
-- Language is a virus from outer space.
I understand that advertisers pay big bucks. However, I'm absolutely sick and overwhelmed by the amount of advertisement I encounter everyday. It's information overload at a conscious and subconscious level for most. Considering the relevance of the information to one's life, it's nothing but spam. It makes it harder for kids and adults alike to focus and pay attention to worthwhile information. Does advertisement make the gaming experience better? It has no relevance, no matter how well you hide it. Advertisers' ultimate goal is to implant a self-serving everlasting memory into your brain. I understand the size of the economics behind this sector, but it's too inflated in every aspect.
Come on, everybody knows what kind of ads gamers really want.
Anyone in advertising that I've ever spoken with always insists people love advertising. However, I've never spoken to anyone outside of advertising that says they like ads. I would think the emergence of things like DVRs, browser adblockers, etc would be a big clue to the advertising industry.
STOP ADVERTISING TO ME WHEN I'VE ALREADY PAID FOR YOUR PRODUCT, ASSHOLE.
I take it you don't watch basic cable TV or basic satellite TV. You pay for it, but it still has ads.
A real world, with real chains and real ads, all of which are made up is the best way to do it. You have all the liberties of not infringing anyones shit, and a nice in-world level of coherency and realism. Using real-world advertisements would be detrimental.
In racing or sports games on the other hand, you're simulating the real world - so of course you want real world ads to go with, and can probably swipe some money from the guys.
It all depends on what you want to achieve. For gritty real-world shit, you want to get actual advertisements - for ironic, fun and fantasy "world"-games (of which I notice a bit of a lack of well thought out ones), you go with alternatives. Non-world games (which are getting rarer...) should of course not feature any ads at all, thankyouverymuch.
"In fact, according to Massive's research, gamers like ads."
Emphatically, absolutely, unequivocally
WRONG.
something that people hate, like ads, will somehow become likeable if it conforms to a time-based nature? so fallout 3 would have "double pits to chesty" axe ads and that would make them likeable? or perhaps Wolfenstein will have ads for family guy and armor all?
plus i dont think the technology in some cases has been well thought out. example: the same flash gamestop ad, between every clip of The Venture Brothers on Adult Swim, means i see the same rabbit sell me the same shit 5 times for one show. thats a commercial EVERY 6 MINUTES until i have memorized every line in it after 8 videos (40 viewings of the same damned commercial) and hanged myself in the bathroom.
anyone thought out how angry im going to be when i pay $65 for the latest xbox game only to enjoy commercials and advertisement in it at every opportunity? A comcept that works: Streets of Sim City made commercials laughable for fake products, which actually made the game more fun because a trailer full of marketing execs and legal teams weren't scared about market penetration or viewer reaction.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Yes, advertising in-game if it's done right can add "flavour" to a scene, like mentioned in the article.
However, far too often advertising in-game tends to be placed in ways that are an eyesore. I know there's a couple of games that actually use their multiplayer scoreboard as adspace, which is a significant eyesore. High visibility isn't always a good thing when it comes to in-game ads.
I don't know. I think ads in games aren't going to disappear anytime soon, but I can say with certainty that a game that uses in-game advertising won't live long if those ads are overly distracting or take away from the gameplay.
Or maybe it's reality that's broken. Imagine a Times Square that doesn't have all the ads, but instead has art, or beautiful architecture. Wouldn't that be -much- better?
Starting from the assumption that ads are good can only lead to the conclusion that ads are good.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
You could use real ads, but fixed in time. When is the game set? 1995? Then the ads should be from 1995, not updated to today. That's not realistic. Is the game set in 2009 (today as of this writing)? Then it should have those ads, you know, in Times Square. But probably not in some evil villian's fortress, or wherever the game actually takes place.
Some games, novels, and movies are supposed to be set "today" or "a year from now", though obviously these things all look very dated after twenty years. In these cases only could he defend his case.
Since all he's *really* doing is trying to justify a massive cash flow- after all, most games aren't set in times square, or any other heavily-dominated-by-advertising area- it doesn't even matter what he's saying. But even if we take him at face value, he's hip deep in BS.
I won't buy games with ads. I avoid TV because I hate ads. Keep them the hell out games, thanks.
TMNT for the NES has Pizza Hut ads everywhere. Looks absurd. Looked absurd back then too.
In their own minds, they are helping deliver valuable products that people enjoy, and informing them about their choices. Cognitive dissonance keeps them from thinking about what they are really doing. It keeps them from putting two and and two together. They went to school to learn mind control. In their own discussions they can be very frank about the fact that they want to control people and get them to do things that may be against their best interest, but they can not see that in moral terms they are doing something very, very wrong. They are planting false ideas in people's heads, making them believe that a company loves them, that a beer will make them sexy, that a pill will make their dicks bigger or their bellies smaller, that choosing the right products will make them popular and happy. They are preying on people's insecurities. And it works. If marketing were not capable of controlling people's actions, it would be useless.
You know, there is another class of goods that gets accused of controlling people's actions and making them do harmful things against their will: drugs. We can't even prove that drugs do this, while advertising would not be salable if it didn't. Why are drugs illegal but advertising is legal?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Make players wait in line to buy items in an MMORPG. Require bathroom breaks or experience loss of social status as characters crap their pants.
Am I the only one who has always wanted to see more such in RPG games (single player or multiplayer)?
I've always hated how the character you're playing never needs to eat, drink, sleep or do something fun once in a while. He always just adventures and fights the bad guys till the campaign is over.
I've always wanted to have a realistic game like that. I even coded some such as a kid (obviously they never got finished, but the basic things we're there). Yeah The Sims is there, but its not exactly an RPG and haven't been fun since Sims 1 came out (and that stopped being fun after a few expansion packs too).
Some games are made to escape reality. But why do I always have to escape some scifi/fantasy/completely unrelated place of real world.
Combine normal "every day in life" things like these with a good, self-thinking AI and it makes a great sandbox game and brings some pause to the constant fighting, massive storytelling and questing in RPG's.
Maybe. But generic ads can be humorous, too. Real ads have to take themselves seriously.
FAIL. Using the CUSTOMER'S bandwidth pulling down up-to-the-minute ads, so you can get paid for advertising in a game the CUSTOMER already bought? Advertising that will always change, thereby distracting from the game itself? And pitching that as an improvement? FAIL, sir.
Besides which, realism is only good when it makes a game more fun. Realistic explosions? Good. Realistic insurance claims afterwards? Bad. Some aspects of reality suck, and people play games to escape them.
Proper ads are bad because they create fake desire in your mind. It doesn't matter how smart you are, they get under your skin. The only safe thing to do, is to not see them. The funny one in GTA are a different thing, they make you smile as opposed to real one, who makes you depressed because you can't afford them.
P.S: Sure we all love ads, this is why we remove all the stupid intros from the games, which only reason to exist are to delay the start of the game.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
It has a "replica" of what looks like a famous NY street pattern and looks just like it (well like the hollywood versions I have seen anyway) and not a real ad in the entire game.
Sorry, but the story ain't about realistic billboards in the game, advertising don't work that way. The Coca Cola company doesn't want that crushed rusty can that just rolled away to bear its logo, it wants you to sit watching their latest ad for 30 seconds while you want to play the game.
They don't want you to be a F1 driver, watching a yellow line that is your cars hood and maybe see the shell logo clearly in a flash in a replay. They want you to see their commercial, for 30 seconds and possibly more.
So yes, real world games CAN gain some immersion by having real world ads in it. But that is NOT what advertisers want, the opposite in fact. GTA did NOT have permission to use REAL car names for their cars. Why not? Free advertising right? Nope.
Not only does Coca Cola NOT want to pay for that crushed rusty can that ads to immersion, they do NOT want THEIR logo splattered with the brains of the hooker you just killed for a bit of cash.
Oh, and remember one thing please gamers, IF you sanatize your product and make it overrun with ads, you will have the same effect as TV. No, not free money. The gamer audience, that most lucrative market of young adult men leaving for something else. It already happened to TV. Why do you think we game? because there is nothing on tv.
The article mentions that the ads are "only" 4-5 minutes in an hour, hardly anything compared to tv. So what are all the complaints about? Because it won't stop there. Advertisers basically want to chain their customer to their ads, forbid them to leave at pain of pain. They WILL increase the amount watched, make it harder and harder to skip until people finally rebel.
Look at what happened to tv. Innocent commercial blocks have now become so invasive the ads are broadcast OVER the actual program.
If advertisers had their way you would be driving a cola can powered by cola, collecting cola buttons to spend on cola bottles and every single texture is the cola logo. Interrupt every 30 seconds by a 2 minute commercial.
Right now an advertiser is creaming his pants at this wonderful idea. You know it.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.