InGame Advertising

[BUNNY 0]

I'm 100% sure that there will be no ingame popups in any game. No one would play such game.

[max power 21]

I love the subtitle for this thread, as if computer games haven't been a corperate business until now.

As technology increases in sophistication, production costs and development cycle lengths increase. As these things increase, the dev's ability to create a decent amount of content in a reasonable amount of time is decreasing. This increases the demand for revenue. This, I think, is also the reason for the trend that placebo points out in the latest (Finnish) interview. Eyecandy games are their own advertisements, but they're advertising nothing but their own ad, if you follow. It's all attraction and no substance. This and the recent appearance of incredible hype campaigns, innovated ad design and viral marketting strategies for computer games points towards a need to increase revenue. I'm sure not all of this has directly to do with corperate greed. At any rate, if this kind of revenue strategy keeps the cost of games at a reasonable level, I think it's worth it. I believe that STEAM already has all kinds of ads built into its interface. I really have to wonder if all of these banner ads has any effect on anyone, though. I for one, totally ignore banner ads. I can't really remember a single banner ad, ESPECIALLY not for the ones from steam.

Also, bear in mind that this isn't the first time we've seen ads in games, this is just the most blatant. IIRC, the FIFA series has sponsor ads all over the place, etc.

[CameronMcDonald 146]

Those assclowns. I hate the internet, really I do, as far as spamming and all that advertising crap goes.

I think that BIS's comparatively small size will set it in good stead, since it's unlikely any huge/annoying/monopolistic advertising companies are likely to latch onto Armed Assault, like the blood sucking popup spawning money laundering clowns they are.

[MAA3057 0]

Many people argue that they buy things to rid of advertisements, hassles and limitations. You buy a game now and have to put up with it. I sense the day coming where you have to pay a little extra to rid of advertisements in a game you all already bought.

[CameronMcDonald 146]

...wonder when they'll get adverts into people's dreams, like in Judge Dredd...

[bozo_t_clown 0]

Yeah,

I don't mind an occasional random billboard.

The point is, keep the f' out of my machine. No tracking of my browsing habits etc.

Unlike BF 2142:

http://www.joystiq.com/2006....your-pc

Un f'ng acceptable...

[frederf 0]

I have played SWAT 4 with downloaded ad content:

1. Instead of a movie poster (Saw II at the time) showing up in 5% of the ads it showed up in like 40% of the ads, grrr.

2. It does make the game more "up to date" and believable, it actually works this way for an urban police type game.

3. It makes the game devs a sizable amount of money that they will hopefully funnel into game improvements for patches and sequels.

I wouldn't normally mind in-game updated download advertising except invariably the person in control of it has ZERO CONCEPT OF SUBTLETY and thus it ends up a net detraction from the game.

[sirex 0]

yes, i agree that if done right advertising in a game can add to the immesion factor.

....and no, i have zero faith in companies like EA do it right.

so overall im aganist it, just anouther opportunity for them to screw something new up.

edit: also, if your product includes spyware, expect to find my foot up your ****.

[CameronMcDonald 146]

It's the exact reason I keep my gaming machine off the internet, and leave this computer to handle all the dross (I swear this thing has so many antiviral and firewalling programs that a virus would get tired before reaching a place it could do any damage).

So at least I could use it, but I'd never buy any of that Battlefield shiza to start with. SWAT 4, yes, however, that is a good game.

[FatJoe 0]

In someway, if done right, it might look okay.

But, and thats a huge but, I would personaly be able to disable them if I didn't want them, and I sure as hell don't want EA to be probing around my computer to gather info on me just to figure out what ads to show me. If I want spyware and advertisements on my computer, I could just visit a few websites.. I'm not paying 50$ for it.

In an interview with IGA's CEO, he said that we'd vote for in-game advertisement if we knew the pain the game developers are going through in finding resources to continue on the new next-gen games. Really? Electronic Arts, with a market capitalization of $17.1 Billion USD, had $3.0 B in sales and $236 million in profits, is struggling with money problems to develop their next generation games?

I would understand if smaller game developers like BIS would make this move, but I can tell you that EA-games is not having money problems, thats least of their worries, and therefor the only logical reason, that I can see, is that they still want more money.

BF3142? pop-ups ever 5 minutes, billboard on every street corner (if it won't take place up in space ), and even movie advertisements during spawning?

I miss the good old days where games were just games and not a buisness opertunity or a marketing ideas..

I won't be buying BF2142, not becaus of the spyware and the advertisements, but due to the simple fact that it doesn't really interest me. I've got a WWII mod coming on battlefield 2 and thats all I want. Needless to say, I'll be, ofcourse, getting ArmA

[DEAD_RABBIT 0]

The major thing that stings me is that developers spend development time to get advertisements into the game. That in return costs money to develop software to put inside a game, that is already damn buggy. Example in question, BattleField 2142.

Isn't it so that to develop next-gen software, you need resources to acquire for that software. But what if part of that is spent on trivial things, like.... advertisements? Admit-ably, it wouldn't take up that much resources, however, when it comes to a Multiplayer game that requires every bit of bandwidth to get a smooth running game, but in the background some stupid program is downloading textures or video's to be shown in the next round and then you get kicked out of a game, because..... you had a connection error for example and you blame it on the game and hence start hating it (like myself and many others). That's really good marketing.

And if development costs are so high for next-gen software, then spend money in developing more efficient. BIS for example does everything in-house and continues developing on their existing technologies and produces games to basically test their effectiveness and efficiency in the development process of a game. For example; take OFP: Elite, on which many parts of the ArmA technology are based and the Xbox not being a major powerhouse, it's a good way to see how well your technology processed into a game, does work on very low-end machinery. Even though OFP: Elite is basically OFP going Xbox, it does contain a completely rewritten technology base and changes/adds to the feel of playing OFP.

[monkeyb 0]

I was going to get it but have decided not to now because of this.

Its a bloody disgrace and I will not pay to be targeted by advertisers more than i already am.

Is there an online petition about this, is it even legal. You are after all buying a game, and you only find out about the advertising software after purchase.

Is this legal?

[Placebo 29]

As ArmA doesn't "feature" in game advertising I think this discussion will feel more at home in OT.

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