Columns Advergaming and Other Horror Stories

Thanks for all the comments, I'll try and respond to some.

Can't agree about piracy being justified by in game ads - piracy really hurts a lot of developers especially of PC games and it's a tough enough business as it is, genesisofthesith responds with a good answer on this.

I agree about the limited effectiveness of advertising Cthippo, banner ads and pop-ups appear to be virtually completely ineffective now except for the subconscious re-enforcement of brand which is pernicious to say the least and sadly probably more effective than you realise.

John Baker you make some interesting points so I'll try and address at least a few of them. First off I should say I just happen to hate advertising, I resent the fact that there are few places to look in the modern world where you aren't being targetted by an advert. That's my opinion.

The idea that this provides revenue for small developers is just false, as you admit yourself the advertisers target AAA games because all they care about are numbers of eyeballs on their adverts. The publishers (who admittedly pay a lot of developers wages, though far from all) do not pass their advert profits along to the developer. As I said in the article I see no evidence of developers benefitting directly from in game advertising, perhaps you can argue they benefit indirectly as publisher profits soar higher they are in theory giving more money to developers but in game ads form such a small part of their income at the moment that its a fairly tenous argument.

You're absolutely right about the lack of advertisers willing to do this and consequently you get the Judge Dredd example I mentioned where only one advertiser buys the space and it looks daft. Yes it can fit certain settings and a futuristic setting is one of them, as are sports games, however I'd still prefer a bunch of joke adverts which would give the artistic realism and provide some humour, like in GTA.

As for cutting dev time, this is personal experience of a situation where the publisher asked us late in development to implement an ad system and you're right it was bad management on the part of the publisher. My gripe wasn't so much about the difficutly of implementing the ad software, it was about shoehorning adverts into a game with a non-realistic art style and the difficulty of trying to make them fit. As it turned out in the end the whole process was a waste of time as they didn't sell any advertising for that particular game so we wasted time on it for nothing. Incidentally I know other developers who've sufffered this exact same situation where they've implemented ad software which never ends up being used.

Your idea about dev teams spending time on making sure adverts fit or hiring someone to integrate them, well that just supports my point that this increases the cost and time for the developer and my argument is that it would be better if they spent that time on improving the game, I don't think adverts add any value for gamers.

 

I don't think in game ads are justified by the lifted costs of producing them with the latest technology. Publishers are charging more and more for games and adding revenue at the (potential) loss of quality is bad for the consumer, who is paying more and more for games that aren't gold and services that used to be free, horse armor, xbox live. Like was said, I would gladly pay a little more to compensate for add revenue especially if the adds were annoying, Red Bull in Guitar Hero. As far as ads go to ad realism to a game (banners in a soccer field) I support that, though I haven't found any enjoyment in sports games.

 

Hi Simon,

Thanks for the time to address some of my comments. I like to read others point of view on this subject and often they are just in the form of a 15 year old kid with a chip on the shoulder so a refreshing change to have intelligent comments as on this site.

I gathered you don't like advertising in any form.

Although I too can like humour in place of billboard, GTA as a common example, I think realism is (rightly or wrongly) more achievable with ads. We just need more variety.

My main problem with the Big 3 and their passion for AAA titles is not the eyeball hours. I can get eyeballs hours and am more than happy with even a reasonable CPM (Cost per mille (or thousand)) rate of $20 (I would like AAA CPM rates of like $35). However they only want eyeball hours with triple A titles not more casual but popular titles. So they say it is about the eyeballs but you will get better rates CPM rates for AAA titles….it wish it was all the same.

The industry is new and growing market and I would like to direct in a more structured direction. We ads are integrated not just bolted on. I am sure if a suitable company wanted an ad then could be accommodated and I think that should be embraced and encouraged.

A Coke vending machine in a today based first person shooter I think is a good thing. It will get a better sense of realism. I mean you would want to see this is a film wouldn't you?....wouldn't you?!

Take the Judge Dredd case more adverts would make it better as we discussed but if you cannot get the paid adverts place your joke ads in there. Have some paid ads and some 'joke'/filler ads and/or have less placements. Maybe they believed the hype (loads of ads) when they implemented it and got press ganged a little into it.

I also think over the top too many ads harms the advertiser or at least they do not get the same value for money as they are there all the time.

I still believe that the offset of hiring someone, even a contractor, full time (not that you need someone full time (at this stage anyway) more than makes up from the income you can gain. You could easily get 20k a month in ad revenue for a reasonable selling game.

I imagine you can discuss and offset this cost with the publisher?

I try and do both publisher and dev so I don't have the same type of problems just different and equally complex ones!

Cheers,

John

 

grrr the site doesn't like cutting and pasting from word sorry about the lack of quotes.