News In-game advertisements a waste of money?

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/12/22/In_game_advertisements_a_waste_of_money/

 

Bah, IGA will never work the way they want it. Personally I go the opposite way, if its advertised in a game that I paid for, then I won't buy it (unless I already do)
IGA is actually a deterant for me to buy their products and thus put more ads in my gaming experience.

 

QFT. I'm not paying for ads, thank you very much. I won't buy movies any more, which come with plenty, and I've stopped watching TV some time ago, opting for the various ad-free alternatives. I don't know what makes them think I'm happy to put up with it in my games, because they're simply wrong.

If they want to give away the product, then it's fine, which is why I'm tolerant of it in podcasts. Not so much with the EA Spyware Edition games, but the concept of how they were done in SC:CT is okay, even if the ads themselves were crap (targeted at the general market of those who would play the game, which they failed at utterly, but no spyware).

So, yeah, as far as I'm concerned, in-game ads are a waste of money. They can't expect to profit from something else without changing their business model. Profit from game sales, or profit from ads. Not both.

 

Agreed with the above.

Beyond not buying products advertised in-game, I'm also going to think twice about buying a game with ads.

 

when am i going to stop in a middle of a game and read an advert...

say your playing CS:S -> running around: "bang" "bang" !stops! "ooh a new game is out.. might have a look at that later" "kabooom" player is dead...

that helps alot...

 

Likewise. The sad thing is though, we're the minority. It's only the clued up gamers that care, the majority of people who aren't really into their games won't think much of it I don't imagine. They'll fail to see the importance of stopping all forms of IGA.

 

at least in some games it isnt annoying, like graw, the ads are on billboards and since its a real city it just makes sense, and like mentioned pgr3 as they are trackside billboards that most racing games have.

im not against the ads persay, just when they obviously stick out or use spyware to track your browsing and tailor ads round you.

 

must admit from playin BF2142 I barely notice them so as long as they dont impact the game, i.e. become to much of a focul point, then to be honest if it helps fund game development then so be it. That being said, if at any time I feel the ads are taking something away from the gaming experience then I will simply stop playing tha game and have a bad impression of whatever was being advertised, has to be done appropriately

 

I actually noticed some in RB6: Vegas the other day as I was flying above Vegas city in a chopper.
In some respects I don't mind it too much but it should either bring the price of the games down or make them free of which I'm sure neither are going to happen.

 

I think the most dangerous thing about this survey is, well, the same thing that's wrong with every survey - spin. Bunnyfoot (wtf named a real firm that?!) are ignoring one of the key issues of advertising. If you want your advertisements to sink in, you don't need to have people looking at them - they actually are most effective just inside the peripheral vision, where they slowly ingrain on your thinking and their products come to mind when you're looking for something similar. If they were "in your face" all the time, they would actually be less effective. Which tells me, these guys are just selling something - and funny enough, yes they are!

 

So what do you think of this, Dego? Do you think IGA (the practice, nt the company) is the wave of the future or a waste? More to the point, do you thnk that it is morally acceptable? I'd like to hear what the staff thinks of the non-econmic issues.

 

isnt the in game advertisements just a way to get more money buy producers selling space in their games for these advertisements? i see it as another way to get money.

 

you know for someone who has played BF 2142 i haven't noticed any adds...where are they? i don't see them....

 

I personally think the idea of in game adverts is the future. I don't necessarily like that - but I don't totally hate it, either. Like you guys, I see it as a contextual thing: don't make it flagrant, try to fit it in period, and I'm ok with it. I DO feel it should bring down the cost of the games - but then, that's been my beef with digital downloading, too.

What I'm a little worried of is all the 'phone home' stuff - I don't trust marketers farther than I can throw them. The advertising gets fed from servers controlled by the ad companies, not the developers. This means that those ads can change over time, possibly to ones less relevant than the devs intended. And in my estimation it creates one more unsecure link that your computer has to connect to - I can count on EA or Valve to run at least a semi-tight ship...but not some ad company I never heard of before yesterday.

My real, uncensored version of the future is games costing no less money, being of arguably no higher quality. Not because they're just greedy, but because the devs will have to spend their money patching security holes in the game engines that are introduced by the links to the adverisers. It will be a new form of vulnerability.

But, I have to save some of this for an upcoming article, so I'll stop there.

 

Are they turned on yet in BF2142? I can't remember seeing any?
Just goes to show how pointless they are, no one gets chance to notice them!

Ads don't impact me anyway, if I want something, I research it first. Doesn't matter how good the advert is, if its crap I won't buy it.

 

I juts start to hate ingame advertising when its overdone, for instance some people would have no problems with a coke machine being placed in a corridor, but then the accountants see the numbers and go "hey we made 10k for 1 coke machine and no one complained, lets put a coke machine in every corridor for 100k." and before you know it your ducking incoming coke machine missiles.
I see in game advertising as the latest product placement, beer companies will fight to have their products in the bars of games and fast food places will do the same for mall settings. If its subtle I should never even really notice the adds. But some accountant will spoil it and you get a five minute sequence showing someone getting dressed in branded clothes whilst listening to a branded music system much like the opening to I robot.

 

Im surprised people have not been working on programs to get rid of the advertising.

My problem is we are paying more and more for pc games, then the developer turns around and adds advertisements. The problem is that nothing can or will be done since most people dont care. They buy that stuff since they are ignorant enough to buy stuff based upon advertisement rather than research.

 

while im against ingame advertising, the question is can it really be stopped?

look at the tv..... every year they increase the amount of advertising....
look at newspaper's.... they increase the amount of advertising all the time too.....

 

they should have ingame ads for computer hardware. the ad would play just once a second. the lower your framerate the longer you see it. you would see it and it would be obvious that you need an upgrade

 

If games companies can get money from in game advertising, then surely that will end up benefiting the gamers in the end (better development etc) I'm guessing that any advertising would be more passive (part of the background) as gamers would take badly to shooting people running around in T-shirts proclaiming they use suppositories. Forced advertising will only end up with the development companies suffering, and any game that is terminally littered with forced advertising would probably not be worth the disk that it is on.
Jaz_knos