Full-Motion Ads Come to Videogames

Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "'Advertising in videogames, dominated in the past by static ads such as billboards and signposts, is beginning to look more like TV commercials,' according to the Wall Street Journal. Massive, the company that brought still ads to videogames last year, is now introducing full-motion ads to PC-based games (not yet console titles). Massive CEO Mitchell Davis 'says Hollywood movie studios have shown particular interest in running 15-second movie trailers in online games.' Also of note: 'One problem with the full-motion ads is that gamers can easily avoid watching them. The full-motion ads start playing when a player moves near the ad spot on the screen -- and stop playing when the player moves away. As a result, gamers may see only a few seconds of the 15-second ads. Massive says it won't charge advertisers unless the full ad has been viewed.'"

I predict a lucrative market.

[BlackCobra43]

..of "Ad locations" maps will flourish alongside this intiative. That, or mods to remove them altogether. Although that might chnge the game rating....

A good thing too

[Anonymous Coward]

Yey, more lag!

Can't get enough!

Privacy

[wideBlueSkies]

>>Massive says it won't charge advertisers unless the full ad has been viewed.'"

And how do they intend to track this? This is pretty scary. I kind of thought that the purpose of gaming servers was to facilitate gaming and interaction between players...not to monitor their activity.

Where does one draw the line as to what is and isn't monitored?

wbs.

kind of ridiculous

[glassjaw rocks]

So, basically what you're saying is that the 40 gb hard drive I have now will be filled up with advertisements? And furthermore, shouldn't I be able to have a game that's free of advertisements, seeing as I allready paid $49.95 for the game?

Gaming died years ago

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true. :-(

What makes them think...

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone besides advertising execs would want this in a game? It sucks to think that consumers and developers will actually put up with this, although there's no doubt they will for the following reasons:

Producers like money.
Developers want to keep their jobs.
Consumers just don't know any better.

Those pretty much describe the driving forces behind the game industry today, and it's sad that it's so obvious and so unchangeable.

This is great!

[sgant]

So this means all our games now will be free...right? Like our commercial TV is free cause we watch all the ads.

And just like going to the movies is now free cause of all the ads in the beginning...right?

/Sarcasm mode terminated.

This is bullshit. If the consumer isn't getting any benefits out of it I guess I'll avoid the privilege of paying for something that throws advertisements at me.

Best idea evar

[Monkelectric]

Massive says it won't charge advertisers unless the full ad has been viewed.

And I wont pay for games which have advertisements. *period*. I play games to *GET AWAY* from the bullshit that i the modern world.

Re:Unless the game is free....

[rhsanborn]

Most any online game states that online play can change at any time and if you don't agree with it, you can return it at any time. Although, many retailers won't take opened games back, so most likely, you'll have to contact the publisher and ask for your money back since you don't agree with their EULA.

Perfect

[superultra]

Putting more ads before movies has been working great [typepad.com] for that industry.

Re:Suspension of disbelief?

[KDR_11k]

"suspension of disbelief" is not profitable.

Sad

[Nastard]

"One problem with the full-motion ads is that gamers can easily avoid watching them."

How sad is it that this is considered a problem?

The only good way of doing this....

[geekguy]

The only way I can see this being somewhat not hated by the gamers is if it is used in a MMO game to eliminate the monthly fees. I would be willing to play a game where the ads were hosted on the server and I wasn't charged for playing on that server.

Subsidized living

[SirSlud]

The time has come to take a stand against having our cost of living subsidized.

I'd rather pay the full cost for a product than pay a lesser price so I can watch advertising. If you can't produce the thing for a low enough cost such that people value it enough for you to recoup your costs, dont make it.

Man, am I getting sick of this. Bigger and bigger budgets, subsidized by advertising; why not better and better products, succeeding on they're own terms.

Re:Unless the game is free....

[ribblem]

Just like when you pay for cable there are no ads...

alternative to in-game ads

[cerberus04]

if they were desperate to squeeze ads somewhere in the game, the best place would be on the loading screens.

Re:And they know this how?

[ribblem]

It's built into the game engine so I imagine the game would track this just like they would any other gaming event. My God, Mario yawns if don't push any buttons for 30 seconds. Spy Ware!

consumers need to reject this type of thing.

[atarione]

ads everywere and on everything needs to stops. consumers need to not buy a game that is going to serve as a "advertising" outlet. let a couple games try this and flop and hopefully they will give up.

between crap like this, lousy buggy game play, copy protection that makes it nearly impossible to install games i have actually bought... I may just stop playing games altogether.

I statrted playing computer games cause i found it fun and relaxing... lately i have found it stressfull and annoying.

BF2 is possibley one of the buggiest POS games ever unleashed on the hapless game consumer.. but i digress

Re:Ummm, wherever they want

[wideBlueSkies]

>>You have no right to privacy on other people's property.

Good point. I forgot about that.

But there is nothing stopping big brother from 'asking' for the privately collected data. For whatever reason.

Granted, we are talking about someting reltively trivial: Online gaming. It's not too important in and of itself. However, I am opposed to the bulk gathering of data about people in any form.

Maybe I sould like a tin foil hat, paraniod kind of guy, but I don't like being watched. There's no way of knowing how any particular entity can use the data... to send me targetted advertisements? to put me on a terrorist watch list because I'm a pretty good sniper?

I'd rather that these kinds of things didn't exist. Private servers or not.

wbs.

Re:This is great!

[Bill Wong]

The consumer might not be benefitted directly, but, if this means that an small game company can turn a profit, and continue to churn out games, (games that it might not otherwise afford to produce), then, the consumer ultimately gets another iteration of a game that they may have enjoyed.

Re:kind of ridiculous

[pete6677]

I think what will determine how well these ads are accepted by consumers as a whole will be the level of intrusiveness. If the ads are shown in the background without interrupting game play, which appears to be the case, I don't think people will object. What's the difference between having an ad as the background or having a brick wall? If the game were interrupted for a 1 minute "commercial break", that's a different story.

I agree with what you're saying, in that people shouldn't have to pay to be advertised to, but society as a whole doesn't seem to be bothered by that idea. When the ads start to cause a problem by interfering with game play or filling up a hard drive, I think that is when people will wake up.

Obligatory Bill Hicks

[Thaelon]

In the immortal words of the great Bill Hicks:

By the way, if anyone here is in advertising or marketing, kill yourself. No, this is not a joke: kill yourself . . . I know what the marketing people are thinking now too: 'Oh. He's going for that anti-marketing dollar. That's a good market.' Oh man, I am not doing that, you fucking evil scumbags.

I couldn't agree more.

From TFA:

We know the 17 to 34 audience, the male audience, is elusive and quite difficult to reach through traditional broadcast. ... It is incumbent upon us to find ways to reach them," says Gerry Rich, president of world-wide marketing for Paramount Pictures.

Fuck you Gerry Rich. It's not incumbent on you to reach me. I want you to leave me the fuck alone and keep your god damn ads out of my face. I will never pay for any video game that I know beforehand has full motion ads in it.

Re:Bots

[Bambi Dee]

Just wait until in-game ads contain important clues required to overcome some obstacle in the game, or watching them gets you experience points or mana or has subtle effects on NPC interactions...

Played an adventure game once where you had to get the right makeover before NPCs would respect you (it was some sort of parallel new wave universe). Maybe watching some ads could've been the easier route compared to save/restore trial and error. (I don't remember if it really was trial and error, but still.)

Well, for all I know that might've been done and subsequently abandoned already.

Did we skip product placement?

[Matimus]

The adds before a movie bother me a little, but if they tried to insert an add in the middle it would really upset me. It seems like this is what they are trying to do with video games. What they could do though is use more product placement. There are plenty of fake branded soda machines in Doom 3 and Halflife that could certainly have been Coke or Pepsi machines. I wouldn't have minded, really. If done correctly I think we can find a happy medium.

Greedy greedy greedy

[Sierpinski]

I don't know which online games this pertains to, but if it involved World of Warcraft, who just celebrated 1.5 million subscribers in China, and earlier 2 million subscribers worldwide, (as far as I know, the 2 million figure came before the release in China, so I'd assume there were no overlaps) thats just 3.5 million. If everyone paid month-by-month for $15/month, then 3.5M * 15 = 52.5 million dollars of income every month, from WoW alone (not counting game sales, just their monthly fee). If they start putting advertisements in the game, they better damn well give the option of playing for free, or turning the ads off for paying customers. I'll go back to playing America's Army, where (hopefully) its still free.

At least with the trade channel in WoW, you can turn it off.

I wouldn't be surprised if players riding on Gryphons and bats got barraged with adverisements while they flew. Thats when I usually go get a drink anyway.

Re:Yeah, that will work real well...

[wild_pointer]

or:

Game Narrator: "For watching this ad you get XXX gold added to your profile"

and gamers will flock to watch ads

They just don't get it.

[crovira]

If I go to Mars to kick ass and drink beer, I don't think it matters what brand of beer it would be. In fact if I was a smart advertiser, I'd make sure it was the competition's ads.

This bullshit of placing ads is likely to backfire and people will stay away in droves.

Re:This is great!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, this is a way for big game studios to add pennies to their stock price while further pushing more CRAP into games. Advertisers will not bother with small companies. Well, not unless you want to see payday loans and herbal viagra ads in your games.

Re:Unless the game is free....

[Peyna]

Unless the game is free, there should be no adds. If there are adds in the game and there was no warning on the box I would look into a law suit. I'm 90% sure there are disclosure laws that cover this kind of thing. And of course if there is a warning on the box that the game has adds in it, I wont be buying it.

People used to say the same thing about Cable TV.

Re:Privacy

[Winkhorst]

Bottom Line: I am not going to buy a game I learn contains advertisements. I no longer watch TV. Do these bozos think I will make an exception for their pathetic little games? If their games aren't good enough to make a profit the old way, they aren't worth playing. These damned advertisers need to learn that it's the quality of their product that drives sales, not how many times they tell me how wonderful it is. I am perfectly capable of determining whether their product is wonderful all by myself. Did I mention how much I hate these folks?

Re:kind of ridiculous

[Monkelectric]

If the ads are shown in the background without interrupting game play, which appears to be the case, I don't think people will object.

What planet are you from? The whole POINT of an ad is to interrupt whatever you are doing.

Re:And they know this how?

[Alien Being]

It's not spyware. You bought the machine, you bought the software, broke the shrinkwrap and clicked ok to the EULAs. You hooked it up, went online with it, spent hours playing the game and watching their copyrighted ads. You think they don't have a right to know about it? What are you trying to hide, anyway? /sarcasm

Welcome to capitalist America, where television watches you.

Then don't play those kind of games

[Sycraft-fu]

Like I said, there are LOTS of offline games. I'd venture to say most games are offline, or at the very least have an offline mode as well as an online mode.

By the way, if you think your skills with a video game gun at all translate to a real one, you are kidding yourself. I am (or at least used to be, don't do FPses much any more) an expert shot in FPS games. I could easily slide out sideways, look down a scope and pop somebody in less than 2 seconds. This does not, however, translate to the real world. In reality I'm an ok shot, good enough to pass CCW qualifications or that sort of thing, but I'm pretty hopeless when moving, and can't shoot a scoped rifle unless prone. Nobody with a brain is going to take video game shooting skills to mean real shooting skills.

But at any rate, don't want it to exist? Vote with your dollars and refuse to buy games with it.

I disagree

[Stone316]

The article the parent linked to hit the nail on the head. I personally don't mind watching trailers but why not show them before the movie start time? Most times i'm sitting in the theatre 30 minutes before the movie starts with nothing to do. It would be a great time to show them then. Now people are showing up late because they don't want to sit through the trailers. then they end up arriving late to find seats, etc, etc. The biggest disatisfiers for me are: 1. Food prices (5 bucks for a drink?) 2. rude/inconsiderate people 3. 20 minutes of advertisements before the movie starts.

Re:Unless the game is free....

[donleyp]

And of course if there is a warning on the box that the game has adds in it, I wont be buying it.

That's good to hear. Can we expect you to stop complaining about the content in games you don't plan on buying, then? Free Market == You get to vote with your feet. Free Market != You get to sue because you don't like the product.

Re:Ummm, wherever they want

[revery]

But there is nothing stopping big brother from 'asking' for the privately collected data. For whatever reason.

A lot of issues very quickly demonstrate how we should limit the government (Federal in particular) rather than placing limits elsewhere.

It's also about subtlety

[Emperor Tiberius]

I'll accept this if they fit in the ads nicely. I want a random coke can I knock over in D3, or a "poster" in a corridor. As long as you don't interrupt my game play, or ruin my experience, fine. It's all about subtlety. We'll see who controls the amount of ads and how annoying they are. I'm guessing whoever has the largest pockets.

If I'm playing Doom 4 and I have to watch an ad before I proceed, or an ad ruins the environment (brightens the area); expect me to return your game.

Re:kind of ridiculous

[Politburo]

So, basically what you're saying is that the 40 gb hard drive I have now will be filled up with advertisements?

No, that's not what they're saying. What's ridiculous is your hyperbole.

Does it suck? Yes. Do you have to take it? No. If you don't like it, don't play the games with ads.

that would be ideal

[SethJohnson]

Have the advertisers pay for some UT2k4 servers, then set the respawn to 15 seconds, and play adverts after you're gibbed!

This is how I would like to see advertizers get involved in the gaming industry. If they bring value to the table, consumers will appreciate their involvement. Sadly, these greedheads aren't looking to support gamers by hosting servers and providing bandwidth. They want to exploit gamers as a captive audience for their solicitations. No different from commercials in movie theaters. Advertizers are instead creating a hostile relationship with consumers.

Support gaming through sponsorship = goodwill generated
Exploit captive audience = irritating

Stop invasive commercials in movie theaters [captiveaudience.org].

Seth

Re:Depends on the game

[cowscows]

I sort of agree, as long as it's done well.

An example of where it's done poorly is Burnout 3. EA got their hands all over that one, and besides shoving a mostly crap soundtrack in it, they also plastered billboards for their games everywhere. Fair enough, when you drive around in real life, you see billboards too. But in Burnout, a lot of the EA billboards look like ass, they've very repetitive, and they don't have normal billboard qualities. Billboards generally have something amusing, or funny, or in some way eyecatching. They usually aren't just a crappy logo and a big title for some product.

In the grand theft auto games, the cities are full of signs with puns or clever mixups of what you might see in a real city. It doesn't effect the flow of the gameplay much, because it's done in a subtle way, but if you're just wandering around, it brings a little more entertainment to you, which is the whole point of games anyways.

Not to mention letting the developers/artists have fun. Would you rather draw a nice texture for choco-vitamins sugar pills or whatever goofy product you made up, or would you rather cut and paste logos that some marketing guy threw on your desk? The enthusiasm of the development team shows through. Maybe that's why the EA billboards in Burnout look so crappy.

They aren't the problem here...

[gosand]

If it bothers you, don't play games that use this service, there are plenty that don't. For that matter, there are plenty of games that are offline, they never even try to contact anything on the Internet.

1. As long as they make people CLEARLY aware that this is happening. Which they wouldn't, since most people would then avoid it. There's a reason we had to resort to a do-not-call list in the country, and a reason that advertisers are trying to get rid of it.

2. My concern is not that people will realize how this is an invasion and avoid these games. It is that people won't care and support it anyway, proving it is a valid form of advertisement. I don't worry about people who hate this kind of crap, I worry about the ones who don't hate it. The ones who respond to spam, the ones who click on popups, the ones who give away personal info for a shiny new pen. Those are the people who are aiding in the proliferation of this crap.

Re:They just don't get it.

[MindStalker]

HAHHAHA.. HAHA. HAHHA When in this history of advertising has this ever been true. I one heard a guy say that people will stay away from companies that solicit through spam in droves. HAHAA!!

Re:This is great!

[Hej]

"This is bullshit. If the consumer isn't getting any benefits out of it I guess I'll avoid the privilege of paying for something that throws advertisements at me." I take it you don't have cable/satellite TV, then?

Next up: prenatal ads

[Digz]

I mean, that's one of the few logical extensions left, right?

Re:Quality / price issues, not AD issues...

[mrchaotica]

You're right -- quality is the problem. And showing ads makes the quality of the experience drop like a stone!

Re:They just don't get it.

[jayhawk88]

Exactly. Bitch, whine, moan, but in the end we'll take it just like every other time.

25 minutes

[Das Auge]

Every time I go to a movie I spend 25 minutes watching trailers and commericals. Depending on the movie, that's a quarter to a third of the length of feature film!

That is the reason that I go to the theaters less often to watch movies. Advertisers and theater owners know that movie-goers will arrive early so that they can get the seat that they want and know they'll have them trapped to watch their adverts.

Well, guess what? I'm not trapped. This isn't the 20th century and I have alternatives. I no longer have to wait months or even a year to get the movie on cable or DVD.
Time marches on and like so many other industries (RIAA) they simply refuse to understand this. Well, we'll miss you...or not.

From TFA:
"We know the 17 to 34 audience, the male audience, is elusive and quite difficult to reach through traditional broadcast. ... It is incumbent upon us to find ways to reach them," says Gerry Rich, president of world-wide marketing for Paramount Pictures.

That's like trying to cut down a forest so that you may better find the dear that you are hunting.

problem?

[seanmeister]

"One problem with the full-motion ads is that gamers can easily avoid watching them."

And how exactly is this a "problem"?

Re:Yeah, that will work real well...

[Shads]

Even beyond the obvious stupidity of this in an online game, this thought comes to mind after reading the article:

"17-34 year old males are a hard demographic to market to."

Could it be because we're tired of ads that we don't give a flying shit about and we can make up our own minds about products?

I own a tivo for skipping comercials (and recording robot chicken of course), I use privoxy to block all ads on webpages, I spam filter my email on the server which I run and on my mail client for anything that sneaks past the server (1 in 2700 spams presently! Go greylisting and multiple bayes filters and uri blacklisting), I'm on the do not call list and won't give companies I do business with my real phone number, Could it be, just maybe, that under no circumstances, for no reason, do I want to see a fucking ad about something I don't care about? Could it be that if I want to know something about a product I'll look it up myself? Could it be you need to fucking get out of my house, out of my life, and quit wasting my time, space, and resources? yes. it could.

Could it be the first game I play with this technology I'll dedicate some programming time to figuring out ways to disable it? Absolutely!

Fucking idiots, let me spell it out:

MOST OF US DONT WANT TO SEE FUCKING ADS IN OUR RECREATIONAL TIME-- THIS IS LARGELY THE FUCKING REASON WE'RE HARD TO MARKET TO-- BECUASE WE DONT WANT TO BE MARKETED TO.

Re:[Warning : acid comment] Future in advertising.

[stratjakt]

Paul Anka:
To stop those monsters 1-2-3,
Here's a fresh new way that's trouble-free,
It's got Paul Anka's guarantee...

Lisa:
Guarantee void in Tennessee.

Both:
Just don't look! Just don't look!
Just don't look! Just don't look!
Just don't look! Just don't look!

One problem?

[DroopyStonx]

One problem with the full-motion ads is that gamers can easily avoid watching them.

Sorry, but we don't owe you SHIT. If we paid for the game, movie, whatever... we aren't obligated to watch your fucking ads.

Instead, there will be patches made to circumvent your ads. How bout that?

Books will be next

[Redfrost]

I've been waiting for ads to be printed in the middle of books for quite some time. Soon you'll be in the middle of a good fantasy book, someone is about to die and you'll turn the page and BAM! A full two page full color advertisement for Pepsi. You won't be able to rip it out because the text will be printed on at least one side of each page.

But, alas, people will still buy this stuff. People will spend $15 (cdn) to go see a movie at a theatre to watch 30 minutes of commercials and previews before the actual movie starts; and people will still buy games that have real-life video advertisements in them. If people really did vote with their wallet then the big corps might listen.

I'm no longer pissed off at the companies that do this, I'm pissed off at the people that can't control themselves and don't fight back.

Re:This is great!

[generic-man]

I thought Super Monkey Ball was sold by Sega and developed by AV. Sega's pretty big. It's the big companies which sign the big advertising deals.