Full-Motion Ads Come to Videogames 486
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.'"
Suspension of disbelief? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why not during loading screens? (Score:5, Interesting)
In-game ads would be easier to avoid (don't go near the creek unless you want to watch an ad for the dawson's creek DVD), but would IMHO be much more disruptive to the imersion of the game. Loading screens already hurt (KILL) imersion, so you might as well throw an ad up to take my attention away from watching the progress bar slowly move.
Idea for ads in games (Score:5, Interesting)
No, I think the characters need to be dressed in outfits like those worn by nascar drivers, full of ads. You can pick your character as the marlboro man, Mrs. exxon mobile, and the Amazon queen.
Next, to do the movie ads correctly, they need to be displayed on the torso of your opponent, especially if it's a game where you have to work on a big opponent for a while. Then, everyone is stuck watching them.
See, that wasn't hard.
Jerry
http://www.cyvin.org/ [cyvin.org]
Re:Yeah, that will work real well... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Unless the game is free.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Ummm, wherever they want (Score:5, Interesting)
You have no right to privacy on other people's property. If you come to my house and find microphones and cameras setup everywhere you are welcome to leave, but you cannot pretend like you have some right to stop me from monitoring you.
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.
Heh (Score:4, Interesting)
A good bit of the wrongheadedness of this idea comes from the fact that in professional sports, the ads are not aimed at the players; they're supposed to be seen by the audience who is watching them. Video games have no equivalent to this, except in the "pro gaming" world, which is still too small to be an influential market
Alienation (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean, what if you were playing World of Warcraft, and there was a big sign for Coca Cola in the middle of Orgrimmar, that captured your screen and furthur reduced FPS as you approached it. You'd probably avoid Orgrimmar. Also, since that's a vital city to play as the Horde, you'd probably end up quitting. gg.
Re:Unless the game is free.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Yeah, that will work real well... (Score:5, Interesting)
Have the advertisers pay for some UT2k4 servers, then set the respawn to 15 seconds, and play adverts after you're gibbed!
Of course, it would probably just piss me off having to wait 15 seconds to respawn. Sometimes 7 is an eternity.
Re:Obligatory Bill Hicks (Score:3, Interesting)
I won't let it affect my decision to play a game, because ultimately that decision is based on how good the game is and/or whether I enjoy it. There were ads for Constantine in The Matrix Online, and other than looking at it once or twice I never gave it another thought. And now that we know Massive will only charge for full views (I'd like to know how they plan on figuring that out, but...), I'll just show my back to the billboards around the 13 second mark.
Re:I predict a lucrative market. (Score:3, Interesting)
That would be scary, games inharmoniously welded to adware.
Re:Yeah, that will work real well... (Score:2, Interesting)
Camping and Ads (Score:2, Interesting)
RTS development product placement (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:that would be ideal (Score:2, Interesting)
>Exploit captive audience = irritating
I agree. I have no problem playing Crazy Taxi and having the passenger say, "Take me to Tower Records" instead of "Take me to the music store," or "Take me to KFC" instead of "Take me to the chicken place." I would like to think that the makers of Crazy Taxi were able to charge less for the game because of such internal sponsorship, though that is probably wishful thinking.
The thing is, how effective is that form of advertising? I mean, I remember those advertisers even though I haven't played the game in a couple of years, and I'm sure that delights them, but that hasn't necessarily generated them any dollars. I'd say it did generate goodwill from me, yet it didn't make me pick KFC when I wanted some other food.
I mean, I know that it says "Sloan Royal Valve" on the top of most urinals because I've seen it so many times, but that hasn't generated them any revenue...
The next thing you know... (Score:2, Interesting)
After dispatching another terrorist with your awesome aim and a Colt M4 Carbine, you take cover behind an aisle in de_walmart. It's the gun equipment aisle. A text message appears,
"Would you like to purchase a Remington High-Powered Rifle, on sale now for $1999.95!
1) Yes
2) No"
You notice your magazine is almost empty, so you think "sure" and hit "1". You expect a new gun to appear in your hand, but instead you see a message:
"Thank you for your purchase! Your credit card has been charged $1999.95!"
In your moment of confusion, a 12-yr-old girl named D/\rK_F^|rY kills you, and gloats "HAHAHAHahaha N000B!!!!111!1"
Your shame is complete.
Re:Privacy (Score:3, Interesting)
Tragically in my day job I am the coder told to put these ad billboards in a triple A game. I told them the say they signed the contract that they now had the board of megacorp inc effectively helping design the game. And its true, features we would like to drop now cant be changed because they have already farmed out the space to advertising billboards.
Needless to say, that doesnt make for a better game.
Re:This is great! (Score:3, Interesting)
We surf the internet and read. We used to watch a ton of TV, but when we moved to our new house we didn't feel like paying through the nose to Comcast and there are too many Trees in the way for a Satellite. This was 2 years ago and we haven't missed it. We don't even have an antenna hooked up.
We still have a TV for watching movies we rent and playing Xbox/Playstation/Gamecube...but it's mainly my son that plays those. But he doesn't even play them that much.