Free 'Ad-Backed' Games the Future?

MacarooMac writes "EA Games recently announced they are to release a free online version of their PC game 'Battlefield Heroes', supported by in game adverts and micro payments. EA hopes the model of a free game as a download that is supported by advertising could be applied to other franchises it owns. For this particular title, no adverts will appear in the game itself due to incompatibility with the game's fictional world. Instead, adverts will appear on the website and the 'front-end' of the game. But many other titles can and do provide for product placement during game play itself. How long before improvements in video graphics, combined with dynamic, and perhaps even interactive in-game advertising, start to generate revenue increases that enable publishers to substantially reduce the price of their games?" Already a very common model for Eastern online titles, and being adapted here in the states by a number of companies.

That'll be the day I stop playing games

[Nursie]

Or at least those games.

Traditional advertising routes are failing because people:

1. Hate ads
2. Stop noticing them after a while
3. See them absolutely bloody everywhere.

Just because I can tune them out doesn't mean I want to, and I'd rather pay for the game, thanks. Actually, I wouldn't mind paying for tv with no ads too. It's not like the advertisers get much "value" from my watching anyway. I drink english ale and I get excited about a new NAS, not the sort of thing you see on tv that much...

Thankfully...

[Leonard Fedorov]

"For this particular title, no adverts will appear in the game itself due to incompatibility with the game's fictional world." I am very glad that someone realised this. Seeing adverts for Pandora Tommorow in Chaos Theory completely broke the immersion.

Re:done nicer than far cry hopefully

[somersault]

At least they haven't been so crass as to inject them into the game itself. There are some games where real life ads could actually work well though, for example I wouldn't mind if Grand Theft Auto IV had real ads up on billboards, bus stops and on the radio for example, would make it all a bit more realistic. Wouldn't be as funny as the fake ads of course :/

Free games, sure.

[Reapy]

Done right, sure. They can whore themselves out as much as they want, so long as the game play is fun. I don't really care if when I need health instead of drinking soda pop X, I get mountain dew. Whatever. Hell, what if in a level I got into a firefight inside a mcdonalds with huge mcdonalds advertisements all over the store. Cool.

Just don't do stuff like they did with fight night 3, like having the BK guy in my ring corner, or a dodge mini van as the sponsor for a boxing game. I thought it was cool with the under armor ads all over, sweet, fits the genera, but, no bk please.

So, target the ads, it'll make me like the product, instead of hating it. This would be good for game makers and advertisers.

The other thing to watch for is the "micropayment" items. As long as the micro item doesn't offer a crippling advantage to other players, i'm all for it, esp if the game is free. I really enjoyed sierra's freestyle basketball game they grabbed from a korean game maker, and the free game + micro payments for little stat boosts worked fine. I had no problem buying the game and a few items (about 25 bucks all together) after I had clocked like 30 hours in the thing as is without paying a cent.

So, bring on the free games :)

Development costs

[ddrichardson]

Personally I think this is a terrible model for games to develop as a medium, yet it does not surprise me the EA would promote it. Having worked in game retail in the past, it's not a secret that (in the UK at least) EA's backbone is in the sportsgames with annual updates.

Advertisers are more likely to but space in, say Fifa '09 which will have much lower development costs than a new concept and such a model may even off set the development cost.

Mistakes

[geekboxjockey]

Seems they decided to go with characters that look like clear ripoffs of TF2's new look.... See the picture at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/21/technology/21game.html?ref=technology [nytimes.com].

EA is taking 2 steps that I completely disagree with:

-Ripping off other games and making weaker versions of something that has already been successful for another company. Great, you go make a buck, let other companies steer the course of gaming and out(last/earn) you...

-Taking a problematic issue with current games such as MMORPGs, and making it a new feature. That is, if you aren't good enough you spend money and then you are at least a little better in some respects. (Gold farming in WoW etc..) Forget a game that pits raw skill vs skill, let people pay if they suck, no thank you... I prefer games where being good counts for something. Sure it will be fun to knock around the idiots who spent $100... It's not a true skill based competition, which is the fundamental root of any good multi-player game.

More likely

[winmine]

Free ad-laden games in the future? No. Expensive ad-laden games more likely. Macropayments divy the game into 20 $5 chunks instead of a single $60 buy.

Imagine: "Level complete! Use 500 points for level 2?" "This level brought to you by Mountain Dew"

Re:That'll be the day I stop playing games

[phobos13013]

Actually, this is exactly my rationale for why I *would* play them!

There is a statistic out there that the average person sees about 300 ads per day. In so doing, I would imagine (or at least I have...) most people have learned to tune the ads out. I can easily play a game and ignore the marketing. I do play online games where this occurs anyway already! So if marketing firms want to subsidize my ability to play full games for free. Sign me up, and don't be surprised if you don't get a bump in revenue because of it!

Crackdown

[Turn-X Alphonse]

People are over reacting to advertisements in game. I recently picked up Crackdown and only noticed the adverts were real things once I had been playing a good 10 hours. I didn't think "oh wow I need to see that movie" I just kept playing as if they were fictional. They didn't ruin my game or do any harm what so ever, the worst that can be said is they wasted space of something comedic like GTA has.