In-Game Advertising Makes Games Better? 352
Pretty much every time we hear about a game launching in-game advertising it sounds like a horrible idea that will only serve to detract from the experience. However JJ Richards of Massive wants you to give it a chance, claiming that if done correctly it can not only work, but actually enhance the overall experience. "In fact, according to Massive's research, gamers like ads. Here's the caveat: they have to add to the gaming experience. He describes a game that takes place in Times Square. With no ads, it's not real at all. With generic ads, it's a little better. 'Now imagine Times Square with ads you just saw on television or read in a newspaper—the latest movie release or television show or a new car model,' he said. 'Imagine further that it is up-to-the-minute, whether you played your game today or six months from now. That is much more realistic.' His argument is that gamers consume the experience of ads, not just the ads themselves. 'The ads add to and enhance that experience, and our research shows that it is highly effective for both game play as well as advertisers.'"
...but Beyonce... (Score:5, Insightful)
Illusion (Score:4, Insightful)
He is right in that aspect that real-world products, trademarks or ads in real-world game can go towards players experience.
I rather see real Coca-Cola cans coming from the vending machine than some made up or close so "Joca Jola" name. It breaks the illusion.
Even if the gameworld doesn't take place in real world, but lets say future, it can still count for the user experience. It improves the scifi experience more when player can think "oh McDonalds is still around" and game designers can put more detail in to the game by coming up with some funky stuff for them.
But this also has the problem that trademark owners usually dont like showing their products in bad light and going even so far that the game is not allowed to break their cars and so on.
It's not a bad idea - but it can be really bad if done incorrectly.
Hate to say it... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Illusion (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it might work out in modern and futuristic settings because we already expect the ads to be there, but if you're running around on a unicorn to save the fairy kingdom I doubt that someone selling Coke at the local bazaar is going to improve the experience at all. Personally, though, I don't like ads, period. I would rather see less of them in games simply because I have to deal with so many of them outside of games and would honestly like a break now and then. I fear that sooner or later the only way to avoid ads for a couple hours is going to be to host DnD campaigns in old abandoned military bunkers.
Diversity in advertising (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Illusion (Score:1, Insightful)
I'd drink nuka-cola over coca cola any day of the week!
Re:Illusion (Score:4, Insightful)
"Product placement" I would agree with, but product placement isn't advertising. Product Placement is having Walt Kowalski bitch because his Heiniken isn't a PBR. An advertisemsnt is what you see before the movie starts. I can agree with product placements, but nit advertising. And showing a picture of a screen in-game with a commercial on that screen isn't product placement.
I liked the futuristic McDonalds in The Fifth Element.
If advertisers (or product placers) start paying to get their products placed, or moreso, if you see ads before the game starts, will the price of games go down?
Re:My response to this as a gamer (Score:4, Insightful)
You have to remember that the ads are integrated in the gameworld. Or atleast should be, not like how Wipeout HD did it [youtube.com].
He has a good point in that if you have a supposedly realistic world and lets say Manhattan or Tokyo, it's not really real without any ads. Surprisingly, fake product names break the illusion too (unless you can do them with humor like in GTA IV - but thats not always the case in more serious games). Real ads can add up to the player experience, if integrated correctly in to the game world.
NO, we don't. (Score:4, Insightful)
This goes double for ads that require an internet connection to update and waste my bandwidth for something I have no interest in.
And lastly, I can not imagine finding anything relevant in an in-game ad: Wow, the new Ferrari is out! I must buy one immediately! Hey, the cinemas in Left4Dead 2: The Bloodening advertise the newest RomCom, surely a must-see!
I play games to fucking escape my ordinary life, not to have the worst aspects transplanted into it, especially since most games don't have realistic (as in "real-world") characters in them, anyway ("90% of all genetically enhanced super-soldiers agree: Clearasil is the choice of space marines!").
Re:Hate to say it... (Score:4, Insightful)
sick of advertisements (Score:5, Insightful)
Porno (Score:4, Insightful)
Come on, everybody knows what kind of ads gamers really want.
People like advertising? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone in advertising that I've ever spoken with always insists people love advertising. However, I've never spoken to anyone outside of advertising that says they like ads. I would think the emergence of things like DVRs, browser adblockers, etc would be a big clue to the advertising industry.
Re:Imagine this, asshole (Score:4, Insightful)
STOP ADVERTISING TO ME WHEN I'VE ALREADY PAID FOR YOUR PRODUCT, ASSHOLE.
I take it you don't watch basic cable TV or basic satellite TV. You pay for it, but it still has ads.
Re:Illusion (Score:3, Insightful)
Agreed. Would Coca-Cola allow devs to use their name for the radioactive Nuke Cola in Fallout? or in a dirty, broken vending machine in Left 4 Dead? hell, even subtler stuff, like the references to consumerism in Omikron's Quanta Cola ads?
For in-game advertising to work, big companies' marketing departments need to approach it maturely. If they insist their stores' virtual replicas must be pristine safe havens in a city gone to hell the advertising will be far too blantant for the gamer to react positively to it and not only will they doom their own brand, but also the concept of in-game ads itself.
GTA did it best... (Score:4, Insightful)
A real world, with real chains and real ads, all of which are made up is the best way to do it. You have all the liberties of not infringing anyones shit, and a nice in-world level of coherency and realism. Using real-world advertisements would be detrimental.
In racing or sports games on the other hand, you're simulating the real world - so of course you want real world ads to go with, and can probably swipe some money from the guys.
It all depends on what you want to achieve. For gritty real-world shit, you want to get actual advertisements - for ironic, fun and fantasy "world"-games (of which I notice a bit of a lack of well thought out ones), you go with alternatives. Non-world games (which are getting rarer...) should of course not feature any ads at all, thankyouverymuch.
NO. (Score:5, Insightful)
"In fact, according to Massive's research, gamers like ads."
Emphatically, absolutely, unequivocally
WRONG.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Illusion (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not a bad idea - but it can be really bad if done incorrectly.
Don't get me wrong, the idea you have for "real" coke cans coming out of vending machines is sound. Games are designed to create an alternate reality and break our illusion of our own. Games like GTA or even Max Payne can be done well, since they are set in a world not too different from our own (if you think hooker killing is normal, that is). Games like WoW, Doom3, Unreal Tournament, etc... are just different enough that if I see an "Intel Inside" logo on my plasma rifle or level 250 "Electro-Mace of the Allmighty", I'm likely to just go back to the good ol' days of gaming, without ads.
I am on the proverbial fence on this (Score:2, Insightful)
However, far too often advertising in-game tends to be placed in ways that are an eyesore. I know there's a couple of games that actually use their multiplayer scoreboard as adspace, which is a significant eyesore. High visibility isn't always a good thing when it comes to in-game ads.
I don't know. I think ads in games aren't going to disappear anytime soon, but I can say with certainty that a game that uses in-game advertising won't live long if those ads are overly distracting or take away from the gameplay.
Reality (Score:4, Insightful)
Or maybe it's reality that's broken. Imagine a Times Square that doesn't have all the ads, but instead has art, or beautiful architecture. Wouldn't that be -much- better?
Starting from the assumption that ads are good can only lead to the conclusion that ads are good.
Re:GTA did it best... (Score:3, Insightful)
Absolutely, if it would seem out of place without the ads (racing simulators, licensed professional sports games), make some money off of it. If it's a fictitious world, ficticious ads can add to the experience (GTA, Fallout 3).
Re:...but Beyonce... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:...but Beyonce... (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah fake ads are better. I could see real ads working in a few games but what about period games set in the past or future? Do you want to see an ad for the latest movie in a game set in the 1930's or see coke adds in Halo? This sounds like a pretty lame argument to me.
What a damned tool (Score:3, Insightful)
You could use real ads, but fixed in time. When is the game set? 1995? Then the ads should be from 1995, not updated to today. That's not realistic. Is the game set in 2009 (today as of this writing)? Then it should have those ads, you know, in Times Square. But probably not in some evil villian's fortress, or wherever the game actually takes place.
Some games, novels, and movies are supposed to be set "today" or "a year from now", though obviously these things all look very dated after twenty years. In these cases only could he defend his case.
Since all he's *really* doing is trying to justify a massive cash flow- after all, most games aren't set in times square, or any other heavily-dominated-by-advertising area- it doesn't even matter what he's saying. But even if we take him at face value, he's hip deep in BS.
I won't buy games with ads. I avoid TV because I hate ads. Keep them the hell out games, thanks.
TMNT for the NES has Pizza Hut ads everywhere. Looks absurd. Looked absurd back then too.
Marketers think they do us a service (Score:4, Insightful)
In their own minds, they are helping deliver valuable products that people enjoy, and informing them about their choices. Cognitive dissonance keeps them from thinking about what they are really doing. It keeps them from putting two and and two together. They went to school to learn mind control. In their own discussions they can be very frank about the fact that they want to control people and get them to do things that may be against their best interest, but they can not see that in moral terms they are doing something very, very wrong. They are planting false ideas in people's heads, making them believe that a company loves them, that a beer will make them sexy, that a pill will make their dicks bigger or their bellies smaller, that choosing the right products will make them popular and happy. They are preying on people's insecurities. And it works. If marketing were not capable of controlling people's actions, it would be useless.
You know, there is another class of goods that gets accused of controlling people's actions and making them do harmful things against their will: drugs. We can't even prove that drugs do this, while advertising would not be salable if it didn't. Why are drugs illegal but advertising is legal?
Re:Illusion (Score:5, Insightful)
If advertisers (or product placers) start paying to get their products placed, or moreso, if you see ads before the game starts, will the price of games go down?
Nope. Remember when cable TV was new? One of the big selling point was that there were no commercials. Why would there be commercials, when you're paying for access? Well once Cable became mainstream a couple channels started sneaking in a few commercials, then a few more, then commercials on cable became standard. They get you to pay to view their advertising.
Re:What other horrible parts of life can be added? (Score:4, Insightful)
Make players wait in line to buy items in an MMORPG. Require bathroom breaks or experience loss of social status as characters crap their pants.
Am I the only one who has always wanted to see more such in RPG games (single player or multiplayer)?
I've always hated how the character you're playing never needs to eat, drink, sleep or do something fun once in a while. He always just adventures and fights the bad guys till the campaign is over.
I've always wanted to have a realistic game like that. I even coded some such as a kid (obviously they never got finished, but the basic things we're there). Yeah The Sims is there, but its not exactly an RPG and haven't been fun since Sims 1 came out (and that stopped being fun after a few expansion packs too).
Some games are made to escape reality. But why do I always have to escape some scifi/fantasy/completely unrelated place of real world.
Combine normal "every day in life" things like these with a good, self-thinking AI and it makes a great sandbox game and brings some pause to the constant fighting, massive storytelling and questing in RPG's.
Realistic !== Fun (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe. But generic ads can be humorous, too. Real ads have to take themselves seriously.
FAIL. Using the CUSTOMER'S bandwidth pulling down up-to-the-minute ads, so you can get paid for advertising in a game the CUSTOMER already bought? Advertising that will always change, thereby distracting from the game itself? And pitching that as an improvement? FAIL, sir.
Besides which, realism is only good when it makes a game more fun. Realistic explosions? Good. Realistic insurance claims afterwards? Bad. Some aspects of reality suck, and people play games to escape them.
Re:I prefer the fake ads (Score:3, Insightful)
P.S: Sure we all love ads, this is why we remove all the stupid intros from the games, which only reason to exist are to delay the start of the game.
Re:GTA did it best... (Score:3, Insightful)
Bingo! Realism isn't always best for gaming.
I think ads detract from the real world. Ads in a game might suck in a realistic way, but they still suck.
Re:Marketers think they do us a service (Score:2, Insightful)
You know, there is another class of goods that gets accused of controlling people's actions and making them do harmful things against their will: drugs. We can't even prove that drugs do this, while advertising would not be salable if it didn't. Why are drugs illegal but advertising is legal?
oh please. nobody forces you to go out and gorge on a hardees double cowburger against your goddam will. the idea that a government body should control what can and cannot be said based on the notion that people cannot help themselves is far more distasteful than the wiles of some brilllcremed advertising executive dangling donuts in front of the jiggling masses.
Re:Marketers think they do us a service (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes, and people can reproduce the same stuff forever and ever, or until they get sick of it. Then someone has to produce new "stuff", but they don't bother because there's nothing in it for them.
We know there isn't a monopoly in it for them. You actually have to show that there is nothing in it for them, if you are claiming it. And you cannot, but you can show the contrary. Let's hear you rebut yourself:
Of course, in some situations, people can and *will* make good stuff for free (e.g. free software),
This is very true.
For example, I don't see people making free, commercial-standard computer games.
This only shows how much you know about games. Check out Battle for Wesnoth or Freeciv. Check out WoW, which uses a monetization model where a huge chunk of the game (the back-end) is supposed to be an actual secret and the copyright law is therefore irrelevant. If anyone can install the client but only one entity has the server, that entity can charge whatever the hell they want.
And if (say) a business requires a particular piece of software that happens to be pretty uninteresting to a hacker type who writes software for the fun of it, who pays for that?
The business. I am surprised I have to spell it out for you.
One solution would be for them to keep it entirely to themselves, under wraps, but that stops other people getting the benefit of that software. Perhaps they could supply it as a "service" via their own server, so that people can only use it via that method, but that sounds pretty restrictive to me.
It is very restrictive and no one should trust such software to do anything important. Only the leisure software, like games, can be tolerated when it works like that. But your argument goes nowhere. You are operating under a false assumption that there is a shortage of commodity software. There is no such shortage. The free as in freedom commodity software (for example, Ubuntu) blows anything proprietary out of the water. It does so in two respects: it is plain better (faster, more reliable, more predictable) in accomplishing tasks users expect an OS to accomplish, and it comes with a guarantee that it does not do anything you don't want it to do. The latter is a fact for free software, as opposed to a hope when you cannot build from source. I really get a kick out of pointing this out lately: we know that Ubuntu is not spying on us. We hope that Windows or MAC OS is not spying on us.
You want copyright to be enforced so that the commodity software can be developed? But copyright has in fact been enforced, and the proprietary commodity software still sucks compared to software which would have been developed without copyright (and therefore competition), and was in fact developed while facing a strong monopolist adversary. Get a clue.
Tell that to GTA4 (Score:4, Insightful)
It has a "replica" of what looks like a famous NY street pattern and looks just like it (well like the hollywood versions I have seen anyway) and not a real ad in the entire game.
Sorry, but the story ain't about realistic billboards in the game, advertising don't work that way. The Coca Cola company doesn't want that crushed rusty can that just rolled away to bear its logo, it wants you to sit watching their latest ad for 30 seconds while you want to play the game.
They don't want you to be a F1 driver, watching a yellow line that is your cars hood and maybe see the shell logo clearly in a flash in a replay. They want you to see their commercial, for 30 seconds and possibly more.
So yes, real world games CAN gain some immersion by having real world ads in it. But that is NOT what advertisers want, the opposite in fact. GTA did NOT have permission to use REAL car names for their cars. Why not? Free advertising right? Nope.
Not only does Coca Cola NOT want to pay for that crushed rusty can that ads to immersion, they do NOT want THEIR logo splattered with the brains of the hooker you just killed for a bit of cash.
Oh, and remember one thing please gamers, IF you sanatize your product and make it overrun with ads, you will have the same effect as TV. No, not free money. The gamer audience, that most lucrative market of young adult men leaving for something else. It already happened to TV. Why do you think we game? because there is nothing on tv.
The article mentions that the ads are "only" 4-5 minutes in an hour, hardly anything compared to tv. So what are all the complaints about? Because it won't stop there. Advertisers basically want to chain their customer to their ads, forbid them to leave at pain of pain. They WILL increase the amount watched, make it harder and harder to skip until people finally rebel.
Look at what happened to tv. Innocent commercial blocks have now become so invasive the ads are broadcast OVER the actual program.
If advertisers had their way you would be driving a cola can powered by cola, collecting cola buttons to spend on cola bottles and every single texture is the cola logo. Interrupt every 30 seconds by a 2 minute commercial.
Right now an advertiser is creaming his pants at this wonderful idea. You know it.