APB To Use In-Game Audio Advertisements 97
Rock, Paper, Shotgun reports that upcoming action MMOG APB: All Points Bulletin will use in-game audio advertisements as part of its business model. The number of ads you hear will be limited: "you'll only hear an ad when you go into a new zone, and that's only once every three hours." Nevertheless, some gamers are upset that these ads will be included on top of APB's already unusual payment plans. The game is set for release next Tuesday. Producer Jesse Knapp says of Realtime Worlds' goals for APB, "We looked at other online action games, and we saw things we felt could be better. Only 12 to 32 players in a match, bad connection due to peer-to-peer, dead cities, way too much time in lobbies, things like that. So what we set out to do was to make a game that has that online player vs. player action game experience in a large city with other players around, no lobbies, dynamic matchmaking, dedicated servers, great experience, and that's been one of the driving factors of APB from the very beginning." CVG recently previewed the game.
Soon cracked & emulated (Score:4, Informative)
I bet $50 that there will be a crack that removes the advertisements in less than 2 weeks after the game's release.
People are already reverse engineering the game while it's still in beta:
# All Game Client to/from Login Server opcodes (GC2LS/LS2GC).
# All Game Client to/from World Server opcodes (GC2WS/WS2GC).
# How to connect to another server than retail.
# What encryption/auth schemes we’re dealing with (RC4, SRP 6a).
# The game uses some sort of serialization framework for packets.
# The backend runs a UT3-like server model.
# There is a separate (HTTP-based) Music Server that the game connects to.
Re:ads should only have a place in free products (Score:3, Informative)
If you want to argue that they should have charged consumers $20 for the product and gotten rid of the ads, then that's fine, but business owners aren't stupid: they do what works. Such a plan would almost certainly mean they will sell less of the product/service, reach a smaller audience (fewer will buy at $20/ea), and probably lose net revenue.
It's just sortof a business reality in many markets. This is the same reason you almost always see ads in magazines even when you paid for a subscription. In fact, in many magazines ad sales are the primary form of revenue.
Re:Pardon? (Score:3, Informative)
Or now Global Agenda... they just ditched their sub model due to player comments.
Not for everyone, but it's a non-fee based MMO.
Personally, as someone who played during the "keys to the city" event, I think APB is going to fail miserably. It's so glitchy that I wouldn't even pay for it - I even paid for Age of Conan after being in Beta because it wasn't THIS glitchy.
Their payment system really stinks, and to add in advertisements is just adding insult to injury. Good luck surviving your first year APB, doubt you will, but good luck with that one anyway. I know you won't have my money.
W T F (Score:5, Informative)
1. Buy the game for the MSRP of $50
2. Play 50 hours for "free."
3. Buy additional game time using one of two options:
a) $6.99 for 20 hours
b) $9.99 for unlimited hours during the next 30 days (or you can also buy 60 or 90 day subscriptions)
So, first, you're out $50 for the game itself. Then you're out basically $9.99 a month for the subscription. On top of that they want to send you advertisements?
Seriously, WTF? Pick either the advertising supported model or subscription model, don't double dip at the customers expense.
Fun Game... For About 2 Hours (my 2 cents) (Score:5, Informative)
Having played the beta, my short review of APB is: drive here, shoot stuff, repeat. Oops! Seems like I broke the embargo on reviews which was initially set at 10 freakin' days after release [rockpapershotgun.com]! To their credit (I guess), they rolled that back to merely release day [rockpapershotgun.com].
A more nuanced look at the game shows they have in fact done some things quite nicely. The "All Points Bulletin" mechanic works very nicely. You'll be doing a mission when up pops up a notification that a comparable group from the opposing faction has been sent to stop you. It changes the dynamic of the mission and gives you a jolt of adrenaline as you listen out for the roar of the car engine signifying your would-be assassins drawing close. However, these adversarial matchups aren't without their problems. Say 50% of the time they work and you get a comparable strength team sent against you, resulting in a pitched battle that culminates in either narrow victory or defeat. Perfect! Well, the other 50% of the time you get a team that is woefully underpowered, say one wee neophyte against our group of four. Or massively overpowered, so you "call for backup", which works maybe 10% of the time. Perhaps the opposition are a full map away and have no way of intercepting you in time. Or they are already at the objective and virtually impossible to budge. The latter gets irritating as there are a few excellent camping spots should you get a VIP 'escort' mission. Oh, and I lied about the proportions. Things go right about 25% of the time rather than 50%.
Despite these problems, the gameplay is fun if you have a good group that you are in touch with through some kind of voice comms. The problem is that there is very little variety. Perhaps I've been spoiled by Saints Row 2 in this regard, but there seem to be about 3 basic types of mission which leads to the game getting boring quickly - pitched battles or not.
There is also a HUGE amount of customisation, if you're into that sort of thing. I won't say more about this as I'm not buying a game to play dress up...
...Which brings me to my next point: pricing. Pinning down the pricing details wasn't easy, although I did eventually find it on Kotaku or similar. I'll quote from RPS again:
The problem is, you are paying full retail price plus a decent fraction of 10 of your local denomination (£/$/€) monthly, for what? Progression seems limited - you can gain prestige with local NPC types to do more missions, but your character doesn't seem to get much stronger as with more traditional MMOs. It's not even like EVE where you can claim a small section of the virtual world for your particular gang. Frankly, I'm not sure it is worth paying for a glorified matchmaking service, but that is a judgment call each individual gamer needs to m
APB = Failure. Enjoy the money pit. Assholes (Score:4, Informative)
Dont buy into APB. Let it flop, so that we can stop this trend in gaming.