EA's In-game advertising deal

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/060831/20060831005161.html

I don't like the sound of this at all. Playing a game littered with 'dynamic' adverts? No thanks.

To me, its the slippery slope leading to far more 'in your face' adverts disrupting the game.
I imagine for example, after reaching the end of a level, or race, a mini commercial will jump in before the next level starts.

How long before we get full-blown commercial breaks in the game?
Will the game be cheaper? - NO!
Why are we PAYING to see ads?

I've made the decision that I will never buy a game with advertisement in it. If it has, it should be free.
I hope more people follow my thinking so we can stop this madness.

If the game is free, I can understand ads in it, but if I pay full price for a game and see advertisements in it, thats just down right greedy.

I won't buy games with ads in too. Hopefully there'll still be plenty of cool free Indie games with no ads.

I would find it interesting though to go around reading advertisements on posters and such in games, as long as they conform to the style of the game and arn't made to stick out.

It's a simple algorithm really.

If AdvertisingRevenue>(SalesProfitsWithoutAds-SalesProfitsWithAds)
   ShowAds()
Else
   DoNotShowAds()
End If

If you don't want to see ads in games, don't buy the games and they won't continue. But if ( as I suspect ) most people buy the games anyway because they've just gotta have them, they're here to stay.

A game like Grand Turismo would look really odd without all the trackside ads though - so I guess it depends on the game and the ads.
Regards

Well, it's stuff like this that forces me to go with indie games. Who needs EA's overhead anyway, they're just as full of hot air, if not more so than some other big timers out there. Yeah, EA's not gonna see much business from the hardcore gamers.

Don't worry guys. The moment such games hit the shelfs in greater numbers someone, somewhere will create a patch that will address the problem. :)

Barney

if the game is in a city, that would naturally have huge neon advertisments then sure, that's ok.

I don't wanna see "this nuke is sponsored by Oust!" in supreme commander or something.

I have to put my vote in on sensical ads... I don't mind product placement, in situations where they would have to have something in that spot, might as well sell the space..

Billboards in racing games... magazines on tables... Store selves... It has been a source of interest in the movies (seeing futuristic coke products... or time magazine with crap on it)

If it makes sense, it doesn't bother me... If it doesn't make sense.. I don't play it..


The MMO I am working on will be mostly free (selling additional things... like different skill trees, or access to additional races.) and one of the ways they are going to make it work, is they are going to sell ad space of billboards in the game for real products. The billboards are all old and dirty and sometimes broken, and many will be used like landmarks... making players say things like "Hang a left at the mountain dew sign and head into the hole."

I'm all for things like this... it is realistic, as the game is supposed to take place in a post-war world when the war happened sometime around now (or relatively soon in the future)...

It also doesnt' bother me when games like... Tony Hawk... have ads in them for related clothing and such... It only bothers me when the ads interfere with the gameplay...

product placement in games don't bother me as long as they fit the game

seeing a taco bell or nike commerical in GTA then i am alright with it but seeing a pepsi ad in Medal of Honor ruins the game

only game i play from EA is Medal of Honor

Yeah, other non-EA based games that use in-house advertising would have to be SWAT 4, and those are usually user made billboards/marquees that they use throughout some of those maps.

I wonder what would happen if you simply used your firewall program to block a game with ads from connecting to the internet (or even go to the extreme of disconnecting while using that game). That way the game couldn't download and show you ads. Unfortunately, this way multiplayer modes wouldn't work any more.

Hmm, something to ponder about. I'll keep you in mind.

That would be the only thing I could think of John, unless the game itself literally forces you to connect to the net to download the latest ad package, 'course I'd rather have Starforce of my PC then deal with that.
(and that's saying alot)

Regarding ads in games, EA so far imo, have been plain horrible, if you've ever played Burnout3, you'll know why.

Ubisoft can be just as bad also though....
(Splinter Cell:Chaos Theory for example had no ads to begin with aside from suttle crap like an AMD64 logo when loadin maps, but after you update to latest version, near every computer in the game of importance shows a Brothers in Arms logo when using...)

But I guess the ads just wouldn't be ads without them being in your face one way or another, not like people *look* for ads unless they're in some way humourous right?
(I always enjoy those stereotypical beer billboard ads I see along the roads)

Commercial breaks are coming, especially in on-line browser game communities.

Commercial breaks been here for awhile, just not in large mass, I recall some of Shockwave.com's multiplayer games having actual commercials (poor 56k users ;/) between rounds....

If my bandwidth was unlimited I couldn't give much a damn about actual embedded video advertisement, more-so if said product is paid for, rather then free, but I aint....

Doesn't stop me from surfin the web or something till the ad ends at least...

I expect to see the commercials more tightly integrated, ie. you'll see one between each level etc.. I'm mainly referring to casual games here.

Hehe, yeah, also, most game ads haven't been full video in the past, either, as I said, most have either been billboards or marquees that you go by, or they could be some TVs or radios in a game that you go by, and hear or see the add play in one of those. They haven't actually been on a game as a cutscene, up until this deal broke out. Hmm, I can only imagine, that could add more realism to those Madden or NCAA games, think about it. EA wants you to think that instead of playing Madden on an X360, they want you to think you're watching ESPN HD or something. That's something to think about. EA wants to bring television to the arcade/console/PC market.

With that in mind, a message to EA, the game console or computer is NOT a television, stop treating each game like its a TV program! Thank you...

It's all very well where it suits the game but if this becomes a big deal it'll be very hard to make a game with a fantasy\sci-fi or historical setting. It's like those Orange ads at the cinema where they'll only commission movies with mobile phones in them.

EA sure knows how to continously screw the gaming industry eh?
Thing is, I don't even mind adverts and as you say, sometimes adverts bring realism to a game, football games with adverts on Shirts or driving games without adverts on the tracks or cars, they wouldn't look right without them. But I've still never bought anything because of an advert I've seen, I don't know they bother.

I guess it caters towards the mind dead moronic society who will buy anything they see. (Which is probably 90% of the country :) )

Sure you have. Its all subliminal. :D

Nope, if you knew me and how little money I spend. You'd know it's not subliminal. I mock adverts, I try to find faults with products. I question even the food I buy, whether or not I truly need it.

Infact I'm more likely to not buy something on principle because of an annoying advert. For example I'm never going to buy Cillit Bang, I'd rather roll around in a house full of my own dust feces and germs than to let a loud shouty hand wavey man sell me some regular standard kitchen cleaning agent in a pink fancy bottle.

A big concern for me is that if you look at the videogame magazine industry, the revenue for which is ad-driven, it's pretty much on its arse. And it's on its arse at least partially because being able to sustain a profit while only making a token effort on editorial quality means you can afford to alienate consumers far beyond the point from which it is easy to return. Games, generally, are already far too generic, fiddly, broken and expensive... they don't really need to travel any further in the wrong direction.

Don't worry sledge... while the general populace isn't gonig to 'wise up' the games people WILL hit the wall where the games are no longer fun for them.. and they will stop buying... It'll be the golden age crash all over again.

What happens when a bunch of people release a ton of crap no one wants all the time? people stop buying it.

The issue here, is that people WANT the same game over and over, just like people want the same movies over and over... and the same sitcoms... 90% of the population is happy with a changless stagnant world.

This isn't going to change... nor should it.

In the years to come, we will see a grand awakening of personal media, even more amazing than the last 5 years... It will no longer be crap quality You-Tube video... it will be production quality web shows... There is money to be made.

Indie games, music, movies, shows and what not will all find a profitable place that lives WITHOUT the traditional companies... Music is already finding a place online to exist without labels...




We all complain about the fact that the big companies release the same crap over and over... but we all buy some of that crap.

I, buy or rent lots of RPGs, most of which are crap and I return, some I hang on to... But they aren't any less contrived... I still enjoy them.. Just like I enjoy a campy horror movie or watching shows like Law and Order...

Sure... Law and Order hasn't done anything origional in 15 years... I still have fun.

So true to life... I guess that means that EA's gonna be getting more and more greedy than they've ever been before. They aren't giving the indies like us a chance to compete, between them and MS. Where's the love and respect for the little man in this PC gaming world anymore?

Yup. The initial game EA want to deliver the Ads through is "Need for Speed (TM) Carbon"
ANOTHER "Need for Speed" hey?!
How many versions of this game do we have now?
the word 'Milk' immediately comes to mind.
Like I questioned before, "Will the new game be cheaper?"

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