Hmm free games with adverts... :/

Not sure what i prefer really...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7199881.stm

I think gaming is going to get to the stage where every 15 minutes of play you get 3 minutes of unskippable fmv adverts streaming directly off t'internet.

Lol that would suck.

I wouldn't mind integrated ads if that gives free games. Not as annoying movie, but if someone's running through a city, then one could place all the ads you see in a normal city.

[EDIT BY MOD: swearing]

If they want to do this, isn't product placement the way to go, like with movies?

No longer will there be 'health potions' you'll have cans of coke which of course will make you strong and healthy rather than fat and diabetic. And eating a maccy d makes you big and strong rather than fat and spotty.

LMAO! I can just picture laura croft stopping off for a maccyD while wearing nike and swigging a cokeZero. :D

Dont worry, theres no sugar.

Didn't gillette do this in splinter cell already? I've not read the article, so I don't know if it mentions this.

We've also already had chupa chups spondering zool, mcdonalds sponsering mc kids, american army sponsoring americas army, etc.... I don't mind it, but it's nice if it gives a reduced sale price.

some streamed video clips from my mobile website have adverts in the beginning and quite bizarrely at the end where you can just quit them
i dont mind this to an extent as its a free streamed clip
would prefere an adfest and then a download

but they only have 5 adverts total
gwen / hp
some car bmw or audi
lloyds tsb (the crap tune and the train)
intel speed dating
and im sure there was a 5th
havnt used that part of my phone this year so fingers crossed theyve got new content

only use that for lenore and highly dubious news :)

I just have to ask, how the heck do they plan on making money off this project?

I can't see advertisements being able to make a full fledged game project free for the users, especially on an online game that requires a master server for account/lobby purposes.

Am I underestimating the price companies pay to have their advertisements displayed on a product or something?
(and if so, why the hell ain't movies free already, there's enough product placement in the majority of films nowadays)


I know Ubisoft did it with three of their titles, but they were all old ones that already sold well and were essentially offline, which made it pretty safe to experiment with.
(I can't recall if they ever pulled them away or not though)

Unfortunately there seems to be more and more advertising popping up in non-free games as well.

After all, just because some company pays to advertise in a game doesn't mean they have to stop charging the players... :-/

Mabe people will get totally pissed with it all and buy our games :)

lol@ ginger t

I dunno, some of the open source progs like blender and open office must make a fortune from their "web presence"

Need For Speed Underground 2 was pretty bad. Not only did the entire game function around your Cingular cell phone, but there was also a huge, impossible-to-miss Best Buy in the middle of the city.

This is what annoys me about Valve's Steam service. I paid for Half-Life 2 and got an advertising channel (Steam) forced onto my system with it. If I uninstall Steam, it also uninstalls Half-Life 2, which personally I find unacceptable.

It's the natural route for games to take. Most cinema comes in the form of TV shows with advertising paying the bills. More people are making games but people can't afford to experience every single game out there. Advertising let's players experience more games which let's more people spend time making them. It's a cycle.

One could say that free products containing ads may be the business model of the future. Still I wonder how long ads will remain to be of importance to advertisers. At a certain point Joe Public gets immune to ads. I couldn't care less about ads. They may stuff whole games with ads -as long as it's tastefully done-, I don't care a hoot, and I won't be buying any of their advertised crap.. :P

what if they go a further route
tesco and sainsburys dot com for example

your ingame character goes through a level beating up baddies collecting food stuff to eat

next thing you know their is a tesco/sainsburys van outside with all your goodies you've been collecting in order to stay alive in game

heaven knows what would happen if you enter the anns ummers level :))

Well given that the gaming demographic is largely spotty teenage boys who have never had a girlfriend, I would suspect it would involve getting embarrassed and limping out of the shop with an unwanted erection?!

I imagine that advertisers will start targetting ads to the interests of the consumer to prevent 'ad blindness'. There are various ways they could do this, with the simplest and probably best way being where they supply a form which allows the consumer to specify their interests.

This would mean that the ads stop being annoying irrelevancies and start being interesting content. I know that whenever I buy a computer magazine, for example, the ads are often more interesting to me than the articles, as they are highly targetted to my interests.