Why piracy and sales are both dead ...

I mentioned in another thread that piracy was a thing of the past. Someone mentioned Steam as a solution. To a degree Steam is a solution. More to the point though is that content is going free. As some may have noticed my latest game Full Contact Debate is free. I did this honestly for a few reasons. First of all it's not a game just for a game's sake it's a game to promote voting in a free election so charging for it would be a bit of an oxymoron. After conceiving the idea I realized though that I could still monetize this game without selling it.

Most cinema isn't sold directly to the consumer and neither is most music. TV and radio push through more programming than any other source within their respective mediums. All of that content is paid for by advertising physical products. Since games are in their infancy compared to TV and radio we just hadn't hit the point where we needed this segment of the market to open up.

Now the cool part. Games are a better source for advertising than TV or radio. Many people flick the channel or turn the station when advertising comes on in those other mediums. Unless it's cinema with product placement (which is usually only for a split second) people can ignore it. In games however (especially mutiplayer) people play over and over and over viewing the same scenes hundreds or thousands of times. If you advertise in those scenes you've got the best source of advertising yet seen.

The best part about this is that the games still need to be great. If you make a crappy game no one is going to play those levels countless times. So a developer must still make the best damn game they can muster. In fact you'd actually have to go a step further in making sure the gameplay doesn't get old because you'll no longer be able to rely on your marketing, licensing, etc... to push your game along for you. With Ad supported games it's all about how good the gameplay is. If it's not long lasting you won't make any money.

How does this all relate back to piracy? You want to give this game away and just have as many people play it as possible. Gone are the worries about someone copying this and passing it around for free ... instead you want this to happen. Alternative revenue stream supported games turn piracy into a benefit!

Will there still be hackers who do stuff to your game? Sure but with no barrier to entry it'd be more work for other people to use a hack that disables advertising or whatever than it would to just install the regular game and have fun. As I said above the bottomline is actually better games that are longer lasting and less focused on hype (though without some hype or good hook people won't play it in the first place). I have a feeling too that this new model will weed out a lot of clones. If it's all free gamers won't be afraid to take a dive into something different and if that different game is also really fun and long lasting it'll make money.

The gaming landscape is changing rapidly... unless you're making one of the top 15 games of the year selling your game to individuals won't be an option much longer. Someone somewhere will be making something for free that rivals or kicks the snot out of whatever you're trying to sell. Of course on the bright side you won't have to bang your head against the keyboard worrying about piracy anymore.

You seem to only account for small, indie games. Rather than the AAA games that are entities in themselves. Sure if you can make more money making advitisement games, then go for it. But games won't be given free with advertisement until the income matches to if they just sold the game in shops.

GTA3 sold 12 million units (Wiki). Taking $30 dollars as the average price of that, that would means GTA has made 360 Million (obviously that is then all cut up between everyone). So that means, for an AAA company to go the advertising root as the sole income for a game, they would have to get a huge amount of money from an company to justify it, a lot higher than most companies advertising budgets. Then these few big companies that could spend that amount of money on a single game, would probbaly only be able to finance 1 a year. So you might get 3-8 games a year, more than that are released every week currently.

As for small indie games with advertising in them, alredy been done on a massive scale. Go to any big companies website and you will find flash games that are little more than advertisements for kids (they still count as games just as much as a downlaodable exe)

And games that get advertising back as a small part of the income already are quite common, with sports games (fifa for example).

GTA is a generation old game and so it would be exempt from this.

Let's analyze TV for a moment. The actors on friends were making $1 million an episode toward the end and that was all paid for by advertising. Game advertising is in its infancy the money will be there to support top tier games and the rest in do time.

So, aside from a theory ( and a pretty tenuous one, at that - your Friends comparison is like comparing Baseball with chewing gum ) what figures have you got to back this up? Presumably it must be going pretty well if you're already confident that this is the future of the entire industry after just a week or two.

LOL, I made this decision a long time ago. It was actually about 2001 as I was reading Game Over that I realized that eventually there'd be no lock-out chip for Internet content like there was with the NES.

Back then there was no form of unified in-game advertising though so I didn't pursue it at all. Now there are 3 firms and it's starting to get serious, though they aren't taking any risks just yet.

It's pure logic ... look at radio look at TV. Advertising pays for sooo much content it's ridiculous. Games are starting to cut into the time that people enjoy those other mediums. Money will start to flow from them to games.

I'll take that as a no on the numbers to back it up then.

Of course there are no numbers, untill someone releases a AAA game supported solely by advertising it will be impossible to come up with figures. Although there is America's Army as a first example - being it was supported by the US army as an exercise in advertising. AA is not exactly the same thing as in-game advertising since the game itself is the advertisement.

I'm willing to think it will become more and more likely - with computers and videogames taking more and more of the TV audience away the TV advertisers will chase after their victi, er the viewing public wherever they go.

Some things I've noticed:
Many flash games sites get income only from advertising. PC games are harder to advertize in because you might not be connected to the internet, so you can't just click and buy stuff, and the ads can't update. But pc games platforms like Battle.net where you have to be online, have an ad banner on top that seems to work well. As we move more towards the internet we're going to get more advertizing in games.

Who said anything about AAA? I'd be satisfied to hear that the game he's been posting about here for the past couple of weeks is doing really well. I'm not asking someone to magic something out of a hat. He's got the game out there, he's telling us that it's the future for the industry. Was it so unreasonable of me to think that there might be something behind it other than a theory?

This is nice idea... but here is one problem: Advertising.

You need a online-platform or something where you can get advertising-stuff that can you add to your game. But i know no such platform. Such online-advertising need also online-games (flash) - and no executables.

Another idea is for example - you create a beer-game - and now you can contact guinness. If you have luck, you can add guinness-advertising to your game... and what do you get for this? - 10.000 Euro? I think you could make more money with purchasing... (or online-advertising)

EA seems to be on the same track as is shown with their upcoming Battlefield title being free, but supported via dynamic advertising.

As much as I dislike ads in my game (because every games company doesn't know how to make them not so blatantly obvious and stick out like a sore thumb within the game's world), I'm curious to see the end result of the title when EA finishes it and gets it out.
(since I know they'll at least have a good budget behind the release)

Whether or not this is something I support in the future depend on a large number of factors.

Would make a PC more like a TV at that rate. Pay for the initial costs (a PC and a net connection, ala TV and cable programming), and what you see is what you get.

It doesn't matter that GTA3 is a generation old. My whole arguement is that game companies won't do this on mass until they can make as much, or more money as they do now. If they can make more money, then of course they will do it.

It's going to be a smack in the face when they see games rivaling GTA in terms of quality being release for free. Full Contact Debate already rivals the original multiplayer Halo in almost every way besides quantity of content ... and we're just beta testing right now.

The problem with Steam is that it takes away control from your own computer, makes it easy to force patches and updates to show advertising etc. I paid money for Counter-Strike, I don't deserve to see ads.

Personally it might put me off games which have advertisements in them, and there can only be so many advertisements before you phase out.

Plus I'm from the grew-up-seeing-ads-but-too-young-to-have-any-way-of-buying-it generation. Kids can't buy things from ads, so grow up ignoring them.

Do me a favor: Charge me for the game that I want and save me from advertisements. And also save me from product placements.

Seriously. That's worth some money for me.

I refuse to use adware.

Fact is that many of the large scale company currently waste that much money on games that selling definitely won't make it anymore to get the money back.
with 20 mio+ for trash like crysis, they are on a dead end and are approaching the brick wall in front of their heads with a massive speed.
As long as AAA to EA, Ubisoft and others means "satisfy the graphics sluts only", they have no chance to survive on the PC actually, thats what the latest income breakins have shown very clearly. And this has nothing to do with piracy actually. A game that needs a high power rig to be played on visual settings similar to the advertisment just won't sell. but at least they would be able to make it more attractive to "try out" by making it cheaper + cross financing it through realtime ads. so the chances they get more "pick and try" costumers definitely exist.
I've bought countless games just because they seemed to be nice and much more affordable than the common worthless AAA stuff.

That you say that like it's a bad thing is deeply depressing. Not quite as depressing as this ad-addled future which, I suspect, will inevitably lead to games devolving thus.

It was a bad thing thinking that eventually you wouldn't be able to sell games because people would be passing them around like MP3's. Around 2001 was when the music industry was on the balls of its behind and I knew that the only reason games weren't as pirated was because of bandwidth constraints.

and I always thought because their quality is degrading faster than the one of music clonies ...

The quality has nothing to do with piracy. It's just path of least resistance.

Nintendo's iron grasp over its hardware led to tyrannical behaviour that stilted access to the platform (not to mention setting themselves up for a future fall). A hardware lock on the modern PC would act no differently and if you think that, as an independent developer, you would have access to this DRM rather than being locked out of it like every other piece of small fry on the planet then you're deluded. You would have to go through a 'proper' publisher and watch a disproportionately high percentage of your profits disappear into the ether rather than, y'know, a disproportionately low one.

You've got me all wrong. This isn't a debate about the lock out chip. For better or worse it let Nintendo sell games and people couldn't copy them. In the Internet age anyone can pass a file around. That's why free alternative revenue games are so important.

Yes, I only really mention it as an aside because the inference (that lockout systems would benefit indies rather than locking them out as well) doesn't really ring true to me.

More topically, I do worry about where ad-funded games will end up going in terms of content. But if it's working for you right now and you aren't feeling your creativity impinged (at least no more than is necessary for commercial software anyway) then good on you.


Which means piracy is trivial, but then so is picking up a virus or trojan. I do tend to think that people will still continue to pay for ad-free games from a trustworthy source rather than downloading god-knows-what from god-knows-where for free so, with the right rates, the portal system could continue to be viable. Even selling via PayPal from one's own site carries the advantage of looking reassuringly legit and, of course, there's the old nutshell of customers associating value with price (so if I'm asking £19.99 for my game then it must be because it's twice as good as that £9.99 effort and far superior to that free stuff etc). Hence I don't think the traditional revenue model is sunk just yet.

It'll only take a few really solid free games to rid people of the price = quality mentality.

I think this kind of ad thing will increase but it will replace everything by a long shot.

I can see software becoming more of a service, more of a `channel` through which something else is provided, but I see it as being many different things, including advertising. I kind of like the route some are taking where they give the main software for free and then sell support, services, content or data packs. In a sense, we're shifting away from focussing on the `form` (the software) and more on what you *use it for* (what comes through it). Software will in my opinion shift more towards being a kind of open portal for dynamic content.

Oh, what, you mean that pesky mentality that people have had since the birth of commodification and capitalism? You're either overestimating or underestimating people, I think, but I'm not sure which. Look, I admire your idealism but your publishing model is never going to replace piracy and paid for games for all the reasons that people here have already argued.

Replace it most likely not.
But he will definitely waste less time on protection measures and has a far broader "just try it" target audience as something at 0 USD suits that better than something at 20+ USD and that without spending a lot of time on creating a demo.

So the question is: how much can be saved through those points?

I definitely think it is an interesting possibility (not the one and only one, but the selling one isn't working as well so the best must be somewhere between it) for the PC platform especially as the ingame advertisement sector is gaining speed and a higher interest from the ad placing companies.

One problem with ad-supported games is that they will have a tendency towards getting more obtrusive as time goes on. I live in the UK and on ad-supported TV channels there is one ad break in a half hour show, two in an hour show; and they're not *too* long for the most part. US TV channels have a lot more ads per hour, and I would find that very obtrusive, especially seeing an ad break after the start credits. I can see that UK TV is slowly evolving towards more ad breaks, which seems a natural if undesirable (for the consumer) tendency.

The parallel for games might see the beginnings of ad-supported games being fairly benign, unobtrusive - an ad before the main menu or whilst loading the level for example. But over time, will there be a tendency towards more ads? Between every level? Will there one day be a game which breaks every ten minutes for adverts?

Another aspect of living in the UK is the BBC - totally paid for by the licence payers (for US dwellers who don't know, every household in the country that owns a TV must pay a yearly licence fee of around £120 which pays for the BBC - it's against the law not to pay). The general opinion in the UK is that the quality TV shows are BBC shows, and that ad-supported TV panders to the lowest common denominator. I'm not advocating a games licence fee at all - I just wonder how it bears on this discussion...

The Internet has changed the world and there's never been anything like it so yes I think it'll blow a lot of old principles right out of the water.

US TV often has an AD every 7/8 minutes. Often the start of a show gets through the credits and intro then you get an AD, Often theres an AD in between the credits of a movie.

It's pure crap, and one of the reasons I don't bother with TV and just download the rare show that sparks my interest.

What TV have you been watching?????????

On virtually every UK ad-supported channel, there are adverts every 15 minutes, and they last for about 4 minutes.

TV != Games as far as Ads go.

One of the artist who worked on the game posted this elsewhere where I brought this topic to attention:

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Doesnt impact your game experience at all.

Sure it wont work in a fantasy game. But any game with modern setting can use them effectively without bothering the player I don't think.

I do however no know what/if Gatorade actually paid EA for that
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I on the other hand know that they did get paid for these ads.

Of course they did. This is perfect ground for EA. Games which they sell over and over again to the same mindless drones, sitting their with their wallets open and a string of drool dripping slowly from their mouth. Bland games which bring absolutely nothing new to the table, just regurgitate the same thing with a slightly sparklier shade of blue this time around. This sort of thing is perfect for EA.

It's the brave/innovative/risky/controversial/niche stuff from independent developers ( which a surprising number of people claim to want to see more of ) which will never get anything from advertising. Yeah I can just see Casio stepping up to sponsor "Super Columbine Massacre RPG" ( as a particularly tasteless example. )

Full Contact Debate can walk this line. It's risky, controversial, independent, but also has mainstream potential. Anyone who advertises through mainstream political satire media can tap the same market with Full Contact Debate.

Furthermore it matters! A bunch of independents are just brainstorming about what Full Contact Debate already does ... albeit in only most primitive of implementations but still.

Adverts such as those don't make me want to buy anything at all.

I think that ads in games would be wildly different than TV ads. TV advertising has to stop the show to display a full commercial from their sponsors. With in-game ads, the pictures shown above sound much more reasonable. On the other hand, though, this is the same as companies advertising on Nascar vehicles.

I think games have a huge amount of space to support ads. For one, the customer base is huge, and it keeps growing. Secondly, the graphics behind the most recent games allows for enough detail for players to clearly see ads in the game scenes. Thirdly, you don't have to pause a game somewhere during the action to display ads, either - just put it in the scene.

Imagine you're playing a FPS and sniping an enemy AI character, and he takes a long drink from a bottle of Gatorade, just as he's about to get shot. Or what if, in Doom, the trophied BFG9000 gun had the word Boeing on its side? That would be huge advertising for Boeing. Or what if you're playing a game similar to The Sims, and while you're choosing what furniture to buy, the brand names are listed with them? Or how about having billboards in a city-scape game with real-life ads on them? Or have a TV in a FPS scene with ads playing on it? The possibilities goes on and on - and none of that is distracting the actual gameplay.

The only trouble I see with this type of advertising is that the companies don't have an opportunity to describe their products. With a 30-second window of TV or radio airtime, companies get a chance to provide plenty of info about their products, sales and their company. This could probably be squeezed into a loading period or any moment the player is waiting, but these things would be much more valuable to a company.

god that saved me alot of typing
most if not what he just said

the dreaded loading screen brought to you by ...
thing is with online games you would have to be localized adverts why bother reading an advert for something not sold in your country

shalnt bother posting the penny arcade pix again they were in the other adverts in games threads (two threads?)

nascar cars and other sports sims WITHOUT the corporate sponsors wouldnt be as realistic
just driving around with a bland car round a track when real life is so colourfully consumer whored

but there's an idea
car racing game where you start off a rookie with no real sponsors then eventually you get to negotiate with a real name (although a virtual representation not a real legal binding) for a coveted sponsorship deal
instead of "bullgreen nrg" or some dodgy knockoff we cant use their name for legal reasons

I'd be deeply suspicious of that. What people like to think (thus say) they want and what they actually want aren't necessarily the same.



You're not going to get an ad' deal for a game that starts of specifically hiding the sponsorship!

That's precisely what I was getting at. People say they want it and then advocate things which would kill them stone dead, and benefit the kind of repetitive EA drivel which many of us also say we don't want. ( Another area where you might - like me - choose to be deeply suspicious. )

I say bring back the Zool Chupa-Chups or the James Pond Robocod Penguin chocci-bars :-D

But working to gain sponsors in a game like that would still put the sponsors even more in the spotlight. People would think about the sponsor's name more, and it would be a goal for the player to reach. Take an example from Doom. Nobody remembers much about being able to punch the monsters, when finding the chainsaw is just so much better. Spending hours on gaining a sponsor would make them meaningful to the player, and that would be a good thing to sponsors of the game.

I concur ... that's a good idea.

The car game sponsorship has been done to death and isn't the kind of game that I was considering.

I wouldn't be at all surprised though, if games have commercials just like TV if things go the same way as Jeremy describes.

Where Each time you finish a level, sub level, load up the game, load a saved game etc, you get to watch the equivalent of a TV commercial. If it became successful you might even have regular pauses in your game.

I value my privacy and find any kind of advertising targeted or otherwise quite offensive. Just look at magazines 80% ads 20% content. Most of us probably just go online to get a higher % of content. Here in the US I get soliciting at my front door, telemarketing calls many times a day, a big heap of junk mail every day (equivalent of The Times newspaper). Ad's on the TV every 8 minutes.

I have a mobile phone but only one person has the number, and thats my wife. I guess a lot of people must like it, otherwise I wouldn't see everyones TV on when I walk the dogs past their house at night.

I do think there is a place for adverts where you expect to see them, it really depends on the genre. But if you like fantasy RPG's and find Dodge Ram trucks, and the latest movie playing in theaters, even if its related to the game in some way, I'd be a bit miffed.

I can understand the arguments for in-game advertising - another revenue stream for developers/publishers etc, make games more accepted as a valid form of media, could be delivered in context appropriate settings, etc..

But the thing about tv advertising is that it's become clear that TV's no longer about delivering quality entertainment and information to the public, but rather about delivering an audience to advertisers. As a result, anything goes in that pursuit and tv has generally become crass and stupid beyond belief (at least in my country - New Zealand)

I kind of worry that down the line, something similar would happen in games.

How??

Hm I'll just purchase a Boeing plane...

It's perhaps a bit of a long-bow, but Boeing's the second-largest aerospace and defense contractor in the world.

Don't know if they make hand-held weapons guns, but it's not important.

Flight Simulator is already a big advertiser for Boeing.

This is all well and good, but how would in-game advertising work for non-contemporay games? Sure, I can see how it might not be too intrusive in sports, racing or contemporary FPS titles, but what about fantasy or science fiction games (for example)? Isn't it inevitably going to see distracting and obtrusive to shoehorn ads into these types of games? Will publishers be less willing to greenlight games that, due to their nature, are incompatible with in-game advertising?

science fiction its totally easy with projection screens and the like

fantasy thought is the really thought part ... but you could try to put "fixed" advertisement in.
but thats the reason it does not work for all in all cases

Fantasy is the killer ... but their are creative ways to do it well.

Not at all. Ads for contemporary commodities in a science fiction setting may undermine the artistic integrity of the setting. Same goes for fantasy.

In fact, the same goes for any game with a non-realistic artistic/thematic style. I suspect that advertisers will want to plug their generic pre-made adverts into games rather than take the time to create adverts that are tailored to the visual/thematic styles of the games that they are included in.

Adverts potentially stifle creativity and originality and disrupt gameflow and immersion.

tbh ads wouldnt bother me its the spyware that goes with net ads that does. If ads are subtle then its ok its if its like click here to continue to level x its a problem

I dunno, sepends how its done and what it is. For eg,(excluding his damn shoes) the placement in 'I robot' for the Audi were ok because it was a futuristic Audi that worked in the setting. It still advertised audi. This kind of thing wouldnt be too invasive i reckon.

As long as it does not get to the stage where "Illidan Stormrage 'The Demon Hunter'" is seen wearing nikes. I cant say it bothers me too much.

I would prefer to see "sponsored by" splashscreens myself (if this is the way it has to be)..

I think its inevitable that the cancerous spread of advertising will be seen more and more in games whether it be subtle product placement in games that match the genre of the product or full blown TV style ads which interrupt the gameplay. However I don't believe this will always lead to free or even less expensive gaming. If you take subscription TV for example - they make money from the subscribtions AND then about 25% ( and rising) of what they actually deliver is advertising - you end up paying to watch ads !! Not to mention the annoyance factor when barely 5 minutes into a program there's an ad break.
With games it will be the same.
I would personally prefer to pay for a game that was free from advertising - however, its inevitable we will end up paying anyway AND getting the ads.

Totally agree. Many science fiction films have fictional adverts in them - Robocop as a great satirical example - but if they were real adverts it would be totally incongruous.

1. nobody said that the advertising would need to be the same as in realworld
2. its clear that not all genres suite that funding method that well. But there definitely are some that would highly benefit from it.

fact is, if they don't do anything, pc gaming is at its end. the game prices nearly doubled here in the past 5 years ... expansions today are as expensive as full games used to be a few years ago (nearly 50 USD)
The current PC prices are only 10% below the X360 ones ...
Given the fact that you need to buy highly expensive hardware to play them, this is just not acceptable ... especially as console games include license fees towards MS, Sony and Nintendo, which PC games don't have

But which publishers would be willing to fund games that don't fit into this funding model if it was the norm? Which consumers would accept paying for titles if it wasn't the norm to do so? Don't you see the huge problem with this? There's not enough originality and innovation as it is - and this would only make things worse. You would simply end up with a ton of tedious, unoriginal, ad-friendly games, and this is because, due to receiving their profit from advertisers rather than consumers, publishers would be more inclined to satisfy the desires of potential advertisers at the expense of the gamers.

well, who said it will be the norm for all games?
but it definitely will be a very important new way for many game types.

the other game types will have other possibilities ... play through webplayers with ad flooded pages for example (unity, Torque however it was called, ...)

kinda what i was hinting at
i wasnt saying all cars on the track would be bland ... your opponants cars will have the same real sponsors as in nascar F1 and any other advert based racing car sport

its just you being a rookie would be on one of the lesser teams with the kinda cheapo sponsorships that they get
or you could be with a big name but they pay a performance related/percentage/whatever
your up in the ranks they pay you alot
down not as much

you end up chacing as well as the podium the dangling carrot of more money from the next level sponsors

i dont play racing games so i dont know their set up and the last time i watched racing was when shuie was still dominating F1 and thus making boring TV as they just showed his car and none of the decent scraps going on with the lesser known drivers for 10th place

as for fantasy
imagin picking up a scroll only to find it reads (with a delayed OK button)


and the sneaky part
not only do you have it on screen till the ok button appears
they could have a plot device where you HAVE to go to ye olde McDonnalds in eldersquare for some clue or another

This would be great! Maybe grown people will stop playing dumb-ass games so much, and then perhaps realise why the western world is going down the tubes instead.

Why is that then?


(rhetorical)

None of that applies to indies. Mainstream companies have been locked into a hit-driven market of their own making for years and not being able to afford to make games unless you're one of an elite few behemoth companies was always going to be the logical conclusion for them.


If a sponsor is so amazingly desirable that players will put actual effort into obtaining them then they don't need to advertise in your game, do they? The point of advertising is to invoke awareness of a brand -- your proposal assumes the brand is already incredibly popular. It doesn't make any sense, not even if we pretend that people will actually ever cream themselves over the prospect of having "Shell" pretend-written on a pretend car.

And, once more, starting by NOT shoving the paying brands in front of the consumer? Take a little time to think about that from the advertiser's point of view, then try again.

(Should we even open the can of worms that you, the developer, would normally have to license official NASCAR likenesses at a handsome price in order to include them? The money would be flowing the other direction!)


Take a little time to think about that from the player's point of view, then try again. I'm almost 100% certain you're joking by this point, mind.

heh..
The only people going to make any money from product
placing, are those with existing successful franchises - GTA
etc. Indies will not be able to make this pay - it might lessen
the sting of development costs for successful indies..but, i
dont see this being the future. I think as always, the only
way your going to make your millions, is by creating a really
great game - one that perhaps offers something new +
get some big circulation mags to review it..

then again - i dont know anything ;) - ive never finished
anything :) :p

You're missing the point. It's not that the sponsor is so incredibly desirable (outside the game) that players would want them on their car it's because that in the game achieving the sponsorship would lead you to greater victory. So the sponsor would then become part of a Pavlovian response cycle..

These kind of game descriptions are making me want to play games LESS. I play games to escape from reality, not to be reminded of it with cheesy adverts. Depending upon the game, a discrete advertisement or two or an advertisement splash screen or banner, maybe..

.. but at the end of the day, what is the point of an advertisement? To get normal people to buy stuff. And normal people have a choice, to buy or to play. Companies could shoot themselves in the foot and lose a lot of players if they implement these advertisements inappriopriately.

If I had to choose between two new games, one with adverts and one without, and neither otherwise had a noticable advantage, I'd go with the latter.

Too many people play games to escape reality and some escape it so much that they neglect their own families or even their own well-being. I don't see any reason why we can't play and engage reality simultaneously the two aren't mutually exclusive.

Reality and games are oxymorons.

How's that? Games are just exercises in intelligence which can happen in reality just as easily as they can happen in virtual reality.

I also play games as a kind of escape reality. Thats why I primarily play medieval and fantasy RPG and strategy type games.

I can't argue with the fact that many people play for that reason and there will always be games to satisfy that niche. However, I think the future is in games that walk the line of reality and fantasy, especially in the multiplayer arena.

World of Warcraft - to pick just one of thousands of games which are all about escaping reality - alone has 10,000,000 subscribers. If that's a niche, I can't imagine what you'd consider mainstream.

If the future of the games is reality, then they are doomed.
This kind of games are just crap. You know, if I want to play reality I just move my ass out of the door instead of infront of my X360 / Wii / PC, because THERE the real reality is, not some kind of crappy simulated reality!!

Yeah, I don't play MP for the very reason I want to escape reality, and that includes obnoxious morons with less intelligence than the computer AI. Most of my experience online has been either dumb players, of over simple repetitive games that just arent fun.

In my opinion World of Warcraft is far worse than any advertisements or reality tie ins. The whole game is designed to make you run really far from place to place to waste time so you have to spend another $15 next month. The game has no actual value and is more commercial product than game anyway. Perhaps they just have a prettier disguise.

My whole theory is based on the assumption that gamers like to play, not that they just hate everything else so much that they avoid reality. From my "Going political" post:



So what you guys are telling me is that you play games because you're apathetic?

that one yes i am joking
if i was playing a game and found a scroll that i couldnt get rid of for lets say 30 seconds the first time you read it i would be a bit miffed, but i could see something like that happening (if advets did start creeping into all games not just sports sims at the moment)... just not necessarily ye olde McDonnalds

the other one re chasing sponsors was based on my vague memories of amiga car games like super cars (ok they didnt have sponsors but you had to spend cash (for tonnes of misiles and mines :) ) ... cash was earnt by winning but afaik they just get points for winning in real racing the dosh comes from the sponsors) and other games that may have had some form of management screens

R&D for new cars costs money in the game world

now for just need for speed type of racing games where its just laps laps laps and win/loose/whatever next race
then the sponsor chacing element doesnt work ... but their are plenty of trackside opportuniteis for advets as you cant go past most built up cities without seeing some great big bill board for something or other

in speedball 2 you could collect dosh on the playing field and iir got dosh for winning (per goal?) but if they had some form of pretend sponsorship in there on the amiga days and the game was still ace to play i dont think people would have minded it all that much
i would imagine that 'xenon' would be the holy grail of dosh givers in that one ;)

Nolan Bushnell (Atari, Chucky Cheese) is reported to be getting into games with ads. The ads will run for a short time, 30 seconds was the time quoted, and then the game would start. This was for casual games I believe but other games could be done this way. His point was that the ads had to be short so the gamers would sit through them instead of going to the fridge like TV viewers do when commercials come on.

With a reputable site I wouldn't mind sitting through a 30 second commercial every 10 minutes or so of gameplay (the ad better not come up in the middle of an action sequence though).

try clicking nearly ANY link from 3 moblies wap site
an episode of lenore highly dubious news or anything else in the free to watch section after "intel speed dating" or "gwen stefani / hp" or "audi" and "lloyds TSB train"
one month they were the only adverts shown and you could watch 5 different clips and get the intel advert each time
twas bloody annoying

There's good implementation ... and there's bad implementation.

I was brought up with the opinion that if they have to advertise to sell something it must be rubbish. And for the most part, and especially in this day and age it holds true.

I just don't want them invading my privacy trying to make me want stuff I don't need. Which is exactly what most advertising is for.

I'm not apathetic, but towards advertisments I probably am. Ever since I moved to the US lol. When I lived in England I used to rush to the door and was kind of interested in the junk mail because we only got a couple of letters a week.

Now all the big stores have their own seperate weekly junk papers, whether its supermarkets, chemists, restaurants and cafes, just about any kind of business you can imagine. You get great wads of the stuff every single day of the week. I should probably photograph my daily junk postal mail just to show people in the UK how bad it is. It's incredible!!!..

I hate junk mail as well.

What I didn't mind were the Pizza Hut boxes in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

hehe yeah definitely :)
Or if games make jokes over KFC when you burn chickens or the like :)

Exactly!

I consider that more Cameo/joke than a specific attempt at advertisement...

yupp you do but you don't think that it was free for KFC / Pizzahut do you?

This kind of advertisement actually is advertisement as well just in a much more intelligent way than TV Ads which only make people consider "concentrating on something else"

Those are the sort of advertisements I'm talking about. None of that crap that holds up the gameplay.

you all wrong about New Games will be free.

It will be like tv..
you will have Pong for free with Commersials... mario etc.


but all new fancy games will cost as usual..

check out gametap. Thats pretty much describes what wings is on about.

Sure but TV has new content, not just old emulated content.

its hard to compare a 50 odd year old business model that we kinda just accept to a possible revenue source for video games that we are used to paying money for (or not)

in the uk you have to buy a tv licence which pays for the bbc (itv c4 c5 earn via adverts and sponsors)
then money to sky, virgin media or some other cable satalite provider if you arnt on freeview

other countries im guessing are advert based and you only pay for the cable/satalite feed

when you buy something on dvd you dont expect adverts (trailers perhaps) nor when you gio to the cinema do you want them to interupt the film every 20 mins with 5 mins of adverts as youve paid whatever to see the film (even if you are the only customer in the audience) but those adverts are to be expected on tv

how much was the superbowl half time break?
im pretty sure it was way more than halfway through a rerun of some old sitcom

edit:
btw EVERY free video link ive clicked on with my mobile this month has had the same advert the cisco skatboard one, perhaps 3 arnt that good at touting for new advertisers?

There will always be piracy, there will always be free games, there will always be game for sale. And there will always be alot of programmers complaining about all 3 because they have no clue how to market anything. ;)

I'm curious though... Why don't they make movies for free, and just use lots of product placement to recoup the cost of making the movie?

Well, because they use product placement AND charge you more and more to see movies.

Blockbuster movies cost alot to make.

The way it will happen with the AAA titles is, product placement + charged alot of money for a game. Because, the games company get the money for ads in the game, plus the money from people buying the game.

who'd star in a movie that makes its money post sales
mind you how many 'stars' are worth the money that hollywood pays them

id hate to see hollywood go down the route of resident evil fmv acting (oops too late)

On the issue of resident evil: what was with her face in the 3rd film? They selectively decided to air brush it in certain scenes. It looked ridiculas.

Which product would you like to place in LotR? Coca Cola? KFC? Toyota? Peanutbutter?

Such things may work in movies that are set today or even in the future (Blade Runner billboard anyone?). But when movies would depend on product placement, historical movies would be a bit more tricky to finance... unless of course you want a knight templar on a horse to announce himself with a red/white elf suit, a cola in his hand and sleigh bells ringing in the background.. :P

There is more possibility to add ads than only stupid large places within the media.

The page you download it (-> play it through a player on the page only for example, make the game a browser based online game etc)

Just because the industry (especially movie and music) is incapable of adapting their ignorant and arrogant thinking to anything does not meant that there is no possibility.
It just means that they don't want to lose their imperial control ... fear the might of the siths.

Isn't it also rather ignorant and arrogant to call industry professionals (who know more about the issue than you and who have experimented with alternative forms of financing and distribution) ignorant and arrogant?

It seems to me that many compelling reasons have been given as to why the alternative approaches suggested on this thread are rather impractical. The defense seems to be an uninformed "But... But... it would work! Because I think that it's a good idea!"

It won't work for the following reasons:

1) People hate adverts and product placement. Most people would rather pay to watch a movie or listen to music.

2) Product placements negatively impacts upon artistic integrity. There'd be no financial incentive for studios to finance period movies or, indeed, anything that does lend itself easily to product placement.

3) Non-Hollywood studios who produce independent movies with niche appeal would find it difficult to attract advertisers. Nothing but the most mainstream of mainstream movies would be made.

4) Adverts before or after movies won't work - people will skip watching them. Advertisers will know this.

5) Cinemas would close. People would lose jobs. The cinema industry would fail. Cinematic culture would be harmed.

6) There are two methods of product placement: you make the product prominent and noticable to the audience or you use them to subtly, stealthily, subliminally influence the audience. Of the two, I'm not quite sure which is worse!

7) Some television channels (for example the BBC channels in the UK) do not allow advertising between broadcasts. I suspect that this might cause problems for the these broadcasters (conflicting with their mandates, etc.)

Ok, there are more points that I could mention, but I'm getting tired of writing about this. I've related my points to cinema, but most of them apply equally to other forms of media entertainment, I think. Replace Cinemas with game retailers, for example. It should already be clear how breathtakingly impractical these sort of schemes are.

Not really. Given that the music industry tried to lock out any internet distribution till they were flattened by Napsters P2P does really make me assume that they are not not arrogant ignorant idiots.

Same holds for the long (and in europe still pending!!) blockade of movies in online stores! (which is the real alternative instead of physical distribution including the transportation and end user selling through stores which cuts the income)

This does not really make them look like they are open to changes and new ways of doing it unless they are brutally forced to do it.
So the chances they adapt advertisement possibilities is about 0. Think about how long the game industry needed to even see a potential in it and the game industry at least has nearly yearly changes that have a large impact.
The film and music industry just behave to "static" to be able to even react to trends (beside the "flood the market with trash" trend which they actually invented themself), even then when trends are pointed out years before they happen like anything related to the internet.
If google were as incapable as the music and film industry on that end, yahoo and altavista would still be the leading internet companies ...

By the way, the movie industrie gets already fairly double advertisement payed for their stuff: Apple, VW and other companies payed multiple millions of USD to different hollywood studios to use and show their products instead of the concurrence and give them the stuff for the films at lower prices etc. sure, not suitable for all but as studios similar to game creators have income and outflow from multiple sources, it affects the whole studio, so its not needed that every single film is plastered with advertisement.

adverts in cinemas be them the static ones or the kind you'd get on tv are the "i'll be in the popcorn queue" or im nipping out to the toilet kinda things
you cant skip them but you can skip out on them
afaik it costs the cinema the same ammount of dosh to screen a film to a full house or a few people (i know ive been in some showings where its just me and the projectionist)
so without the accurate figures at had of each screening they obviously have to recoup the loss of revenue from a ghost town screening by the concessions stand
advertisers know the audience might not show up till the trailers but they still pay just incase someone does decide hmm coke (i dont see pepsi adverts as the cinema i goto sells coke) i remember (kinda) the early 80's cinema adverts actually advertised the stuff you could buy in the foyer more than cars or tvs and the likes of today "king kone" and iir "crusader nuts" spring to mind
cineworld have carlton advertising which is a shame
i just so love the pearl and dean theme

Completely off topic... But I have to mention it...

This is the best use of the Peal and Dean theme in a song, and possibly one of the best Whole Lotta Love covers ever!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GmIFFVTbsE

...

carl's jr trucks
carl's jr food bags

edit:
nope ive never heard of em either

On the cinema part:

well here in switzerland a single cinema ticket costs 16+ USD per film + 15 min of advertisement before it actually starts + in break advertisment + toilet ads + lobby ads

Oh and popcorn costs 4-10USD, a 0.5l cola etc costs 5USD (in a regular store a street further the cola costs 1.1 USD, popcorn 1.30-3.5) so they make uf for the already crazy cinema prices by making even crazier drink and snack prices. Even in a restaurant or pub drinking starts to be cheaper heck!!

So I guess at least on that end they have very little problems here, still not pushed hard enough to lower the prices on a competitive level (the film rentals cost the cinemas per ticket 3 EUR more in CH than they do in any surrounding country)

> + in break advertisment

Does this mean they stop the movie and show an advertisement? That is not something they do here in the US - and I think people would object too much if they tried. (although I've been surprised before, I know I would not go to movies any more if they did - why pay for that when I can watch in more comfort at home on the widescreen TV)

This means that during the break where you go to toilett or get snacks and drinking, they show further advertisement.
So even if you don't leave your seat you get flooded with advertisement.

you have toilet breaks in the middle of a movie?

Yeah, but you have to make sure you've got the really big popcorn pots!

I guess there is something to be said for seeing movies in an AAFES theater. No ads or previews to sit through.

Yupp we have a break in the middle of the 80-120 min films. I think films like titanik even had 2 breaks.

How would they sell snacks twice without that? ^^

Naw, as if we wouldn't have most of the stuff on us when entering the cinema. Heck if even those automates where you can get stuff from are 30%+ cheaper than the cinema for exactly the same thing, something is going ugly wrong

i refused to go to the local cinema again when i was living oop norf
during die hard 2 at a semi plot important bit of dialog bruce willis said "will the owner of car registration bla bla bla please remove it immediatly" then carried on without a by the by
iir they also stopped the movie part way through it was my first and only visit (been knocked down now thank f) at first i thought it was a projection error but my brother who went more often said they did it on every film
i stuck to the odeon from that point on even though i couldnt walk home from it (unless i wanted to spend hours doing so)

$16 seems a fair ammount of dosh just to watch a movie
and although they dont search you they frown upon you bringing your own stuff into the screen ... had my college bag almost 'confiscated' once cos i might have a bottle of pop in it didnt kick up a fuss about it, they asked nicely to either have a quick nosey or keep it behind the desk i let them have a nosey as i didnt want to loose any notes by accident

but they dont sell snack food i want to eat in a cinema anyhows