Gamers Don't Care About In-Game Ads 160
Next Generation reports on a study indicating that, on the whole, gamers are fine with in-game ads. From the article: "According to the study, 15 percent of heavy gamers are 'unlikely' to play a game that utilizes in-game ads, but one-third said they are 'likely' to play games with ads, while 52 percent said it makes no difference. Also among heavy gamers, 17 percent said ads would actually make them consider buying the advertised products, but only 9 percent of light/medium gamers would do the same."
Wait, I don't get it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, if you were avoiding games with ads altogether, "unlikely" might be an option. Or maybe it just means that a lot of games don't have ads in the first place so you're unlikely to play a game that has ads.
Does "likely" really mean that you'd specifically seek out games with ads, or that you play a lot of games and are likely to run into a couple that have ads?
As for "indifferent", why is that a choice? How does the fact that you don't care either way about ads have anything to do with the fact that you're likely or unlikely to play a game with ads? It's not like games have a switch, "ads" or "no ads". You play whichever game you want to, and if it happens to have ads, you're "likely" to play a game with ads!
Re: (Score:2)
15% is not such a small amount... (Score:1)
Re:15% is not such a small amount... (Score:4, Interesting)
In other words, will putting ads in a game make more money? I assume it does, becasue we see more and more ads in games.
Arguably, even the 15% or gamers who wouldn't play a game with ads wouldn't find out that there were ads in the game, or that the ads bothered them until after they bought the game. You think Best Buy's going to give a refund because someone doesn't like the graphics?
Besides, if a gamer wants a game as realistic as possbile, there should be MORE advertising in games, just like in the real world.
Re:15% is not such a small amount... (Score:2)
That's why we have reviews. A movie theater or a restaurant won't give you a refund just because you didn't like their fare either, but success is still (roughly) correlated with quality in those industries.
Re:15% is not such a small amount... (Score:2)
I think you misunderstood GP. These questions about how likely one is to play a game with ads ignore the question of overall quality. In other words, the aforementioned game that is being returned to Best Buy isn't necessarily being returned because the game sucks, bur rather because the hypothetical
Re:15% is not such a small amount... (Score:2)
However, if you buy into the free market philosophy, the amount of advertising and the amount charged for advertising will reach a natural equilibrium.
I'd also point out that there's a lot of advertising going into games that people don't even rea
Re:15% is not such a small amount... (Score:1)
Indeed. Splinter Cell 3 had the most ridiculous adverts in. Like a close-up of Wrigley's Airwaves at the beginning of an FMV. I laughed. I played on. I highly doubt the placement of ads in-game will illict a response to the effect of damaged game sales. That's why they can place the ads there... no one cares, and it's good market penetration.
Re:15% is not such a small amount... (Score:1)
Re:15% is not such a small amount... (Score:2)
Re:15% is not such a small amount... (Score:1)
Stop-And-Watch (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, I don't mind constantly seeing the terrorists smoking xx-brand of cigaratte, but if my GhostRecon team has to stop every 5 minutes and gather around to have a smokey, I will be pissed.
Smoke 'em if you got 'em (Score:2)
Re:Stop-And-Watch (Score:1)
Then there's the other side... like EA's Fight Night Round 3, I haven't played it myself but I hear it's like watching a Burger King commercial with some Boxing thrown in for good measure.
Re:Stop-And-Watch (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Stop-And-Watch (Score:2)
Also depends on the ad (Score:3, Insightful)
The basic problem with the ads was three things:
1) Some ads were intrusive, making loud noises, etc
2) Almost all the ads didn't fit into the c
Re:Also depends on the ad (Score:2)
Re:Stop-And-Watch (Score:5, Interesting)
I've done a writeup on this very story topic on my site which you can read here [blogspot.com] at The Halting Point [blogspot.com] and you can read the original Slashdot post [slashdot.org] that I made that sparked my writing of that piece.
While I'd very much so appreciate the clicks, (even though I've made all of .07 through adsense!), to sum it up for those who don't want to make the jump....there are several levels of in-game advertising in terms of invasiveness. And you can view it as a spectrum. On the far left you have extremely uninvasive and even welcome additions such as sponsorship logos in Gran Turismo. It fits with the game world since the game world is simulating reality and they are expected in that type of game.
Then you have things like billboards in MMOs like Anarchy Online and City of Heroes that, while appropriate for the setting (a city with billboards), still annoy you a bit because its trying to transplant culture from one world (reality) into a made up world where those companies do not exist.
Then you have your extremely invasive product placement with crap like what Sprite pulled in the Matrix game, or what McDonalds pulled in The Sims Online. That is the stuff that pisses off gamers because it is a blatent slap in the face. It doesn't add ANYTHING to the game and in fact detracts from it...all that for $60.
The interesting thing is how advertisers are trying to work their way into some of the more dominant games where the majority of titles are fantasy based like WoW. In my story I wrote a bit about possible ideas for working product placement into those worlds, but it requires advertisers to be able to have the balls to poke some fun at themselves, which I doubt they'd ever do.
Honestly...in-game advertising is only going to get more abundant. Whether it becomes worse or not (ala the intraweb) depends on the so-called "gate-keepers" of the games who will have the final say over how much of a sell out they want their game to be.
I'd expect more corporate sponsored guilds and guild events, more added material (like the CS map Subway made), and other new things we haven't considered.
If it gets to the point though where the games are starting to majorly sacrifice playability and content for ad revenue though, customers will complain and run for the nearest competitor.
Re:Stop-And-Watch (Score:2)
Re:Stop-And-Watch (Score:2)
Then you're a rare breed (Score:4, Insightful)
It started decent enough there too. Most sites had one small banner on the first page. Nothing in-your face, nothing insisting to stay on top of the text you're trying to read, no fake UIs, etc. Where that ended, well, you know that already.
Maybe _you_ realize what's wrong with that, but there are plenty of psychopaths which basically don't care. They don't even care if it actually helps their paying client sell more products, as long as at the end of the day they have their smoke-and-mirrors "we produced X thousand clicks" statistics.
And belief in "they'll realize the customers won't stand for that" is, no offense, wishful thinking at best. We used to think that about Internet ads too. If you took anyone from the early 90's and told them that 10-15 years later ads would be full-screen animated layers in front of the actual content, extra pages with FMV ads each time you click on a link to an article, etc, they would have said the same. "What? The users will never stand for that kind of thing, and the ad providers know it!! People would stop going to that web site!!" It didn't quite work that way, did it?
Yeah, I'm bitter, but I prefer to think of it as "grapefruit flavoured"
And if you still think games are immune to that, I have an example where it did already happen. At one point I decided to give Planetside another try. Guess what I was treated to, after it downloaded all the patches? A whole fscking FMV ad for their other planned expansion packs, and I wasn't allowed to skip it either. I found it outraging. Not only it wasted my time with the huge ad itself, but it wasted my time to download it as part of a "patch". But I guess the marketroid that came up with that couldn't care less.
So at least at one company (Sony), the marketting guys/girls were already able to impose that kind of a heavy-handed slap in the paying customer's face.
And here's what else I can see coming and I'm definitely not looking forward to:
- heavy-handed blatantly-in-your-face advertising that breaks any suspension of disbelief. (E.g., I can live with having Coca Cola machines and bars selling Coca Cola all over the place, but if they go and make Coca Cola be the mana potions and work some blatant advertisment quests into the main line... well, there goes suspension of disbelief right there. Sorry, there's _no_ way I could take such a universe seriously. Maybe as a parody, but not seriously. E.g., I can live with Yahoo! ads on billboards, but don't freaking go and change my PSO Mag into a floating ad banner for Yahoo! like Sega did. That was one subscription cancelled right there and then.)
- ad providers insisting that all ads are non-cacheable and loaded directly off their servers, so they can personally count the number of hits. See web pages everywhere which would load in 1 second otherwise, but end up taking 10 seconds to load because of the ads. I'm _not_ looking forward to seeing the same effect on games' level load times.
- publishers starting to accept or reject games and settings not based on their merits, but on how suited they are for in-game advertising. E.g., rejecting a great game like Jade Empire just because Coca Cola ads would look out of place in it.
Re:Then you're a rare breed (Score:2)
Have the fucktards indeed won, though? Yeah, there are a lot of irritating ads, but hasn't Google done quite well with text-based minimally-invasive ads? (In other words, might it be too early to announce a winner?)
Re:Stop-And-Watch (Score:2)
You'd be surprised. As long as gamers like the game, and associate liking the game with liking the brand, they are happy. Now, if the game were to intentionally cause the player to do something to "fight back against brands" then I think you might see SOME hesitance.
Re:Stop-And-Watch (Score:2)
The reason advertising is becoming more and more important is because the internet is allowing us to target our ads like NEVER before. So wh
Re:I think the issue is zero benefit for gamers (Score:2)
Frankly, I'm with the guy above you. I HAVE ALREADY PAID a pretty penny to play that game, and I'll be DAMNED If I'm going to allow my expensive Cable Modem Bandwidth be used so someone else can make a buck!
Don't even get me STARTED on the privacy issues inv
Re:Stop-And-Watch (Score:2)
Perhaps it's because I don't have a radio or a TV, and am thus simpy not as used to advertising. I ignore signs, and get highly irritated in cinemas, when they try to flood us with ads for 45 minutes (!) before the actual film starts.
Thus I can say here and now that I will refuse to buy any game with ads in it.
I have lots of good games. Still play the classics (have a look for "The Ur-Quan Masters", for example). Mind you, I buy quite a few games per month.
If ads start showing up, this wil
Re:What the hell? (Score:2)
Here's some light on the subject [sos-dan.com]
No problemo (Score:3, Funny)
Re:No problemo (Score:1)
That's why I always carry a few fragmentation grenades and an auto-loading shotgun to those meetings. Then, I get the cash for attending, plus I get a nice bodycount from all the marketing droids when I spatter them against the walls
Re:No problemo (Score:2)
Re:No problemo (Score:1)
The trick is to keep your wallet in your left hand, hand it towards him, when he takes the bills out (ka-ching sound), you get the exit doors open - right then, toss the frag grenades behind you over your shoulder (eight-second delay), use the autoload shotgun on the FBM, put your wallet back in your pocket, then use your left hand to Search For Money on his bloody corpse - usually you get all the bills back, sometimes y
Re:No problemo (Score:1)
If you're not paying for the game then whatever. They gotta make their money some how.
Why should you have to see ads in the game if you already spent $60 for it?
If people put up with it.. things won't get better.. they'll get worse.. eventually you'll start seeing more and more ads in your games and THEN it will become unbearable.
It's just like going to see a football
Re:No problemo (Score:2)
Re:No problemo (Score:2)
In a game, it would depend on how the ad was done. Seeing a can of Coke on a table? Absolutely ok. Seeing a big billboard for Coca Cola? Bearable. Having a Coca Cola "bug" in the corner of the screen constantly? Bordering on annoying. Being forced to watch an ad b
Re:No problemo (Score:2)
As for the rest of your comment, I remember when movie theaters didn't show ad shorts at the beginning of movies. I also remember the price of movies back then. If your argument held water, the price would have dropped when they started advertising.
But there's an upside (Score:2)
Yeah, but unlike real life, when a person comes up to you in a game and asks "Excuse me sir, do you have a to share your opinions about..." you can go postal & shoot them. Can you say "target rich environment?"
"You wanna know my opinion about beef jerky? Well, here's what I think... BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM! -click- (reload) BLAM! Anything else I can clear up for you today?"
Missing Result (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Missing Result (Score:2)
Or was that 52%?
Re:Missing Result (Score:1)
According to Homer Simpson, it's "fourfteen" percent.
-:sigma.SB
Re:Missing Result (Score:2)
--Steven Wright as Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist
(but surely he was not the first to make up this particular statistic)
I care...! (Score:5, Funny)
WTF? (Score:1)
If it's product placement in like.. GT5 where you can buy a GReddy turbo what ever.. I can *put up* with that.
But billboards displaying real ads? Fuck that. No way. Especially when the game probably cost $60 bucks. I won't buy it. Period. Not if I know it has ads in it.
At this point in my life.. NO game is a must have. Except maybe a simple Nintendo game (New Super Mario Bros.)
Re:WTF? (Score:1)
You're part of that 15%. You are represented. Do I care if I'm playing PGR or something and a billboard for a new product flies past? Nope. Do I care if there's a Coke truck on the side of the road? Nope.
Speak with your wallet and save the tissues for important occasions.
Re:WTF? (Score:2)
Oh, sure, nobody wants to see a Nike branded sword in EverCraftWars, but we *all* want to see Nike clubs in Tiger Woods 2007.
Re:WTF? (Score:2)
We don't want Pepsi ads in our Star Wars game, but if I don't see Catholic Healthcare West logos at AT&T Park and Chase Field when I'm playing MBL 0x, I'm missing part of what I *know* to be at those fields.
My NASCAR car better be covered in ads -- and if there's not a huge Tide logo on one of them, I'm disappointed.
Sure, this is mostly sports-related so far (much like my original post had comments about Tiger Woods and Nike [and Ping, and....]) -- but it extends to things that ha
Simple, did you fill in the poll? (Score:2)
What they don't say, 35% told us to fuck off and die or just ignored us when we tried to talk to them.
Same with online surveys how many people on being asked to fill one in just ignore it?
When it comes to surveys about ads you can't ignore this group. After all what group is most likely to be irritated by time wasting ads. Those who happily spend time filling in a survey or those that don't want to be bothered.
Can I
Re:WTF? (Score:2, Insightful)
That's not really product placement, and I wouldn't be surprised if they had to pay Greddy to use their name and logo. Now if Greddy was the only brand of turbocharger you could buy in the game (look at Need For Speed: Most Wanted, for example), that would be product placement. In GT4, it's "realism". Perhaps only Greddy supplies a turbo for the car you're trying to modify, so the only turbo
Skewed survey (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Skewed survey (Score:2)
Free clues? (Score:2)
They feed you!!
Actually, many of them will pay you $100 (or more) to do their fancy little group thing.
Re:Free clues? (Score:2)
I'm in that 15% (Score:2)
The _only_ exception I would make would be a completely free MMORPG that was subsidized with some sort of innovative advertising. MMO's are not all that immersive in the first place due to the people who play them and their actions for the most part, so being able to casually play an MMO for free would be something I'd be willing to be
Re:I'm in that 15% (Score:2)
Wouldn't work. If you made it free, the target audience would stay home, play until they starved to death, and never buy anything.
Re:I'm in that 15% (Score:2)
Runescape - the browser based MMO also has free play with ads.
Of course the fact that Anarchy Online is somewhat ancient (in MMO years) and looks like crap may be part of the reason you don't see tons of players staying at home starving to death playing it.
In Game Ads (Score:3, Funny)
Misleading (Score:1)
Re:Misleading (Score:2)
Just nitpicking - but did you play the first burnout? It had a beautiful adaptive soundtrack that would increase in BPM, number of instruments and intensity as you went faster or as time ran out. It was completely adaptive to what was happening as it was being composed on the fly, and made the game far more intense and enjoyab
Re:Misleading (Score:1)
Re:Misleading (Score:2)
A couple of years ago I had an idea for a bicylce simulator where you'd be a bike courier racing through the streets of Amsterdam. Had to make money in order to fix your bike and all that. Which meant bicycle shops. So why not use real bicycle shops? And why not ask them for money for such a promiment role in the game? And w
I remember.... (Score:1)
This is Bollocks. (Score:5, Interesting)
I hate the way that these advertising arseholes have found an untapped niche, where people relax away from the fucking stressful world and realised they can rape it of it's innocence and beauty in exchange for a quick buck. It isn't ok and it isn't right.
The marketing dickshits are currently at step 2 of their plan. The stage where they tell us all we are ok with what they want to do - to soften us up for when they fuck over our games. I would bet a large amount of money these are rigged surveys. Or at least the ones that give you options like:
If games contained advertising then would you:
a) stop buying games altogether
b) Buy more games than ever before.
If you saw a product advertised in a game then would you:
a) Buy it
b)Kill yourself
And don't just think you can just play nice fantasy and sci-fi games that avoid this advertising. You won't. Those games will dramaticcally fall in production when the industry realises that without the advertising revune these projects ar emuch less rewarding.
Oh and I know how games with no loading screens are really important to you. But your fucked. They will have no incentive to decrease load times when they use them as billboards. If anything they will increase.
Give me the game or free and I haven't a problem with ads. But if I buy the fucking thing with my own fucking money then I bought the right to have a few beautiful hours of my life sans adverts for fucking once. (like how slashdot works). There is no in between. If your business can't support those revenue models there is something fundamentally wrong with what you are doin and no amount of advertising will save you.
Re:This is Bollocks. (Score:2)
Hell no. The first game I saw with ads in it (I don't play racing/sports games) WAS A Sci-Fi RPG. You might have heard of it. It was called "Xenosaga: Episode 1"
Do NOT give that fucktard your email address in the beginning or you'll be getting spammed throughout the whole game.
Re:This is Bollocks. (Score:2)
Re:This is Bollocks. (Score:2)
Infact some games I will have to assume are completely free and subsidised thanks to the ads, hence I'll download the entire game - not just the hacks!
Two conditions (Score:2)
-If the game is noticeably cheaper as a result, or
-If the ads are unobtrusive.
Re:Two conditions (Score:2)
Advertisers, we hate you.
Re:Two conditions (Score:2)
I should point out at this point that by "unobtrusive" I mean merely that t
Just because they'll tolerate ads, doesn't mean... (Score:3, Insightful)
Will the best-loved games of the next decade contain in-game ads? How would Tolkien have reacted if his mythology had been required to include products and services from the real world? If, instead of pulling out lembas bread in the movie, would it have been better if Sam would have pulled out Go-GURT® brand Yogurt? I can't help but think that product placements mar otherwise highly-polished stories.
Re:Just because they'll tolerate ads, doesn't mean (Score:2)
No, but take for example a games like F.E.A.R, Doom 3 or Duke 3D. A coke, pepsi or vending machine isn't exactly out of place, and to be completely honest, not seeing one is odd. Ditto with billboards, or anything "painted" on the side of a building (instead of the same boring texture over and over).
And, of course, it would be pretty damn strange to have a coke ad in an RT
Is it just me.. (Score:2)
It relates to my movie watching habbits.
DVD
I buy DVD's for the purity of the movie without useless marketing crap. I don't buy DVDs that have no ads, period. If you wanna bleed a bunch of wankers for advertising, lower your prices for ad encumbered -low end
Re:Is it just me.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Is there some resource to find out *WHICH* DVDs have advertisements before you buy them? I seem to find out afterwords. I am *INCREDIBLY* pissed about the Season 2 Dead Like Me box set having a two minute unskippable anti-piracy advert, *ON EVERY DISC*. You just paid 50$ for a box set and they're reminding you not to pirate it. From now on I pirate anything with an advert.
Re:Is it just me.. (Score:2)
Remove everything but the movie. No more unskippable. No more hassle.
Not preferred, just more noticeable (Score:2)
Usually billboards and soda machines are just slapped in games with some sort of corny, fake logo or slogan that is 60% joke. If these fake, filler billboards had all the attention-grabbing research and professional media strategy and design behind them that real ads do, well, of course players would feel more strongly
Invasiveness of advertising (Score:2)
Re:Invasiveness of advertising (Score:2)
Maybe if they had thirty real billboards, it would make them more money and would annoy me less.
So... (Score:1)
Pass the popcorn (Score:2)
How long before someone decides
Re:Pass the popcorn (Score:2)
* forwards this post to Jack Thompson *
Re:Pass the popcorn (Score:2)
Depends on the kind and the presentation of the ad (Score:2)
If I play a fantasy game and my trusted war horse is a Fiat (cheap) or a BMW (expensive), that would kinda kill the mood. Imagine saddle bags in a medieval setting in striking white with a BMW logo on it.
I can, though, see a sci-fi setting where I can pull some Red Bull from a vending machine that boosts my power (or even lets me fly
Same applies to banners. Ads on race cars or as banners on the side of the track actually add to th
Re:Depends on the kind and the presentation of the (Score:2)
That's the scary part, and it happened before (Score:2)
A) an interesting game set in a refreshingly new medieval setup, like Jade Empire, _but_ you can't put Coca Cola and McDonalds ads in it, or not without massively losing more sales than it's worth in the resulting player outrage (even if EB Games won't give you your money back for that, you
Where do I sign/vote? (Score:2)
I will not buy games with ADs, leave my games alone, leave me the frick alone, and go somewhere else.
Can I have one Fricken place IN THIS WORLD where I can indulge in a pleasure and not intruded upon with ADs?!?!?!
I ALREADY PAID FOR THE GAME!!!
Hands off, for the love of all things good and pure, please stay away.. where does this shit end?!?
Leela: Didn't you have ads
Crazy Taxi (Score:2)
in my opinion, if product placement can add to a gameworld, awesome. but collectible Bawl's bottlecaps in "brotherhood of st
As long as it fits in (Score:2)
As long as it looks natural, as much a part of the surroundings as a tree or fence, and it's not a fictional world, then it's somewhat acceptable (I still think it's a sign of them selli
Re:As long as it fits in (Score:2)
Re:As long as it fits in (Score:2)
Yes, we do care about in-game ads (Score:2)
Not suprising... (Score:2)
For product advertisements, these
I already get in-game spam (Score:2)
Neopets (Score:2)
Neopets is funded through advertisements (and a probably tiny amount for their premium service, but that's relatively new. I have no numbers, this is a guess.)
Ads on Neopets are:
1) Banner Ads
2) Games
3) In-Game items
4) Non-Game locations that can be visited
The only ads I've heard people complain about on the boards I visit (yes, I'm 29 and I play Neopets. Shut up.) are the banner ads, and like any other, they can be turned off
Covered By 1Up Yours (Score:2)
- In game advertising won't reduce the price of the game.
No one should have any illusions that if a $60 game has paid advertising in game that it will come down to $20. Producers will just pocket the extra revenue.
- In game advertising makes sense in some places and is in fact expected while others it sticks out like a sore thumb.
For a game like Grand Turismo, sponsorship is a part of the racing experience. You should see logos and other other stuff tr
Re:Mods (Score:2)
Re:Ignored? (Score:5, Funny)
Get ready to attack!
OK.
Did I mention that Mountain Dew is refreshing?
WTF!?
I didn't say anything
Re:Ignored? (Score:2)
You probably had to be there, but it was hilarious at the time...
(He was kidding, of course)
Re:Ignored? (Score:3, Insightful)
We all know that advertising for high-end products are to plant a 'need' -- thing cars, drug companies, etc..
Example: I need to buy toothpaste. I go to the store, and see 10-20 brands. OM
People who legitimately prefer China over $ony (Score:2)
However, when given a choice, we'll still take Coke over RC Cola, Tide over Generic Brand, or Sony over Chinageneric.
I don't know about you, Ubergrendle, but I actually prefer RC to Pepsi and Pepsi to Coke (unless it's Cherry or Vanilla Coke).
I also prefer Chinese DVD players to Sony products. Chinese brands are more likely to play (S)VCD and other formats in addition to DVD-Video, to play both PAL and NTSC all-region discs by scaling the video, and to be easy to region-unlock. Compare to Sony and it
Re:People who legitimately prefer China over $ony (Score:2)
Advertising is targetted at our passive decision making abilities, not our rational mind. Early TV advertisements attempted to convince the consumer to buy something through rational arguments... but it was a losing condition, as people are naturally distrusful of salesmen (as they should be). Modern advertising (post 1967) all focuses on 'experience', feeli
Re:Common Sense (Score:2)
In another post on this topic I brought up the CS Subway ads, way more than 15% of players complained about it... so I am certainly not alone in my aversion to in-game ad's as are quite a few others.