There are goods and bads in ads in games.
The bads. They're hated. Ads are always hated. In TV shows, along the street, on the radio. You name it, people hate it. And in a certain perspective I can't proove them wrong.
But this commercial about ads i a newspaper is also true:
(It's a translation from Dutch, and the old Guilder on that time was about $0.45
On that oment you see the price of F1,50 raise to F15.
15 guilders for a newspaper is extremely expensive, trust me.
So maybe you get my point. Commercial games are (at least in Europe) extremely expensive. If ads could make them affordable, I could be for it, but, of course. They may NEVER annoy the player. You see, placing a real ad on a billboard in a racing game. You can see it as an evil ad. But also as some kind of virtual reality, since at a real race those billboards are there as well. That makes two files in one hit, as we dutchies say. Too bad, racing games never got one penny cheaper because of that, and that disqualifies them of being allowed to place those ads there. But (for me) they are not annoying when it solely comes to the game play. (Now I must say that I seldom play racing games, but in the few times THAT I play them, those billboards do not annoy me).
I think what Sledge, and nearly all of us, are afraid for, is overkill. Internet advertisement is the perfect example of how advertising went into overkill. But maybe that's an extreme example.
But it's very clear that the game industry may never take an example of that. But there are games who did it the right way. Take "Space Quest 5" which was sponsored by the communication company "Sprint". You do see "Sprint" on the spaceship screen after hailing. It's only on the screen for 2 seconds, so it's gone before you actually realize it was on the screen.
I think I'm going to take the middle ground, and just trying to analyze it from an objective manner. But indeed, if commercials are going to be in a game that way that it gets annoying (which you'll get easily, trust me), I will also object their coming.
The bads. They're hated. Ads are always hated. In TV shows, along the street, on the radio. You name it, people hate it. And in a certain perspective I can't proove them wrong.
But this commercial about ads i a newspaper is also true:
(It's a translation from Dutch, and the old Guilder on that time was about $0.45
If you're getting sick from all those advertisements in the paper, think of it, that without those ads, there would be a lot less news, and a lot less of newspaper. In fact, the most important news would be imprinted here:
On that oment you see the price of F1,50 raise to F15.
15 guilders for a newspaper is extremely expensive, trust me.
So maybe you get my point. Commercial games are (at least in Europe) extremely expensive. If ads could make them affordable, I could be for it, but, of course. They may NEVER annoy the player. You see, placing a real ad on a billboard in a racing game. You can see it as an evil ad. But also as some kind of virtual reality, since at a real race those billboards are there as well. That makes two files in one hit, as we dutchies say. Too bad, racing games never got one penny cheaper because of that, and that disqualifies them of being allowed to place those ads there. But (for me) they are not annoying when it solely comes to the game play. (Now I must say that I seldom play racing games, but in the few times THAT I play them, those billboards do not annoy me).
I think what Sledge, and nearly all of us, are afraid for, is overkill. Internet advertisement is the perfect example of how advertising went into overkill. But maybe that's an extreme example.
But it's very clear that the game industry may never take an example of that. But there are games who did it the right way. Take "Space Quest 5" which was sponsored by the communication company "Sprint". You do see "Sprint" on the spaceship screen after hailing. It's only on the screen for 2 seconds, so it's gone before you actually realize it was on the screen.
I think I'm going to take the middle ground, and just trying to analyze it from an objective manner. But indeed, if commercials are going to be in a game that way that it gets annoying (which you'll get easily, trust me), I will also object their coming.