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- Antialias, on 10/12/2007, -0/+42The only way in game ads are worth it is if they make the games cheaper.
- codemonkey420, on 10/12/2007, -0/+38The way I see it, when I'm gaming, I'm there to play a game, not shop for products. So, in reality, how much do I really pay attention to them? Typically, I'm too busy hiding from gunfire (because I'm not that good at FPS games for instance) and I don't have time to look at in-game ad's.
Perhaps if the ad's pertained to the real topic, gaming, it might be more worthwhile. Comcast trucks do not spark my interest because, in all honesty, my area either has comcast or it doesn't - not too much that I can do to switch providers because I saw an ad in a video game.
Subconsciously - maybe it works or helps me remember the products name. But again, I see Visa, Comcast, Direct TV, Vonage and many others during every NFL football game I watch or on commercials between The Office and Scrubs and sometimes if I'm not watching my TiVO I'll see them... still, I get enough ad bombardment that I've learned to ignore them.
In some cases, the best advertising I've "fallen for" is the simple "good service" ad. If I buy something from a company and the service is awesome, customer support is friendly and I feel good about it then I'll go back. No amount of in-game ad's can beat that.
CodeMonkey - commiecat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+17Penny-Arcade had a comic dealing with this very subject:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2006/20061019.jpg - Crass22, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12And yet there are still people who click on them thinking theyll get free videos of hot chicks.
- Braxo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12For me, I guess I'm dumb and think that in-game advertisements add to the realism of video games. If it wasn't for the billboards in Vice City, I'd probably be going around car-jacking people and killing hookers in real life because the game wasn't realistic enough.
- jackminardi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8i would
- chatwithaninja, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9I'd be happier if they made the games COMPLETE instead of needing patches immediately after installation.
Use that advertising money to get a QA department. - TrevorBradley, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11I don't notice ads on websites either. I guess it has something to do with installing AdBlock Plus...
http://adblockplus.org/en/ - Step1Mark, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7personally i don't really notice ads on websites either... i guess i just kinda know where they are placed and don't really see them.
- jackminardi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6obviously you notice them enough to care to get them removed. that is enough for the advertisers.
- FacesMan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I remember some group that did a study like this before on advertisements on the internet. It turned out most people who browse regularly ignored most advertisements as well. They monitored eye movement and where the user kept their eye focus on the screen. Most people never even looked at the side banners and the top ones were glanced at, but the study said people then looked away immediately as soon as the user realized it was an ad, not a nav bar.
- russvan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I think seeing a billboard for Coca Cola in a game is alot cooler than seeing an ad for Jim's Cola...I like real ads if theyre put where they would be in real life, but usually they take it WAY too far.
- jcaino, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5i wouldn't surprised if someone come out with a blocker for these in-game ads
- rzurad, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4eh. The second I notice an ingame ad, I just use a tcp/ip monitor to get the ip of the adserver, and map it to localhost in my hosts file.
problem solved. - fantasticFlan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I don't so much mind the fake ads, it's when they come up with 3 fake products and plaster the same 3 bright, cartoony ads all over the place.
- skymt, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3"It costs money to put those extra polygons there..."
Really? What's the rate per polygon these days? Should I invest in the polygon market, or are pixels on the rise? I currently have most of my portfolio in megabytes, but the graphics sector looks lucrative. (Yes, I know what you mean. Modelers do need paying. I was just amused by your choice of words.)
"Without advertising, companies will keep churning out rehashes of proven games..."
Unlike, say, the games from the survey? Smackdown vs Raw, NBA Live, PGR 3? It seems like most of the games with in-game advertising are those notorious EA sports games and rehashes that Real Gamers despise (and buy anyway). - krinthekuz, on 09/16/2008, -0/+2this is not good news to gamers because it means that the ads will get more and more intrusive. there is now an incentive for "loading" screens to take longer, despite it not really being necessary on faster hardware. and this SFI unit typically tests brand recognition with product placement, an advertising aspect that gamers arent particularly as susceptible to.
- HomelessJoe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Game companies beat the programming of most of these games out of developers working for salary pay. There's always some "emergency" which requires them to demand 20-40 hours of overtime. It doesn't cost them any more money to run the developers into the ground. They just use them up, throw them away, and get some new ones. Crying that they need more revenue is like listening to rich people moan that it's "so hard" to be rich. 20 years ago the games cost the same amount, $30-$50 without in-game ads. I hate in-game ads. I rip them out or block them...or if they're in your face constantly, I just don't buy the game at all.
- ricree, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I agree with you to a point, but there are some drawbacks to this idea. As much as I love games with a modern setting, I'd hate to see other settings die out because they aren't able to bring in ad revenue. Then again, it might help kill all the terrible WW2 games, so maybe it isn't such a bad thing after all.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I highly doubt the ads were a huge source of income, since it was a largely unproven method it probably wasn't netting much from the get-go. The only effective ads were probably the Dell ones in FEAR and other cutting edge FPS, after you see how horribly your 2 year old PC handles the game, you might be inclined to go buy an XPS. But yeah, even that situation is a little far from reality.
- vhold, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I think Tony Hawk 8 was a good example of product placement done right in a game. The shoes/clothes whatever aren't intrusive and are user controlled. There are no annoying billboards that disrupt the artistic vision of the rest of the game. The videos you unlock for the various sponsors can be skipped and really are all pretty cool skating videos with some product placement shots, not full on advertisements.
- retral, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1They're going to do it anyways. Have studies showing marijuana is less harmful than alcohol/tobacco ever made it(marijuana) legal?
- sleze, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1/agree
This is not a big deal one way or the other for gamers. I (and most people I play with) could care less about the billboard on the side of the 'virtual world'. - Fracture98, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The ones I saw were completely inappropriate for the environment. Some dumb car add that looped endlessly. Marketers are sofa king dense. "Our annoying adds are not working. I know... make them MORE annoying, then people will love them!".
- loker269, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1this is not good for gamers......it means they are going to have to make ad's stand out even more so that they are effective!
- DarkStalker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't mind it when games based in the real world have ads because the ads help make things look more realistic and help the immersion into the game's world, but I don't want to see the same ad plastered all over the game world. There has to be a LOT of variety. Games like GTA and Madden lend themselves well to in-game ads, but I can't say I want to see Doom 4 plastered with ads for Trojan condoms.
- ODSTKuk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The only actual in-game ad that worked on me was civilian warthog in the multiplayer map Headlong.
Too bad... - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I bet they'd pay attention if your gun stopped firing until you input the capcha from the in-game ad.
- hamlet9000, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1These stats need some context. Are these ratings of ad effectiveness more or less effective than banner ads? Billboards seen while driving down a stretch of highway? TV ads? TV ads that you fast-forward past using a DVR? Magazine ads? Radio ads? Newspaper ads? Without any context for how effective in-game ads are compared to other advertising methods, the story isn't really telling us much.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'd support ads in games if the game was a fraction of what it would normally cost.
A good example is any Tony Hawk game. With as much product placement they have, the game should be no more than $20.
If they have it set up properly, advertisers would be paying based on the total units sold.
Otherwise, it's just like f'n cable tv where you pay to watch it, yet still have to deal with the commercials. Either ditch the commercials.. or lower the cost drastically! - Carteelith, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Didn't really need a study for that. I would never invest in ads in something like a game, where people are more likely to get angry about a poduct being pushed on them.
- trer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I disagree.
If it was your product, you'd want to get as much money as you can from selling it. You would sell for as high a price as the market will bear. Why expect other human beings to think differently?
The revenue from in-game advertising is merely icing on the cake to make investors happy. - shortarabguy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Uh... forgive me for being the realist, but this seems more like bad news.
When a company realizes that it's wasting money, it tends to stop, and in this scenario that means that money will not be as readily invested in video games since they won't prove effective, as this study shows. That said, less money usually translates to inferior work being done because less incentive is being provided( think Benjamin, Lincoln, Hamilton, etc...) and eventually crappier games find there way to the market. If anything, I would have wanted to hear that advertisements were more efficient than other methods, since that would have opened the flood gates on funding. If you're more of a mindless lamb, on the other hand, the advertisements might become an issue for you. - Judgement, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Good news for gamers? Not really, those in-game ads probably kept the prices down for games, and gave game devs the money to build more games and better games. And since gamers don't notice the ads according to the article, then WTF do gamers care if they are there or not?
Nope, not good news for gamers. - crilen007, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Or when the banner just doesn't fit.
IE: Rust world in Silent Hill with a bright pink ad. - cliffzdude, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2We like to confuse advertisements with something that is supposed to elicit a reaction immediately. Comcast knows you aren't going to pick up the phone an order your new Comcast broadband package right away. What marketers do know is the more you see a product's name, the more easily it is recalled later on. It may not literally change product affinity, but it does change how recognizable a brand is. So when you move to WahooVille and see there is Comcast cable, and Jabba Wabba DSL, you are statistically more likely to look into Comcast first. We KNOW we don't do that, we KNOW we research our buys and would never-ever be tainted by repeated product spots, but, we all are.
So long as they get their crap straight and not change game play, I don't care if the main character in my game picks up a "Coke" or a "Cola". No BFD. But the issue of a truck being Comcast for me, and Time Warner for another player is a design flaw that should be fixed. - fatadamblog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yea so valve better not put in-game ads into Counter-Strike source, those greedy bastards! >:|
- uberkling, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Beyond what the article claims about in-game advertising being ineffective as most people basically don't notice it, on a personal level I have to say that it proves ineffective on a personal level to someone like myself (and I'll make a leap of faith and assume I'm not the only one out there) for an entirely different reason; When I'm trying to lose myself in a game and badly-targeted dynamic billboards start popping up, the resentment builds and my reachability as a receptive consumer plummets.
"Ok, so you want me to allow your game through my firewall and utilise my bandwidth to throw flashy ads in my face. And you're subsidising the initial purchase of your fine product to... what degree?" - vhold, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Well, this is handled in the World Wide Web by tracking and billing for click throughs, and tracking and giving kick backs for conversions (sales)
Sooo... expect at some point in the future to see video games that let you use your Xbox Live / Nintendo points to have Bawls delivered to your house?
Safeway (local grocery store) is still pushing their delivery service... maybe if grocery deliveries ever take off, instead of having to track all these different micro-orders, games/online-ads will be able to interact with your pending shopping cart. I guess expect to see your cable remote have a big "Buy" button at some point that does the same thing. - whiteguysamurai, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Unless it's sneak king..
Made me buy a burger after playing it.
...Well i was going to anyway. - Gordon2108, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I would say planetside does an OK job of this. The ad's are placed in the battlefield and such, but I don't notice them while I'm fighting. However, while I'm waiting for a drop ship.. it does give me some time to stare mindlessly at a Wendy's add for 3 minutes.
- fredinator, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1lol chatwithaninja, you sound like youre talking about battlefield 2142 :), but in Australia, at least i dont get the ads in that game because of some law
- HomelessJoe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1With all the HD tech out there I bet the new consoles could do Blipverts instead!
- shawnanigans, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I think more so than anything about games it shows the ineffectiveness of ads in general, they are almost always treated as background like in games. Does anybody actually notice ads on the bus or subway, I personally don't and I think ads have become so natural that they can't stand out.
- krakkinem, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Does this mean in-game ads will begin to go away? No way! They're just going to research new ways to make them more effective.
I only think it's fair for a game to have heavy advertising if it's free or very cheap. But if you pay full price for a game ($50 - $60) you should not have to look at ads while playing. It pisses me off just as much as the 20+ minutes of ads that we have to endure at the movie theatre now.
Probably the best way to stop all this advertising is to boycott the publishers and games that employ them. - HomelessJoe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@riceree
"As much as I love games with a modern setting, I'd hate to see other settings die out because they aren't able to bring in ad revenue. Then again, it might help kill all the terrible WW2 games, so maybe it isn't such a bad thing after all."
Don't worry. Eventually someone will think to advertise bullets or gun shows in those games or WWII uniforms/flags/figures etc. - vhold, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't see how that makes sense. Plenty of top notch games don't have in-game advertising of any kind.
- vhold, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Like you say, GTA would be ruined by in-game advertising for real products. The GTA world thrives off of lampooning reality. If they had ads for the real KFC or Taco Bell or pretty much any fast food, they wouldn't have been able to parody it with "Cluckin' bell".
- acrim, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Perhaps you don't need to "notice" them for them to be effective.
As long as you subconsciously associate the advertised brand with feelings of pleasure or reward that's all the counts.
Concious registration of the adverts is not a pre-requisite for this process. - Refresher, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Games are my excape from the world. When I see a McDonalds billboard or Bestbuy shop, I feel like the world I purposely left is creeping up on me. Evil!
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