Ads in MMOs

[Nargleblarg]

First off I did a search on this and found nothing.

But anyway I was wondering why big MMO designers don't put advertisements in their games to. I don't really see a problem with this I don't think many people would care much and it could axe subscriptions. So many other games do it, I think more people would play mmos without subscriptions and the ads would potentially reach so many people the designers would still make money. Thoughts?

 

[GamingAwesome1]

No. I don't want a big fat billboard for *insert stupid food brand here" while I'm trying to play a game. Except for that EverQuest game where you can bring up a screen that lets you order Pizza Hut while in the game, that's awesome.

 

[Symp4thy]

Would it mean lower monthly charges? Then maybe. But I think putting ads in any game like that would kinda ruin the feel of the game, considering most of them take place in their own world. Unless it's some kind of MMO that takes place in modern times in our world, ads would be a bad idea.

 

[Yokai]

Horrible. Ads in MMOS are HORRIBLE. Acclaim's 9dragons was a pretty decent free MMO when they only advertised their own company and their affiliates on the loading screens and during respawns. However, they have since filled the top quarter of the screen with a black bar that constantly displays banner advertisements for Viva Pinata and Pizza Hut or some shit. It completely ruined the immersion. It's hard to enjoy beating the hell out of a nine-foot-tall undead Chinese soldier with a giant advertisement for Zoo Tycoon above its shriveled face. It's like if you were playing WoW, and Thrall's fortress in Orgrimmar had a massive billboard for Sprite on the roof. Would anyone want that? Holy shit no.

 

[DazZ.]

If they look authentic, and fit in with the place.

Say a Gillette advert with a Tauren shaving on a well placed billboard in one of the towns I might find funny.

Not mid raid though, that's awful.

 

[MR T3D]

EVE could handle the ads i think...

Say a Gillette advert with a Tauren shaving on a well placed billboard in one of the towns I might find funny.

aww yeah!

 

[Quotation Marx]

If they look authentic, and fit in with the place.

Say a Gillette advert with a Tauren shaving on a well placed billboard in one of the towns I might find funny.

Not mid raid though, that's awful.

This fits. If they can make it fit with the setting and have a bit of creativity then it wouldn't necessarily be so bad. But if it was a blatantly out of place eyesore, not at all a good idea. But then Blizzard doesn't want to lose any money at all-Have you seen the steps required to cancel a subscription? They practically beg you not to. They'd use the product placement and just add to the profits.

 

[Anarien]

As others have stated, it's a terrible idea unless it doesn't distract or seem out of place. The Matrix Online had in-game ads for a while. Alienware was one of the memorable sponsors, and the ads were on billboards in the city. When it comes to a fantasy MMO, placement and not ruining immersion is trickier.

 

[fix-the-spade]

I may be showing my ignorance here, but I though some of the major MMO's already had advertising in them.

I certainly thought WoW did, at the very least internal Acti-bliz advertising.

I think handled correctly it could be fine, when Steam got advertising everyone put their head in their hands and went 'oh noes!'
But that turned out ok, even advertising within CS:S and the other Source multiplayer games turned out to be pretty non descript, I bet a lot of people didn't even notice when all the computers in Counter Strike suddenly became Dells.