Massive Exec Says Gamers Like Ads

[G1eet]

Pigheaded executive is pigheaded.

Who the hell is he to say that I like ads in my games? I don't like ads in the first place. I like what they represent (free market and all that jazz), but I hate seeing them.

I don't want advertisements to encroach on any more of my life, but if Futurama is anything to go by, we'll all be screwed by the year 3000.

The only ad I've ever liked in a game was in Everything or Nothing, because it was like a wink to the faithful Bond gamer.

"Oh, you remember Drake? Good for you!" *pats head*

 

[bob-2000]

I hate ads, it means that the game is whoring itself to other corporations.

 

[Korey Von Doom]

Personally I find ads in some games amusing, such as the billboards in Bad Company will sometmes have info on Bad Company 2 but mostly ads for other games and such, it doesn't bother me at all because your not forced to look at it, but like if they interrupt the game just to show you an ad then yea thats bad

 

[Robert632]

i never care about ads. it's rare i'll go looking for ads or commercials, unless there downright hilarious. like wunder boner.

 

[brewbeard]

If the ads fit, fine. If I have to watch them, or they pull some ludicrous stuff like Microsoft's proposed Advertars, I will go out of my way to avoid the games containing them. I hate television and radio now because they're so prolific. If I'm paying to enjoy myself I shouldn't have my time wasted with ads.

The movie industry does ads right, strangely enough. Product placement is generally done in a non-distracting way, and while it is occasionally atmosphere-breaking (Star Trek's car phone) I don't have the same disgust reflex. Hell, it can even be amusing like the Mountain Dew transformer in the first live action film. If games follow suit, who am I to complain? In many games they're already there for imagined products. I don't see a problem with the developers raking in some cash replacing those with actual products.

 

[DayDark]

I think it's interesting, I like the ads if they don't contradict the game in some way. They help fund the actual game, but I don't want a some modern car ad in a WW2 game.

However, fake ads doesn't have to not work for the advertising company, I mean make the product fake, but the company real, if the product is cool, fictive or not, I might consider buying from the real manufacturer.

 

[hansari]

I don't know...

I can see the merits of this guys arguments. But still...I'd like fake/funny commercial items advertised ad me instead.

Like instead of Pepsi/Coke, you get Booty Sweat.

 

[Lullabye]

ya know, mister exec there has a point. I mean, having a pepsi bottle shoved in your face every 2 sec would get annoying, but say ur driving down the road in a fairly realistic game. And the point of the game is realism...then seeing a coke ad on a passing billboard definately makes the game(for me at least) more immersing. of course i do the whole song and dance bout why product placement in games is retarded, but at the end of the day, I think i kinda liked it. that being said, if im playing final fantasy, there shouldnt be an ad ANYWHERE unless its a fake company that has to do wit teh game.

 

[CyberAkuma]

Yeah... because there is nothing better than spending 60 bucks on a game to have it toss out commercial and ads in your face constantly, even though you payd actual money to play the game.

Does this guy know that GameSpot has a category of "most despicable use of in-game advertising" [http://www.gamespot.com/best-of/dubious-honors/index.html?page=2] for a good bloody reason?

 

[Flos]

I'm all for advertisements... so long as the price of the game is lower because of it.

I pay extra for cable television such as HBO. Because of this, HBO doesn't have advertisements. Regular channels do have advertisements and I am not paying extra for them - they come with the typical bundle.

If I'm being subjected to advertisements in games the game should not cost as much as its advertisement-free competitor.

 

[Aurora219]

As long as they can stick to billboards in racing games that I can drive my car through, I'll be happy.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

I misread this at first and thought it said Gamer's Like Aids...

Anyway, I like Ad's if they fit into the context of the game. Like all the Ad's in Prototype, for example, thats fine.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

Ads that are blatantly in your face are annoying. (I haven't really noticed any but I hear Bionic Commando drinks Pepsi). Things like the ads described though, little billboards like you would expect to find in everyday life, do add to the experience for me. I remember Prototpe, and running around New York with the usual advertising blitz felt a lot more real to me than running around Max Payne and seeng only fake adverts, which were good, but not quite natural enough.

 

[Woem]

I think ads can blend in just fine in "realistic" games such as modern-time racing games, or in Second Life for instance. But in games like Quake Live they bother the hell out of me. I'm playing on an industrial map with brown and rust-red being the main color pallet. I jump around the corner and I'm faced with an incredibly large bright blue Underworld ad panel. It doesn't only kill the atmosphere but it also takes too much attention because of the contrast with the level. In a game where each split second counts this really is an annoyance.