Hello everyone! I am currently investigating the game developers reaction to in-game advertisement. I was hoping to get some anwsers and discussion feeds from you, the developer. My questions are little and general, because it is mostly to get a feel of your reaction. I am using this for an idea that I currently have. Any help/suggestions/ideas is appreciated! I would be very pleased to start discussing anything about it as well in this topic to reveal any potential interesting information not covered by the survey!
I have made a google form for this survey, it can be found here!
Well I can tell you from the stand point of one who plays games mostly RPG and MMORPG I dislike in game ads. I play a game to escape from the real world.
I don’t think I would have any problems if an add filled in a blank spot on non-gameplay UI (character selection, loading, ectect) if it didn’t use animations, vibrant colors, or sounds.
I dislike them a lot, especially in the bigger games that don’t really need them because they would make enough money from the sales off the game its self. It just shows to me that the developers are greedy and are trying to make as much money as possible, when it isn’t needed and usually just annoys the player.
I first realised this when I was younger and was playing the Need For Speed: Underground series. Those games were just caked in advertisements, and it truly ruined it for me. Like ssgtsgt said, I play games to get away from the real world.
Thank you guys for these most interesting reactions, this was truly what I was hoping for. To give a better view of what I personally would mean with in-game advertisement, I will name a view:
Billboards aside road(s) with static or video advertisement
Cloths with a real brand on them
Radio sounds with advertisement
Coke cans or bottles
Vending machines or cars that look and act like the original
I make a distinct difference between in-game ads and on-game ads. I have no clue if the term on-game ads exists, but this is something I’d like to make a difference for. On-game would be advertisement that comes during loading time, on the gui, in your menu etc. In-game advertisement would be a type that is (hopefully) as immersive as possible and not obstructive in a way that you can sort of avoid them by not looking/listening to it
I dislike on-game advertisement. In-game advertisement on the other hand would possibly be a method for developers to lower their prices and offer free longer demo’s with ads or premium packages without ads as mentioned before.
Hope to get some more reactions, this truly gives me good insight and feedback! If you feel like expressing yourself through images or videos by all means do so!
Ads to support the game are perfectly fine in free games, like others have said. But Coke cans in a fantasy MMO are right out
Look at the uproar caused by suddenly adding ads to disc-based console games. They’re bloody $100 here, so if they also push Axe ads I’m off to get a trade-in.
Yeah if it does something like make a demo longer or bring down the overall price, I have no reason to complain.
I just hate the games being overwhelmed by them.
I’m guessing you’re from Australia as well? Game prices here are ridiculous.
I think it largely depends on how tastefully it’s done. I know that’s not a clear answer, and is up to enterpretation, but that’s kind of the point. Personally I don’t care if the developers are greedy. They could all be complete arseholes for all I care, so long as the game I buy from them is fun and well made. With that in mind, I would say it’s tasteful if it adds to the emersion(1), is functionally realistic or neutral(2) and does not draw excessive attention to itself(3). All these points are obviously quite closely related to each other though.
(1) In an apocalyptic setting I wouldn’t want to go into a burnt down supermarket and find that everything was black and charred except the shiney new coke cans. It’d just make it seem like a joke.
(2) My potion of sexual attractiveness provides me with a personality boost of 10 points, but my branded deodorant provides me with 4.34x10^489 points, wins me the game and plays a lengthy cutscene in which every female NPC strips naked and runs at you in slow motion. What?!
(3) If you find yourself driving into billboards all the time because they obscure too much of your view, then something is probably wrong with the world. Similarly, if characters in the aforementioned apocalyptic example won’t shut up about how much they loved a certain brand of fast food before the hellfire and screaming and gnashing of teeth ruined it all, then it’s a good sign that someone’s been trying much too hard to force it on you.
Tolerable advertising should be almost undetectabe unless you’re looking for it, and that extends even to free games. Let’s face it, jumping off of skyscrapers is free too, but I don’t fancy doing it for that reason alone. If they want to advertise, put it before and after the actual gameplay, or on the borders of their website, just don’t make me have to deal with it when I’m actually playing.
I think I get your point, in a summary you simply don’t want them to be obstructive and you don’t want to feel as if they are pushed up your *ss all the time.
Simply be there but not to obvious, at least, not all the time?
I think that if you aim to make the ads improve the game - then you have a winner. The problem is doing this effectively (because it presumably requires a lot of work to do well),
That’s about the long and short of it. I just wanted to add some colourful examples for my own amusement.
I guess what I’m trying to get at is that I doubt an advertising platform would be able to meet such criteria, as it’s fundamentally a generalist system which needs to operate within a very specific context of each game’s world, whilst maintaining that all important sense of emersion. However I reckon that individually tailoring adverts for each game could yeild some good results in a lot of cases, and for some games it could even add to the experience - like in sports games, with authentic team sponsors and boards along the sidelines.
Well that depends on how you create your system of course, cause instead of the platform / advertiser choosing the location of the ad you could also let the developer choose the locations…
Of course an advertiser would want some input on placement if they are paying for it.
Back in the thread, Jan, you said “In-game advertisement on the other hand would possibly be a method for developers to lower their prices and offer free longer demo’s with ads or premium packages without ads as mentioned before.” Nobody believes ads are about lowering prices, they are about increasing revenue and offsetting costs. If they were about lowering prices then people wouldn’t be expected to pay $60 for a commercial.
That is true I guess, but I often compare it to say, television. At some point if we want to keep having high quality (I know, not all tv is high ) we are going to need to accept some level of advertisement I think, because else development costs become to high. And yes it doesn’t mean developers will do that, but it does allow them to do that
If you think advertisers need influence you can also consider the google approach. Do they or their advertisers influence where we place our ads?
The problem is that none of the current crop of in-game advertising systems such as Google’s work with Unity. They’re all tailored especially for flash.
