I’m currently in the planning and prototyping phase of a car vs car platformer(ish) project and thought that possibly displaying ads on billboards would be pretty cool and could passively generate income without impacting gameplay. However I’m not sure if this would even work in terms of programming and setting them up.
Thoughts?
I think it’s a great idea. I had the same thought with High Frontier. But it might be hard to hook into the standard ad services — you might need something custom.
I suggest bringing it up with the various ad networks, and see what they say. Perhaps you’ll find one who will be willing to feed the ads to you in the form of a simple image, so you can throw it up as a texture.
One question they’ll almost certainly have is: how will players respond to the ad? It doesn’t sound like they could just click it (or would be likely to do so even if they could, under these circumstances). So either you’d have to limit yourself to brand-awareness type ads, or you’d need to come up with some way for players to indicate they want to follow up.
I plan on doing optional ads after each match allowing players to use the ad to supplement the poor game by getting some bonus and vice versa. Each match is projected to take between 5 and 10 minutes. It’s very fast paced. Also I would like to find a way to have the ads play videos on the billboards which imagine wouldn’t be easy. Perhaps the companies could offer their input but if it won’t work then I’ll think of something else.
I’ve often wondered why driving games don’t advertise this way. Despite the massive popularity of driving games (and others which could conceivably apply the same concept, such as city-based FPS), I suspect the ad networks simply aren’t set up to deliver decent-resolution static content with no expectation of click-through.
I suppose it may also be a question of advertiser control of how their IP is displayed and used. Would Coca Cola want Grand Theft Auto videos showing up online of somebody taking a headshot in front of a “Drink Coke!” billboard? Probably not.
I would think video would be distracting, and probably use more bandwidth than players would appreciate. Advertising is already considered intrusive and unwelcome.
Uh, the bad PR you’d get for including paid ads in a full-price videogame is probably part of the reason nobody tried that.
There’s plenty of paid advertising in driving (and other sports-related) video games. It just isn’t “active”…
I said the game would be a full-price video game?
That’s pretty true as well. Didn’t think about bandwidth. I’ll figure something else out. I racked my brain last night on this and came to the conclusion that it would probably take more time out of active development and lead to something that probably wouldn’t work anyway however I’d understand a full AAA racing game being able to really pull some decent income off of brand awareness ads. But I reckon they do that already anyway.
Either way, I’ll be figuring something out. Thanks guys.
No, you didn’t but MV10 hinted in that direction in his post.
Companies have tried it and it’s successful too.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/121171/Nielsen_EA_Sports_InGame_Ads_Boosted_Gatorade_Sales.php
Oh, EA. Will you ever resist a lazy cash grab?
Pretty much their business model at this point…
They’re not even the first though. I remember at least two DOS-era video games that included product brand names in their splash screens and in-game. Super Frog had Lucozade (sports drink) and 3D Lemmings had Jelly Belly (candy maker).
It’s not really advertising or product placement that irritates players, it’s interruption. There’s a fine line between flashing a logo outside of a focal point during a game and stopping all the fun to force in a “word from our sponser”.
No, I’m sorry but as a player I am irritated by ads even when they are not interrupting anything. Just like I’m annoyed with the constant mentions of Apple products in the Millenium novels.
That or interruption in the sense of breaking immersion.
DOOM 7: Sponsored by Pepsi!
It was a generalization, of course. You can always expect some people to be frustrated with the principle of advertisement, and we can’t make them happy unless we figure out how to make ads invisible only to them.
I’m not unhappy with the principle of advertisement. I’m unhappy with the principle of selling me something for a bunch of money and still putting in ads. It’s a consumer’s rights question, easy as that.
(Also, may I suggest a game dev forum might be a bit biased in discussions like that?)
One of the interesting things with this example is the ads are expected to be there. Every race track in real life has this sort of advertising. You could have told me you took the photo from a track and I would believe you.
While racing and sports games are a natural for in-game ads, I do wonder how the perception would change if the ads were dynamic. It’s one thing to see Firestone and Mobil 1 ads around a racetrack, but would it break immersion to see products which aren’t normally advertised at those events? Dishwashing liquid or lawn care products or something. Though maybe it would matter less if we assume the ads were targeted to the audience (the player).
It’s still based in principle, though. I don’t deny that there’s a reason to feel that way, but it seems likely that a huge chunk of players can accept it if it isn’t intrusive. (No source to cite, though, I’m just guessing).
Devs are players, too! If you ask me, being able to see both sides is more valuable analysis-wise, and non-dev players are probably more biased. Their opinions are still more important to consider, though, since they keep devs alive.
Racing games tend to lean more toward the traditional sponsorship form of ads, where they basically just show a company’s logo. I imagined in my head seeing a dish soap ad while racing, with sale points all over it (“Cuts grease! Gentle on hands!”) and a huge picture of a soap bottle on it… Just imagining that is annoying. Maybe this qualifies as intrusive as well? How do we classify that?