MMO Gaming

In game advertisements. Some people find the very notion sickening. Big companies paying out hundreds, thousands, or maybe even millions of dollars to get their ads stuck in our games. And the worst part is, we aren’t seeing any of the benefits. They still charge us fifty or more dollars for the game, and in the case of MMOs, usually a monthly fee of $14.99 as well, and still they stick in ads.

It feels kind of like a slap in the face to know that these companies are pulling in money from every direction possible. Then they have the gall to tell us that making games is expensive, and that extra money from advertising isn’t covering costs. As if it’s our problem that they are in the business of making games. A little hint, don’t bitch about something you choose to do.

If you make games for a living, don’t cry to me about how hard it is. It’s like those parents I hear whining to their own kids about how the kids don’t know how hard it is to be a parent. Well, you know what, the kid didn’t have a choice in it, you did, so suck it up and deal with it.

It’s something I’ve seen far too commonly. The defense by developers is almost always the same, some variation of “Making games is expensive, if you want to continue enjoying the game than we have to make some money off of it. That’s just the business.”

Yeah, we’re all crying because you do something that you enjoy. It really helps the rest of us working in jobs we may or may not like but that we perform anyway because it provides us the necessities. No, go ahead, tell us all about your money problems. We’ve never faced anything like it before. We are all completely business inept. Hold on, let me find a cat for this, he should hammer the point home.

Damn, there is a cat for every occasion. Thank you ICHC.

But in all seriousness, it doesn’t matter. Players don’t care about your developer concerns. It isn’t our job to. Is that an incredibly narrow-minded view? Absolutely. To quote our Vice President “So?”

This is the reality of the situation. Stick advertising (which you make money from) in a game (which you make money from) and guess what? People are going to be unhappy if you are charging exactly the same amount as every other game does without ads.

That said, I support ads in games. I think, if done the right way, they can enhance the gaming experience. Are ads for every MMO? No, but they do work for some. Whenever I think of in-game ads I always think of CoX. They would fit in so nicely in that game. They have the perfect setting, they already have the billboards and the posters up. It would be so simple, and fit in so nicely, to have advertisements for real companies there.

In that situation, rather than hurting the game immersion, it might actually help it. Even when your setting does not so nicely tie in with having ads it is still possible to do it without really messing up the game. That is, if you can get an advertiser willing to work with you (which is, as it so happens, the tricky part.)

I always think of the movie “A Knight’s Tale” when I think of subtle advertising. Specifically the Nike symbol used on the armor at the one point in the movie. Everyone knows that symbol, everyone knows who it belongs to and Nike never had to use their name. That’s nicely done advertising. It is apparent, it wasn’t stealth advertising, which would defeat the purpose, but it wasn’t so blatant that it makes a person cringe.

Apply that same concept to in game advertising and it can work, and work nicely. But, if you do, just make sure you cut down what I’m paying. Otherwise I’ll just be pissed.