Another One
I’m not sure I’m liking this. Thanks to a poster on the MMORPG.com forums (again today, crazy) I found this little gem. Particularly important is the following quote:
Austin, Texas-based NCsoft North America, for instance, is planning — for the first time — to sell and insert ads into its popular online multi-player games such as “Lineage,” “Guild Wars” and “City of Heroes,” as well as into its forthcoming fantasy game “Tabula Rasa.”
“We’re really intrigued by it,” said Dorothy Ferguson, NCsoft North America’s vice president of sales and marketing. “It has the potential to increase (revenues), but it’s really also about enhancing the game-playing experience.”
I’m not sure I’m liking where this is heading. Not so much the idea of ads in games, I’m not completely against that, but I don’t know if I can justify $15/month cost plus deal with having ads inside the game world. I think you can have ads that work seamlessly within the game world, but I also think that because a company is doing that they are obligated to pass on the cost savings to the consumer. Arbitrarily charging more money and sticking ads in a game isn’t the idea at all.
I’ll have to wait and see what happens.
ads, advertisment, in-game ads, ncsoft, tabula rasa, lineage, city of heroes, city of villains, coh, cov, cox
July 13th, 2007 at 9:22 am
Yeah but look at all the ads some of us bloggers have on our sites, it is almost easy to ignore really. Rainbow Six Vegas has a ton of “Mindfreak” ads on billboards and alleyway posters, Anarcy Online does this, you dont really notice it. They are usually stamped on vans and bus stop signs. Meh I say we dont worry about it until it actually pops up in our face, or something like
“THIS PARTY WIPE BROUGHT TO YOU BUY COCA COLA, COULDNT YOU USE A NICE REFRESHING VANILLA COKE RIGHT ABOUT NOW?”
Then it will get annoying
July 13th, 2007 at 9:35 am
I’m not at all against ads in games. What I’m against is ads in games that I’m already paying an industry standard price for. If they want to charge me 8 dollars for a TR subscription because it also has adds in it, great, I’ll go along with it happily. I don’t think I should have to pay $15 to them though and see ads. There are games that are running on just $15/month, so any ad revenue is entirely profit.
I don’t mind seeing ads anywhere I go, it really isn’t a big deal, but it is one thing to have ads, and it is another thing to have ads that I am paying for the privilege of seeing.
An ad on a website is one thing. There is no payment from the consumer (the person viewing the site) to see it (well…okay, not with most sites anyway.)
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:51 pm
As long as it is clear ahead of time, I am ok with it. Don’t change the rules after the fact. Stuff like this has happened since the game industry started. People remember Ultima 5 (or was it 6?) and the coke or pepsi prominent placement in the intro?