Just another nail in the revenue coffin MMOs find themselves in, forced to mold the game to suit the money. So my knight will be travelling on his horse with a Nike logo on the saddle and when he comes to the stable the Nike logo swings on sign. Wonderful immersion.
Yeah, it could be your mounted knight seeing it. It could instead be your motorcycle riding character in a game with a contemporary setting where the placement would be more suited. Not everything is destined to be a bad case scenario.
How many MMOs do you know where your ride motorbikes? It is well known that most MMOs are fantasy based, nearly all logos would look out of place. So it is not a "bad case scenario" this will be the "usual case scenario". One of the few exceptions I can think of is The Secret World or if you want to stretch your definition of a MMO GTA (you can ride them there); there are not that many.
You know what customers are most valuable to advertisers? People who buy a lot of things. Specifically trying to bring in people who are unwilling to pay any money at all by using advertisements as a way to make the game free would add exactly the sort of people that advertisers are least interested in.
Actually the customers most valuable to advertisers are the ones that don't yet buy a lot of what they are promoting. The more that are the less promotion is needed.
Advertising is relentless on what one does not pay to access so there is no reason to expect a game entirely truly so would be unattractive to advertisers. Such would instead be seen by them as an abundant field for their locust plague to feast on.
Lot of people who go out of their way to watch ads instead of paying for ad-free experience are also people who are hardest to convince to purchase anything new at all. Either they're too poor, too thrifty, or both.
Ads have much better effect when you manage to show them to a person who's already ready to make some extra purchases, and just needs direction provided by your ads on what is the next good thing to buy.
Hardly new, considering Microsoft was the owner of Massive, which was a company that streamed ads into online games. Remember those Fanta and Air Force ads on billboards in Anarchy Online ( that I used to post how to disable them here and even got into a tiff with Colin "Means" Cragg over doing so lol )? Those were provided by Massive, under Microsoft.
Just wondering for my own insight, Why would you bother to disable them?
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Hardly new, considering Microsoft was the owner of Massive, which was a company that streamed ads into online games. Remember those Fanta and Air Force ads on billboards in Anarchy Online ( that I used to post how to disable them here and even got into a tiff with Colin "Means" Cragg over doing so lol )? Those were provided by Massive, under Microsoft.
Just another nail in the revenue coffin MMOs find themselves in, forced to mold the game to suit the money. So my knight will be travelling on his horse with a Nike logo on the saddle and when he comes to the stable the Nike logo swings on sign. Wonderful immersion.
Yeah, it could be your mounted knight seeing it. It could instead be your motorcycle riding character in a game with a contemporary setting where the placement would be more suited. Not everything is destined to be a bad case scenario.
How many MMOs do you know where your ride motorbikes? It is well known that most MMOs are fantasy based, nearly all logos would look out of place. So it is not a "bad case scenario" this will be the "usual case scenario". One of the few exceptions I can think of is The Secret World or if you want to stretch your definition of a MMO GTA (you can ride them there); there are not that many.
Champions Online does, sort of, if hoverbikes count. SWL has a tiny bit of it. I'm sure someone in advertising would have no trouble stretching the definition of MMO to GTA and a whole bunch of other stuff aside.
But really, MMORPGs are somewhat like a pimple on the ass of gaming when it comes to marketing potential. If I was picking a genre to make a free game for to also act as an advertising platform it wouldn't be the one I pop.
You know what customers are most valuable to advertisers? People who buy a lot of things. Specifically trying to bring in people who are unwilling to pay any money at all by using advertisements as a way to make the game free would add exactly the sort of people that advertisers are least interested in.
Actually the customers most valuable to advertisers are the ones that don't yet buy a lot of what they are promoting. The more that are the less promotion is needed.
Advertising is relentless on what one does not pay to access so there is no reason to expect a game entirely truly so would be unattractive to advertisers. Such would instead be seen by them as an abundant field for their locust plague to feast on.
Lot of people who go out of their way to watch ads instead of paying for ad-free experience are also people who are hardest to convince to purchase anything new at all. Either they're too poor, too thrifty, or both.
Ads have much better effect when you manage to show them to a person who's already ready to make some extra purchases, and just needs direction provided by your ads on what is the next good thing to buy.
This isn't a situation where people would be going out of their way to watch ads. It is one where the ads are coincidentally present, such as the billboards many pass by every day while driving down the road or signs placed out front by local shops they happen to walk by. These kinds of ads can't be targeted with precision but are abundant nonetheless. That such advertising is considered worth it the real world suggests something similar in a game world could well be seen so too.
Hardly new, considering Microsoft was the owner of Massive, which was a company that streamed ads into online games. Remember those Fanta and Air Force ads on billboards in Anarchy Online ( that I used to post how to disable them here and even got into a tiff with Colin "Means" Cragg over doing so lol )? Those were provided by Massive, under Microsoft.
Just wondering for my own insight, Why would you bother to disable them?
Would you want to watch the same ads over and over while trying to play a video game? Some of them were very annoying.
If they were just part of the backdrop, like an advert on a Billboard as stage setting, not sure why a "Sprite Soda" billboard would be more annoying then "Omni-Tec Sports Drink" or some made up advert that normally fills the backdrop of these kinds of games.
While I admit, needing to fit the game and setting is important, so something like this.
Is shit.
I mean, talk about a slogan that just sucks for that setting, they should have done a bit more to make it fit setting. Something like "be all you can be in the Army" was a great slogan, would have worked well in a game world and the real world.
The issue here was not that there was an advert, the problem with this, was they were constantly reminding people that they are playing a video game, and that is immersion breaking.
But really.. what's the big deal with seeing an advert for Sprite vs s Nuke, or some other kind of wall filler ?
Why does this bother you:
and why does seeing this all over the place not bother you:
I mean, lets be honest, if you are going to get hit with wall filler anyway, might as well have it fund the game, and this way they don't have to focus on fleecing you to pay for everything.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
You know what customers are most valuable to advertisers? People who buy a lot of things. Specifically trying to bring in people who are unwilling to pay any money at all by using advertisements as a way to make the game free would add exactly the sort of people that advertisers are least interested in.
Actually the customers most valuable to advertisers are the ones that don't yet buy a lot of what they are promoting. The more that are the less promotion is needed.
Advertising is relentless on what one does not pay to access so there is no reason to expect a game entirely truly so would be unattractive to advertisers. Such would instead be seen by them as an abundant field for their locust plague to feast on.
Lot of people who go out of their way to watch ads instead of paying for ad-free experience are also people who are hardest to convince to purchase anything new at all. Either they're too poor, too thrifty, or both.
Ads have much better effect when you manage to show them to a person who's already ready to make some extra purchases, and just needs direction provided by your ads on what is the next good thing to buy.
Different advertising campaigns can have different goals. Ultimately for profit companies want to persuade customers to buy their products, but that's not always the primary goal for a particular campaign. The goal can be to build an image for the brand or simply remind people that it exists.
Coca-cola is one of the biggest brands, and it would be hard to find someone who doesn't already know them, so why do they continue to advertise? Because if they completely stopped, while their competitors continued, eventually people would think about Coke less often and about other brands more often. Coke could lose its status as a leading brand and have lower sales as a result. So, there is value in advertising even a specific ad does not lead a customer to purchase. They can have long term cumulative effects. The person may not buy the product today, but when it does comes time to buy, they'll be more likely to remember the advertised brand as an option.
Aston Martin does product placement in James Bond. Do they expect that people will go and buy one after watching the movie? Probably not, but it reminds people that the brand exists and helps to maintain its image as a high performance car. I imagine it's very costly for them, but perhaps they feel that it's worth it in the long run. Companies pay 10s of millions to have their logos on soccer jerseys probably for similar reasons, even brands that have nothing to do with sports or sports-related products.
One of the challenges with advertising though is attribution. How can a company tell which ad was responsible for persuading the customer to purchase? Was it the TV ad? What it the product placement? There are various attribution models that assign weights to different ads in terms of how they contribute to sales, but a company can never be completely sure (https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1662518?hl=en#:~:text=An attribution model is the,immediately precede sales or conversions.). Therefore, companies often promote their brands through multiple channels to reach as many potential customers as possible. Games could be one of those channels, and they could be a very attractive channel due to higher engagement.
When thinking about ads for games, I think the traditional style TV or billboard ad would not be that well received or effective in a fantasy setting. There needs to be congruence or consistency with the setting. Something similar to product placement in movies. That's why I think that if it does happen, it will be done in a more creative and subtle way, at least for traditional medieval style games. Completely fictional in-game items could represent real-life brands. For example, there could be in-game armor sold from the tailor Hugo Boss. Henry T. Ford, the stable master could sell Ford horses.
I think the examples to look at are things like the Lego Star Wars games. They are effectively advertisements for lego, but sell very well (https://www.pcgamesn.com/lego-star-wars-the-skywalker-saga/sales-elden-ring) and don't feel like an ad. Some games like this are looked back on fondly, like Chex Quest, a free Chex cereal themed doom clone that had an HD re-release on steam a while back (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chex_Quest). I remember getting it as a kid in my cereal box. It was awesome.
I think there can be two general approaches for development: (1) game elements are developed around partnerships with specific brands like movie product placements, (2) the game is developed with general elements that various brands can choose to sponsor, some elements even changing dynamically. The system Microsoft is developing is probably closer to the latter.
As an idea, advertising in an MMORPG should be a natural mix. We haven't seen anything yet that has come close to being a self-supporting endeavor for the developers. That ensures it is unlikely.
Problem abound, including these:
Low population. Maybe the biggest problem is that players of MMORPGs are a very small market. It just isn't worth a company's effort to reach such a small audience. Maybe WoW could make it worthwhile, but compared to TV and radio, ads run through games wouldn't likely see enough eyes.
Non-immersive. Modern products just don't fit well into fantasy games. Product placement and even bill boards advertising Coca-Cola, Nissan, and other products just don't sit well with players.
Slow modification. Marketing and advertising is a fast moving business; game changes happen slowly. Game developers will need to accommodate the need to push new ads far more frequently that games normally change.
Graphical limits. Even if games could push ads to the customer, the ads must be made in specific fixed formats, like the ad headers on websites. The advertiser must be willing to support another format, in a multitude of resolutions, just to be put into a virtual 'billboard'.
Intrusion. Unlike TV commercials, the first commercial that bothers me in the middle of a boss fight will be the last. We routinely take breaks during programs, generally at random times, but online gaming isn't conducive to that. Break, and the mob pounds you. That isn't going to appeal to many, hurting both games and advertiser. A 3 minute break every 12 minutes of game play isn't likely to work, either.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
One of the challenges with advertising though is attribution. How can a company tell which ad was responsible for persuading the customer to purchase? Was it the TV ad? What it the product placement? There are various attribution models that assign weights to different ads in terms of how they contribute to sales, but a company can never be completely sure
That's why some ads say "use this promotional code for a discount". They're basically giving you a discount in exchange for telling them which ad led to the sale.
You know what customers are most valuable to advertisers? People who buy a lot of things. Specifically trying to bring in people who are unwilling to pay any money at all by using advertisements as a way to make the game free would add exactly the sort of people that advertisers are least interested in.
Actually the customers most valuable to advertisers are the ones that don't yet buy a lot of what they are promoting. The more that are the less promotion is needed.
Advertising is relentless on what one does not pay to access so there is no reason to expect a game entirely truly so would be unattractive to advertisers. Such would instead be seen by them as an abundant field for their locust plague to feast on.
Lot of people who go out of their way to watch ads instead of paying for ad-free experience are also people who are hardest to convince to purchase anything new at all. Either they're too poor, too thrifty, or both.
Ads have much better effect when you manage to show them to a person who's already ready to make some extra purchases, and just needs direction provided by your ads on what is the next good thing to buy.
This isn't a situation where people would be going out of their way to watch ads. It is one where the ads are coincidentally present, such as the billboards many pass by every day while driving down the road or signs placed out front by local shops they happen to walk by. These kinds of ads can't be targeted with precision but are abundant nonetheless. That such advertising is considered worth it the real world suggests something similar in a game world could well be seen so too.
That reminded me of a scene in Altered Carbon and the description in the book too. The way they did it on the show was a horrible bombardment and made me truly scared of what ads would be like in the future.
Hardly new, considering Microsoft was the owner of Massive, which was a company that streamed ads into online games. Remember those Fanta and Air Force ads on billboards in Anarchy Online ( that I used to post how to disable them here and even got into a tiff with Colin "Means" Cragg over doing so lol )? Those were provided by Massive, under Microsoft.
Just wondering for my own insight, Why would you bother to disable them?
Would you want to watch the same ads over and over while trying to play a video game? Some of them were very annoying.
If they were just part of the backdrop, like an advert on a Billboard as stage setting, not sure why a "Sprite Soda" billboard would be more annoying then "Omni-Tec Sports Drink" or some made up advert that normally fills the backdrop of these kinds of games.
While I admit, needing to fit the game and setting is important, so something like this.
Is shit.
I mean, talk about a slogan that just sucks for that setting, they should have done a bit more to make it fit setting. Something like "be all you can be in the Army" was a great slogan, would have worked well in a game world and the real world.
The issue here was not that there was an advert, the problem with this, was they were constantly reminding people that they are playing a video game, and that is immersion breaking.
But really.. what's the big deal with seeing an advert for Sprite vs s Nuke, or some other kind of wall filler ?
Why does this bother you:
and why does seeing this all over the place not bother you:
I mean, lets be honest, if you are going to get hit with wall filler anyway, might as well have it fund the game, and this way they don't have to focus on fleecing you to pay for everything.
The problem is they don't just use loot boxes or tradable skins or P2W or optional sub or advertising. Studios will just add advertising to the list of ways to make money out of games. Revenue methodology was never just about funding games, but each year it becomes ever more about making the maximum possible profit.
You know what customers are most valuable to advertisers? People who buy a lot of things. Specifically trying to bring in people who are unwilling to pay any money at all by using advertisements as a way to make the game free would add exactly the sort of people that advertisers are least interested in.
Actually the customers most valuable to advertisers are the ones that don't yet buy a lot of what they are promoting. The more that are the less promotion is needed.
Advertising is relentless on what one does not pay to access so there is no reason to expect a game entirely truly so would be unattractive to advertisers. Such would instead be seen by them as an abundant field for their locust plague to feast on.
In a way, yet buy something (anything) and the spam starts because you DID purchase something. There is definitely effort put forth to attract all customers, not just those without. It's basically a shotgun approach: Fire into a crowd and see who bites. Or in different way, throw spaghetti on a wall: Throw a handful and see which noodles stick
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
You know what customers are most valuable to advertisers? People who buy a lot of things. Specifically trying to bring in people who are unwilling to pay any money at all by using advertisements as a way to make the game free would add exactly the sort of people that advertisers are least interested in.
Actually the customers most valuable to advertisers are the ones that don't yet buy a lot of what they are promoting. The more that are the less promotion is needed.
Advertising is relentless on what one does not pay to access so there is no reason to expect a game entirely truly so would be unattractive to advertisers. Such would instead be seen by them as an abundant field for their locust plague to feast on.
Lot of people who go out of their way to watch ads instead of paying for ad-free experience are also people who are hardest to convince to purchase anything new at all. Either they're too poor, too thrifty, or both.
Ads have much better effect when you manage to show them to a person who's already ready to make some extra purchases, and just needs direction provided by your ads on what is the next good thing to buy.
This isn't a situation where people would be going out of their way to watch ads. It is one where the ads are coincidentally present, such as the billboards many pass by every day while driving down the road or signs placed out front by local shops they happen to walk by. These kinds of ads can't be targeted with precision but are abundant nonetheless. That such advertising is considered worth it the real world suggests something similar in a game world could well be seen so too.
That reminded me of a scene in Altered Carbon and the description in the book too. The way they did it on the show was a horrible bombardment and made me truly scared of what ads would be like in the future.
I didn't see that myself, but did see a movie called Brazil a fair bit ago by Terry Gilliam that included extreme marketization as part of a dystopian future.
Just another nail in the revenue coffin MMOs find themselves in, forced to mold the game to suit the money. So my knight will be travelling on his horse with a Nike logo on the saddle and when he comes to the stable the Nike logo swings on sign. Wonderful immersion.
Yeah, it could be your mounted knight seeing it. It could instead be your motorcycle riding character in a game with a contemporary setting where the placement would be more suited. Not everything is destined to be a bad case scenario.
How many MMOs do you know where your ride motorbikes? It is well known that most MMOs are fantasy based, nearly all logos would look out of place. So it is not a "bad case scenario" this will be the "usual case scenario". One of the few exceptions I can think of is The Secret World or if you want to stretch your definition of a MMO GTA (you can ride them there); there are not that many.
Champions Online does, sort of, if hoverbikes count. SWL has a tiny bit of it. I'm sure someone in advertising would have no trouble stretching the definition of MMO to GTA and a whole bunch of other stuff aside.
But really, MMORPGs are somewhat like a pimple on the ass of gaming when it comes to marketing potential. If I was picking a genre to make a free game for to also act as an advertising platform it wouldn't be the one I pop.
The best genres for ads already feature them, here is what happens:
You know what customers are most valuable to advertisers? People who buy a lot of things. Specifically trying to bring in people who are unwilling to pay any money at all by using advertisements as a way to make the game free would add exactly the sort of people that advertisers are least interested in.
Actually the customers most valuable to advertisers are the ones that don't yet buy a lot of what they are promoting. The more that are the less promotion is needed.
Advertising is relentless on what one does not pay to access so there is no reason to expect a game entirely truly so would be unattractive to advertisers. Such would instead be seen by them as an abundant field for their locust plague to feast on.
In a way, yet buy something (anything) and the spam starts because you DID purchase something. There is definitely effort put forth to attract all customers, not just those without. It's basically a shotgun approach: Fire into a crowd and see who bites. Or in different way, throw spaghetti on a wall: Throw a handful and see which noodles stick
Yes, and this has become all the more prevalent with online transactions accelerating and expanding these connects.
I'm not a sports fan, but when they replaced the arena in my city I learned of the trend of such now being named based on corporate involvement, due to "sponsorship" I suppose. It just keeps spreading like a tenacious fungus enveloping what was bit by bit, shifting us from a world of commerce to a brave new commercialized world.
You know what customers are most valuable to advertisers? People who buy a lot of things. Specifically trying to bring in people who are unwilling to pay any money at all by using advertisements as a way to make the game free would add exactly the sort of people that advertisers are least interested in.
Actually the customers most valuable to advertisers are the ones that don't yet buy a lot of what they are promoting. The more that are the less promotion is needed.
Advertising is relentless on what one does not pay to access so there is no reason to expect a game entirely truly so would be unattractive to advertisers. Such would instead be seen by them as an abundant field for their locust plague to feast on.
In a way, yet buy something (anything) and the spam starts because you DID purchase something. There is definitely effort put forth to attract all customers, not just those without. It's basically a shotgun approach: Fire into a crowd and see who bites. Or in different way, throw spaghetti on a wall: Throw a handful and see which noodles stick
Yes, and this has become all the more prevalent with online transactions accelerating and expanding these connects.
I'm not a sports fan, but when they replaced the arena in my city I learned of the trend of such now being named based on corporate involvement, due to "sponsorship" I suppose. It just keeps spreading like a tenacious fungus enveloping what was bit by bit, shifting us from a world of commerce to a brave new commercialized world.
The problem is that when one company buys out another, you can bet that renaming the stadium will have a higher priority than transitioning the individual customers accounts.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
You know what customers are most valuable to advertisers? People who buy a lot of things. Specifically trying to bring in people who are unwilling to pay any money at all by using advertisements as a way to make the game free would add exactly the sort of people that advertisers are least interested in.
Actually the customers most valuable to advertisers are the ones that don't yet buy a lot of what they are promoting. The more that are the less promotion is needed.
Advertising is relentless on what one does not pay to access so there is no reason to expect a game entirely truly so would be unattractive to advertisers. Such would instead be seen by them as an abundant field for their locust plague to feast on.
In a way, yet buy something (anything) and the spam starts because you DID purchase something. There is definitely effort put forth to attract all customers, not just those without. It's basically a shotgun approach: Fire into a crowd and see who bites. Or in different way, throw spaghetti on a wall: Throw a handful and see which noodles stick
Yes, and this has become all the more prevalent with online transactions accelerating and expanding these connects.
I'm not a sports fan, but when they replaced the arena in my city I learned of the trend of such now being named based on corporate involvement, due to "sponsorship" I suppose. It just keeps spreading like a tenacious fungus enveloping what was bit by bit, shifting us from a world of commerce to a brave new commercialized world.
The problem is that when one company buys out another, you can bet that renaming the stadium will have a higher priority than transitioning the individual customers accounts.
On what am I supposed to be base this expectation on other than gratuitous negativity. Why would action on one relate to action on the other? I very much doubt those involved in the renaming of stadiums also process customer accounts.
You know what customers are most valuable to advertisers? People who buy a lot of things. Specifically trying to bring in people who are unwilling to pay any money at all by using advertisements as a way to make the game free would add exactly the sort of people that advertisers are least interested in.
Actually the customers most valuable to advertisers are the ones that don't yet buy a lot of what they are promoting. The more that are the less promotion is needed.
Advertising is relentless on what one does not pay to access so there is no reason to expect a game entirely truly so would be unattractive to advertisers. Such would instead be seen by them as an abundant field for their locust plague to feast on.
In a way, yet buy something (anything) and the spam starts because you DID purchase something. There is definitely effort put forth to attract all customers, not just those without. It's basically a shotgun approach: Fire into a crowd and see who bites. Or in different way, throw spaghetti on a wall: Throw a handful and see which noodles stick
Yes, and this has become all the more prevalent with online transactions accelerating and expanding these connects.
I'm not a sports fan, but when they replaced the arena in my city I learned of the trend of such now being named based on corporate involvement, due to "sponsorship" I suppose. It just keeps spreading like a tenacious fungus enveloping what was bit by bit, shifting us from a world of commerce to a brave new commercialized world.
The problem is that when one company buys out another, you can bet that renaming the stadium will have a higher priority than transitioning the individual customers accounts.
On what am I supposed to be base this expectation on other than gratuitous negativity. Why would action on one relate to action on the other? I very much doubt those involved in the renaming of stadiums also process customer accounts.
Anecdotal example of recent corporate behavior.
When Sun Trust was acquired by Branch, Banking and Trust in 2019 forming Trust Bank, the ball park for the Atlanta Braves was changed for the 2021 season. When the IT merger finally occurred in February 2022, a large number of issues occurred with Sun Trust personal accounts, debit cards, equity accounts, etc. that were changed in late 2021. Basically, a large number of Sun Trust customers that had an account change through Sun Trust in the latter half of the year were faced with being unable to access their accounts. If you had a card with the Sun Trust name on it, it stopped working.
Changing the name on buildings seemed to have been more important to Truist's directors than helping the Sun Trust customers they gained.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Hardly new, considering Microsoft was the owner of Massive, which was a company that streamed ads into online games. Remember those Fanta and Air Force ads on billboards in Anarchy Online ( that I used to post how to disable them here and even got into a tiff with Colin "Means" Cragg over doing so lol )? Those were provided by Massive, under Microsoft.
Just wondering for my own insight, Why would you bother to disable them?
Would you want to watch the same ads over and over while trying to play a video game? Some of them were very annoying.
If they were just part of the backdrop, like an advert on a Billboard as stage setting, not sure why a "Sprite Soda" billboard would be more annoying then "Omni-Tec Sports Drink" or some made up advert that normally fills the backdrop of these kinds of games.
While I admit, needing to fit the game and setting is important, so something like this.
Is shit.
I mean, talk about a slogan that just sucks for that setting, they should have done a bit more to make it fit setting. Something like "be all you can be in the Army" was a great slogan, would have worked well in a game world and the real world.
The issue here was not that there was an advert, the problem with this, was they were constantly reminding people that they are playing a video game, and that is immersion breaking.
But really.. what's the big deal with seeing an advert for Sprite vs s Nuke, or some other kind of wall filler ?
Why does this bother you:
and why does seeing this all over the place not bother you:
I mean, lets be honest, if you are going to get hit with wall filler anyway, might as well have it fund the game, and this way they don't have to focus on fleecing you to pay for everything.
The problem is they don't just use loot boxes or tradable skins or P2W or optional sub or advertising. Studios will just add advertising to the list of ways to make money out of games. Revenue methodology was never just about funding games, but each year it becomes ever more about making the maximum possible profit.
While this is 100% true, it also means they have more incentive to make a game that players want to stay and play, as opposed to a game that is a 30 Min Cash Grab.
This is because their sponsors want to see those population numbers, and if the game looses population, it can lose sponsors, that means they are suddenly.. really... really.. motivated to keep you around, and not piss you off with endless money gouging practices, as well as make an overall great game that will entertain you.
Of course that depends if it's more profitable to gouge the players, or please their sponsors.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Just another nail in the revenue coffin MMOs find themselves in, forced to mold the game to suit the money. So my knight will be travelling on his horse with a Nike logo on the saddle and when he comes to the stable the Nike logo swings on sign. Wonderful immersion.
Yeah, it could be your mounted knight seeing it. It could instead be your motorcycle riding character in a game with a contemporary setting where the placement would be more suited. Not everything is destined to be a bad case scenario.
How many MMOs do you know where your ride motorbikes? It is well known that most MMOs are fantasy based, nearly all logos would look out of place. So it is not a "bad case scenario" this will be the "usual case scenario". One of the few exceptions I can think of is The Secret World or if you want to stretch your definition of a MMO GTA (you can ride them there); there are not that many.
Champions Online does, sort of, if hoverbikes count. SWL has a tiny bit of it. I'm sure someone in advertising would have no trouble stretching the definition of MMO to GTA and a whole bunch of other stuff aside.
But really, MMORPGs are somewhat like a pimple on the ass of gaming when it comes to marketing potential. If I was picking a genre to make a free game for to also act as an advertising platform it wouldn't be the one I pop.
The best genres for ads already feature them, here is what happens:
Honestly IMHO, that person just sounds whiny, like, OMG, when I play this game, the same shit that I see in the stadiums I see in the game... Woe is Me!
To the point that I can't take their objection seriously.
But, the fact that they notice them, and notice them big time.. means the ads are working, and that is what advertiser want to hear, that you are seeing and paying attention to their product brand.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Just another nail in the revenue coffin MMOs find themselves in, forced to mold the game to suit the money. So my knight will be travelling on his horse with a Nike logo on the saddle and when he comes to the stable the Nike logo swings on sign. Wonderful immersion.
Yeah, it could be your mounted knight seeing it. It could instead be your motorcycle riding character in a game with a contemporary setting where the placement would be more suited. Not everything is destined to be a bad case scenario.
How many MMOs do you know where your ride motorbikes? It is well known that most MMOs are fantasy based, nearly all logos would look out of place. So it is not a "bad case scenario" this will be the "usual case scenario". One of the few exceptions I can think of is The Secret World or if you want to stretch your definition of a MMO GTA (you can ride them there); there are not that many.
Champions Online does, sort of, if hoverbikes count. SWL has a tiny bit of it. I'm sure someone in advertising would have no trouble stretching the definition of MMO to GTA and a whole bunch of other stuff aside.
But really, MMORPGs are somewhat like a pimple on the ass of gaming when it comes to marketing potential. If I was picking a genre to make a free game for to also act as an advertising platform it wouldn't be the one I pop.
The best genres for ads already feature them, here is what happens:
Honestly IMHO, that person just sounds whiny, like, OMG, when I play this game, the same shit that I see in the stadiums I see in the game... Woe is Me!
To the point that I can't take their objection seriously.
But, the fact that they notice them, and notice them big time.. means the ads are working, and that is what advertiser want to hear, that you are seeing and paying attention to their product brand.
Your point that wanting to please advertisers will help keep the population high, will just make studios even more pushed around by what players want. That is a fine balance, listening to players is important but so too is not always listening.
I don't see this as whining, would you want ads in every TV series, not commercials the actual programme? That's what it would be like, no thanks.
Hardly new, considering Microsoft was the owner of Massive, which was a company that streamed ads into online games. Remember those Fanta and Air Force ads on billboards in Anarchy Online ( that I used to post how to disable them here and even got into a tiff with Colin "Means" Cragg over doing so lol )? Those were provided by Massive, under Microsoft.
Just wondering for my own insight, Why would you bother to disable them?
Would you want to watch the same ads over and over while trying to play a video game? Some of them were very annoying.
If they were just part of the backdrop, like an advert on a Billboard as stage setting, not sure why a "Sprite Soda" billboard would be more annoying then "Omni-Tec Sports Drink" or some made up advert that normally fills the backdrop of these kinds of games.
While I admit, needing to fit the game and setting is important, so something like this.
Is shit.
I mean, talk about a slogan that just sucks for that setting, they should have done a bit more to make it fit setting. Something like "be all you can be in the Army" was a great slogan, would have worked well in a game world and the real world.
The issue here was not that there was an advert, the problem with this, was they were constantly reminding people that they are playing a video game, and that is immersion breaking.
But really.. what's the big deal with seeing an advert for Sprite vs s Nuke, or some other kind of wall filler ?
Why does this bother you:
and why does seeing this all over the place not bother you:
I mean, lets be honest, if you are going to get hit with wall filler anyway, might as well have it fund the game, and this way they don't have to focus on fleecing you to pay for everything.
The problem is they don't just use loot boxes or tradable skins or P2W or optional sub or advertising. Studios will just add advertising to the list of ways to make money out of games. Revenue methodology was never just about funding games, but each year it becomes ever more about making the maximum possible profit.
While this is 100% true, it also means they have more incentive to make a game that players want to stay and play, as opposed to a game that is a 30 Min Cash Grab.
This is because their sponsors want to see those population numbers, and if the game looses population, it can lose sponsors, that means they are suddenly.. really... really.. motivated to keep you around, and not piss you off with endless money gouging practices, as well as make an overall great game that will entertain you.
Of course that depends if it's more profitable to gouge the players, or please their sponsors.
The game companies didn't seem to care too much for their own profits or longevity. Would they actually care about investors? Many of them would sell their mothers for a quick buck.
It seems that if a company wanted to create a good game, they easily could. A game that was "popular" and possibly "fun to many players?"
Maybe its me and my "oldness", but the defense I see of any real world advertising in gaming astounds me. It's a main factor that cable/satellite TV brought to us by charging a premium for their services while shoveling MORE ads to the consumers than network ever did. (Ever notice ending credits fly by so they can make more time for ads in their reruns?)
Hey, if that's how society wants to be, I either learn to live with it, or not
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Just another nail in the revenue coffin MMOs find themselves in, forced to mold the game to suit the money. So my knight will be travelling on his horse with a Nike logo on the saddle and when he comes to the stable the Nike logo swings on sign. Wonderful immersion.
Yeah, it could be your mounted knight seeing it. It could instead be your motorcycle riding character in a game with a contemporary setting where the placement would be more suited. Not everything is destined to be a bad case scenario.
How many MMOs do you know where your ride motorbikes? It is well known that most MMOs are fantasy based, nearly all logos would look out of place. So it is not a "bad case scenario" this will be the "usual case scenario". One of the few exceptions I can think of is The Secret World or if you want to stretch your definition of a MMO GTA (you can ride them there); there are not that many.
Champions Online does, sort of, if hoverbikes count. SWL has a tiny bit of it. I'm sure someone in advertising would have no trouble stretching the definition of MMO to GTA and a whole bunch of other stuff aside.
But really, MMORPGs are somewhat like a pimple on the ass of gaming when it comes to marketing potential. If I was picking a genre to make a free game for to also act as an advertising platform it wouldn't be the one I pop.
The best genres for ads already feature them, here is what happens:
Honestly IMHO, that person just sounds whiny, like, OMG, when I play this game, the same shit that I see in the stadiums I see in the game... Woe is Me!
To the point that I can't take their objection seriously.
But, the fact that they notice them, and notice them big time.. means the ads are working, and that is what advertiser want to hear, that you are seeing and paying attention to their product brand.
Your point that wanting to please advertisers will help keep the population high, will just make studios even more pushed around by what players want. That is a fine balance, listening to players is important but so too is not always listening.
I don't see this as whining, would you want ads in every TV series, not commercials the actual programme? That's what it would be like, no thanks.
Truth be told, using that example in the NBA game, where the person was complaining about the fact they put Gatorade™ where the Gatorade™ would have been in the real game, and called it Gatorade™, to me, that just made the game more realistic, and I for one would think that would make the most sense to do things that way, as opposed to making some proxy Gatorade™ and putting that in.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Comments
Ads have much better effect when you manage to show them to a person who's already ready to make some extra purchases, and just needs direction provided by your ads on what is the next good thing to buy.
Would you want to watch the same ads over and over while trying to play a video game? Some of them were very annoying.
Champions Online does, sort of, if hoverbikes count. SWL has a tiny bit of it. I'm sure someone in advertising would have no trouble stretching the definition of MMO to GTA and a whole bunch of other stuff aside.
But really, MMORPGs are somewhat like a pimple on the ass of gaming when it comes to marketing potential. If I was picking a genre to make a free game for to also act as an advertising platform it wouldn't be the one I pop.
This isn't a situation where people would be going out of their way to watch ads. It is one where the ads are coincidentally present, such as the billboards many pass by every day while driving down the road or signs placed out front by local shops they happen to walk by. These kinds of ads can't be targeted with precision but are abundant nonetheless. That such advertising is considered worth it the real world suggests something similar in a game world could well be seen so too.
While I admit, needing to fit the game and setting is important, so something like this.
Is shit.
I mean, talk about a slogan that just sucks for that setting, they should have done a bit more to make it fit setting. Something like "be all you can be in the Army" was a great slogan, would have worked well in a game world and the real world.
The issue here was not that there was an advert, the problem with this, was they were constantly reminding people that they are playing a video game, and that is immersion breaking.
But really.. what's the big deal with seeing an advert for Sprite vs s Nuke, or some other kind of wall filler ?
Why does this bother you:
and why does seeing this all over the place not bother you:
I mean, lets be honest, if you are going to get hit with wall filler anyway, might as well have it fund the game, and this way they don't have to focus on fleecing you to pay for everything.
Coca-cola is one of the biggest brands, and it would be hard to find someone who doesn't already know them, so why do they continue to advertise? Because if they completely stopped, while their competitors continued, eventually people would think about Coke less often and about other brands more often. Coke could lose its status as a leading brand and have lower sales as a result. So, there is value in advertising even a specific ad does not lead a customer to purchase. They can have long term cumulative effects. The person may not buy the product today, but when it does comes time to buy, they'll be more likely to remember the advertised brand as an option.
Aston Martin does product placement in James Bond. Do they expect that people will go and buy one after watching the movie? Probably not, but it reminds people that the brand exists and helps to maintain its image as a high performance car. I imagine it's very costly for them, but perhaps they feel that it's worth it in the long run. Companies pay 10s of millions to have their logos on soccer jerseys probably for similar reasons, even brands that have nothing to do with sports or sports-related products.
One of the challenges with advertising though is attribution. How can a company tell which ad was responsible for persuading the customer to purchase? Was it the TV ad? What it the product placement? There are various attribution models that assign weights to different ads in terms of how they contribute to sales, but a company can never be completely sure (https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1662518?hl=en#:~:text=An attribution model is the,immediately precede sales or conversions.). Therefore, companies often promote their brands through multiple channels to reach as many potential customers as possible. Games could be one of those channels, and they could be a very attractive channel due to higher engagement.
When thinking about ads for games, I think the traditional style TV or billboard ad would not be that well received or effective in a fantasy setting. There needs to be congruence or consistency with the setting. Something similar to product placement in movies. That's why I think that if it does happen, it will be done in a more creative and subtle way, at least for traditional medieval style games. Completely fictional in-game items could represent real-life brands. For example, there could be in-game armor sold from the tailor Hugo Boss. Henry T. Ford, the stable master could sell Ford horses.
I think the examples to look at are things like the Lego Star Wars games. They are effectively advertisements for lego, but sell very well (https://www.pcgamesn.com/lego-star-wars-the-skywalker-saga/sales-elden-ring) and don't feel like an ad. Some games like this are looked back on fondly, like Chex Quest, a free Chex cereal themed doom clone that had an HD re-release on steam a while back (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chex_Quest). I remember getting it as a kid in my cereal box. It was awesome.
I think there can be two general approaches for development: (1) game elements are developed around partnerships with specific brands like movie product placements, (2) the game is developed with general elements that various brands can choose to sponsor, some elements even changing dynamically. The system Microsoft is developing is probably closer to the latter.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
In a way, yet buy something (anything) and the spam starts because you DID purchase something. There is definitely effort put forth to attract all customers, not just those without. It's basically a shotgun approach: Fire into a crowd and see who bites. Or in different way, throw spaghetti on a wall: Throw a handful and see which noodles stick
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
I didn't see that myself, but did see a movie called Brazil a fair bit ago by Terry Gilliam that included extreme marketization as part of a dystopian future.
Advertising in Sports Video Games Is Out of Control (businessinsider.com)
Yes, and this has become all the more prevalent with online transactions accelerating and expanding these connects.
I'm not a sports fan, but when they replaced the arena in my city I learned of the trend of such now being named based on corporate involvement, due to "sponsorship" I suppose. It just keeps spreading like a tenacious fungus enveloping what was bit by bit, shifting us from a world of commerce to a brave new commercialized world.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
On what am I supposed to be base this expectation on other than gratuitous negativity. Why would action on one relate to action on the other? I very much doubt those involved in the renaming of stadiums also process customer accounts.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
This is because their sponsors want to see those population numbers, and if the game looses population, it can lose sponsors, that means they are suddenly.. really... really.. motivated to keep you around, and not piss you off with endless money gouging practices, as well as make an overall great game that will entertain you.
Of course that depends if it's more profitable to gouge the players, or please their sponsors.
To the point that I can't take their objection seriously.
But, the fact that they notice them, and notice them big time.. means the ads are working, and that is what advertiser want to hear, that you are seeing and paying attention to their product brand.
I don't see this as whining, would you want ads in every TV series, not commercials the actual programme? That's what it would be like, no thanks.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR