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Sony CEO doesn't like in-game ads
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 31st January 2008
In-game adverts are a controversial issue at best - how do you feel about them in games like BF 2142?
Just yesterday The Financial Times had a close look at in-game advertising as a source of revenue for games companies and spoke to some of the top men in the business about their views on the topic. Their answers may surprise you - shockingly, most of the head honchos are anti-advertising at the moment.
Bobby Kotick, Chief Executive of Activision Blizzard, was the first to weigh in on the topic, saying quickly that; "It's early days. I wouldn't go in that direction myself."
Other executives were similarly brief and negative, with Jeff Zucker of NBC Universal saying that he didn't think the business model was established enough yet for mobile and handheld advertising, but Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer was a little more verbose.
"The [supposed] solution to everything at the moment in the digital space is adsupported," Sir Howard Stringer said. "While advertisers are happy to talk that up, there is a limit to the amount of money available."
With advertising seeping into more and more games as time goes by, one has to wonder where game publishers will draw the line. Can sponsors be content with billboards by the roadside in Burnout Paradise, or will gamers soon have to take the Duracell Road Rage Challenge in place of a game tutorial?
What are your opinions on in-game advertising and how does it affect your gaming experience? Let us know in the forums.
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Comments (19)
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TBH I don't really give a crap if they're not stupidly done. I don't want standard Pepsi advert when I'm walking down the hallways of Rapture but I don't mind about a billboard in Crackdown advertising a Dodge whatever because it fits well.
developers just need to be clever about which games they can put adds in.
As well as adds a little bit of realism cohesion to the game and the time it is set.
I really am ok with it.
It boils down to two issues for me.
1. Advertising is a very clear and present part of our culture, at least in most parts of the world, therefore it's inclusion in games where immersion based on approximating reality is a factor (games will continue to get more and more realistic over time, in more ways than photo-realism, physics, AI etc...) can only be a good thing.
As long as the way in which advertising is presented in-game is similar to the way in which it's presented in real-life, it will add value to the game in terms of immersion.
2. This will inevitably open up new opportunities for companies to advertise in a more modern medium, to build new streams of revenue, be more competitive etc... and this will simply improve that particular industry and their respective markets. Therefore, good for everyone in the long-term.
As long as the point 2 is tempered by point 1.
but, if for example we're talking about some middleage theme mmorpg it would absolutely destroy the game.
maybe in the login screen.....
Burnout has loads of adds, but they are all quite suitable for the environment, and it's hilarious taking out diesel vans in a big showtime :D
peace
Come to think of it, I bought both of those
But really I don't care as I think that most of the ad world is way off the mark anyway. Like I'm gonna buy something just cos the Beckhams tells me to !
I was about to comment on that. We didn't get the IGA in the UK for a while for 2142, but when it arrived, I remember one map just had basically a wall of identical C2D adverts.
I like it when they're realistic, I mentioned Crackdown above but that's not really too realistic either. It doesn't have many billboards about and they're all for the same thing but it was still pretty good. If I were designing the game I would have put far more billboards in there, it seemed a bit devoid of them for a big city, and I would have made sure the adverts were all different like you would expect, and intersperse them with made up ads. Very rarely do I see two adverts the same on my journey into the town centre of Bristol, although thinking about it, Cardiff is pretty ad free.
if it matches the atmosphere of the game, then it works. if not, then its not.
btw, if its like sth in the login screen, i could care less as long as i can hit escape and skip it. or take the movie files out....
of course, those are based on the fact that my system privacy is not jeopardized; ie. ingame ads that acts like a spyware when installed with the game..