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Will you pay 60 US$ to see ads in your favorite game?
Posted by Thura on August 18th, 2007
The next time you sit down to play your favorite your XBOX 360 or PC game, expect to see advertising - lots and lots of it, thanks to what some would describe as the unholy alliance between E.A (If it’s in the game) and Microsoft (The Wow starts now).
The guys at ars are bummed and so am I.
It goes like this, consumers put up with advertising on network TV because advertising makes it possible for them to see great shows like Haraldo, WWF or Nanny 911, not to mention the lesser know shows like 24 or LOST. People consider it a relatively fair trade off.
Games cost us anywhere from 40-60 US$. Will running ads in games help reduce the cost, will it, like network TV, help subsidize the entertainment? It’s not official yet, but I don’t think so, and I have a pretty good idea where this lucrative revenue stream will end up.
I work in advertising so I know that we ‘chase’ the consumers to reach them with ‘relevant,’ messages. But is this going too far? Personally I have yet to play a game with dynamic content on em, so I cannot judge how intrusive or not the ads will be. But the idea is simply annoying.
And I am not even touching the privacy issue. Unlike network TV, these advertisers will know exactly who you are, your age, your address, even your credit card number (which you used to pay for LIVE or whatever service you will use). They will know exactly the type of ads to serve to you - the ads that you get maybe different from the one I get although we are playing the same game! Are you going to be OK with that?
I do have a bit of a suggestion to those who will seek to place advertising in games. My suggestion is not a perfect one, but at least it is the lessor of the evils.
The key here is to let the consumer decide if they want an Advertising Enabled Version of the game or the Advertising Free Version. So those who opt for the Ad Enabled version gets to pay less - just like how some websites make money or ad supported software works. I mean we are used to this paradigm already on the internet.
Alternative is not to buy games that have this technology. In that case, everyone loses. Otherwise go get a Wii or a PS3.