Scary info about Massive ads in games

Pluvious · Aug 12, 2005, 11:52 AM

Its bad enough they want to ruin my games with ads but now they are tracking how long I look at them and play the game?.. Outrageous!

" The most shocking part was next. The client contacted madserver to tell the advertisers how long the gamer spent with each advert in their view. This is mapped to the gamer id, so they know which player in the game saw the advert, and when, for how long, and from how far away (by virtue of the size attribute). Even the average viewing angle is passed back."

http://nationalcheeseemporium.org/

daedal · Aug 12, 2005, 01:08 PM

I don't mind ads in games if they are seemless. The integration in SWAT4 is horrible though.

nitrousoxide52 · Aug 12, 2005, 01:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by daedal

I don't mind ads in games if they are seemless. The integration in SWAT4 is horrible though.

Exactly, NFSU2's ad's are pretty seamless because, well that's what the world looks like unfortunately.

MiDri · Aug 12, 2005, 01:45 PM

I had an idea that almost went through with ingame ads at one point... was going to make a preaty good killing...

I was the texture artist in a mod for the orginal Half-Life (one that was promising, untill it went bottom up.) and I had aranged for $ from pepsi, coca cola, and a few junk food companys to make the billboards in game and tv screen textures their advertisments...

daedal · Aug 12, 2005, 02:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nitrousoxide52

Exactly, NFSU2's ad's are pretty seamless because, well that's what the world looks like unfortunately.

Exactly. I've seen a few games pull it off pretty well and NFSU2 being one of them.

Stop It · Aug 12, 2005, 03:01 PM

Most racing and sports games can advertise easily, because sponsorship exists there, so it adds to the realism, Im pretty worried by gaming ad patterns being tracked however, not nice

MSX · Aug 12, 2005, 08:29 PM

I personally don't like ads in any game unless it benefits me directly. If pepsi wants to sponser my game unobtrusivly and they give me some free peice of merchandise for it I'm all good. In fact I'd be impressed if it simply lowered the cost of games or perhaps let us not get those damn leaflets for our games instead of an actual CD case. I'm all for that.

As it is, its a money grab that has no advantage to the end user. At all. It simply detracts from the game world. Advertizers have never been subtle. They want your attention, so I fully expect my demon killing rampage to turn into a giant advertizement with me shooting coke bears if the trend continues.

I do not pay money to be advertized to.

Pluvious · Aug 13, 2005, 12:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MSX

As it is, its a money grab that has no advantage to the end user. At all. It simply detracts from the game world. Advertizers have never been subtle. They want your attention, so I fully expect my demon killing rampage to turn into a giant advertizement with me shooting coke bears if the trend continues.

I do not pay money to be advertized to.

Hear hear!! I agree wholeheartedly with this comment. And if you read the whole page the outlook looks even more dire. Tracking your every movement while you gaze at their ads is over stepping the bounds for me. As you said.. I'm not paying THEM to advertise to ME! That's BS

pr0digal jenius · Aug 13, 2005, 12:17 PM

Someone should experiment with a customized firewall and see if you can block the adserver without disabling the master server

MiDri · Aug 13, 2005, 12:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pluvious

I'm not paying THEM to advertise to ME! That's BS

You have cable/satalite tv don't you? What you think your doing there?

AttroPheed · Aug 13, 2005, 01:16 PM

considering games have costed about $50 for as long as i've been buying games (the NES days nearly 20 years ago) in spite of them costing increasingly more to produce, i'd rather they use ads to take up some of the slack before they go tacking on another $10 or more to the price of purchase. The more discrete they are the better tho. I dont mind fragging with a coke machine in the background or even a KFC health item but shit like flash banners or popups of any kind that would ruin any immersion a game is going for would be deal-breakers.

Pluvious · Aug 13, 2005, 01:51 PM

All these people who think its okay to do a 'little' and logical placement of ads are not thinking down the road. Once they get in.. they won't follow those rules for long and we'll have to contend with 'no-ad' hacks instead of 'no-cd' hacks. The ads will pull you out of the game experience and that's just not right. Since when have advertisers care what we think..

AttroPheed · Aug 13, 2005, 03:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pluvious

All these people who think its okay to do a 'little' and logical placement of ads are not thinking down the road. Once they get in.. they won't follow those rules for long and we'll have to contend with 'no-ad' hacks instead of 'no-cd' hacks. The ads will pull you out of the game experience and that's just not right. Since when have advertisers care what we think..

I'd agree that advertisers dont care because they dont have anything to sell but space. Game publishers have to sell their games and (hopefully) know that ads are a tricky area to deal with and will either listen to their audience or go broke from their own obstinacy. Given what i've heard so far tho it seems they aren't too sure where the line between "annoying obtrusive spam/spyware" and "i hardly even noticed i was being spammed" is tho. Time will tell.

MiDri · Aug 13, 2005, 06:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pluvious

All these people who think its okay to do a 'little' and logical placement of ads are not thinking down the road. Once they get in.. they won't follow those rules for long and we'll have to contend with 'no-ad' hacks instead of 'no-cd' hacks. The ads will pull you out of the game experience and that's just not right. Since when have advertisers care what we think..

When you do somthing right, people won't be sure you did anything at all. And thats how the ads should be.