Google Looking to Join In-Game Ad Arena

njkid1 writes "As part of a plan to expand its advertising efforts to all forms of media, it would appear that Google is actively seeking to get involved in the in-game ad business. A Wall Street Journal report states that the company is in talks to acquire Adscape Media. From the article: 'If Google does purchase Adscape, it would give the web company an opportunity to leverage a whole other medium, one that Google has apparently been interested in for some time now ... Interestingly, Google had apparently considered an acquisition of in-game ad firm Massive Inc. last year before Microsoft came along and bought Massive for around $200 million. The Journal report suggests that an acquisition of Adscape would only fuel the long-standing competition between Microsoft and Google, as Google could potentially form an alliance with Microsoft's video game rival Sony.'"

No problem here

[ThinkWeak]

As long as it results in my games costing $20.00 less or so, I'm all for it. Put up a Subway poster on the wall in my next Gears of War game. Have flashing billboards with the new Tag bodyspray. Whatever you want. Just pass the savings along to the consumer. That's all I ask.

Most likely...

[lanceleader]

Gamers will not care if there are in games ads as long as they are not forced to watch the ads.

Re:It's Official

[El_Muerte_TDS]

Just because the are going to offer a service end users don't want doesn't make them evil. The publishers/studios that are going to use the service are evil.

Ofcourse this doesn't change the fact that I don't like in-game advertising and that I won't buy a game that has it. Not even if google provides the ads.

Re:No problem here

[d3ac0n]

You'll never get it. This is the "Big Lie (tm)" that all the in-game ad pushers have been selling. The ads do not, and will not EVER make your games cheaper. SOE has been pushing in-game ads for over a year now on many of it's games. Guess what? The Subscription prices have NOT COME DOWN! The in-game ads are NOT to make the game cheaper for gamers. They are there to provide on-going profit margins for game manufacturers. The profits aren't coming back to the consumers, they are going into the game company coffers!

Now, once those extra profits are there, we may see an improvement in development as they re-invest in staff, but there isn't any way to predict when or where that will happen. More likely what we will see is a drop in ad-inappropriate games.

Let's face it. Ads are only tolerated by the gaming community in games where they "fit" (Coke and Pepsi machines in CS, Billboards in racing games, Etc.) Where the heck would ad billboards "fit" into say, Eve-Online or WOW? They won't. And over time, as those particular titles age and become less popular, you will see a reluctance on the part of game companies to take a risk on an ad-inappropriate game, as they won't have that reliable income stream potential.

Say hello to ads, say goodbye to creative gaming.

Re:It's Official

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

If you find the publishers that will use this service evil, why would you not consider the company enabling them to do so evil as well?

The term "evil" is a moral judgement. Moral judgments are, by definition, subjective. Why even bother discussing this?

A more productive discussion is the ethics of what Google and publishers are doing here. Is it ethical to put ads in a game you publish? In my opinion that depends upon the wishes of the creators of the work being published. If an artist or group of artists wants to stick an ad on that work, what is unethical about that? In some cases the ad actually makes the art better and is a part of it. In other cases it is just an attempt to cash in. In either case, I don't see anything unethical.

Now the artists and the publishers are not always the same people. If a publisher wishes to change artwork by including advertisements and the artists do not, well I can see an argument for that being unethical, especially given the distribution cartels and unethical copyright laws.

So what about the people who enable that behavior via an advertising channel? Well, since their advertising channel can be used in both the former and latter cases and since they are taking no unethical action themselves, I'd say they're in the clear. Ethically a gun manufacturer has no ethical liability unless they know or think they know the tool they sell will be used unethically and even then the connection is tenuous. Refusing the service to some people is passing judgement on their supposed future actions, both by claiming to be responsible for preventing those actions and judging what they do. This bears significant ethical responsibility, more-so that impartially providing a service.

Would you change your mind if the enabling company was called Microsoft instead of Google?

This is why discussing ethics is more useful. Being objective, it does not matter who is taking the action. The ethics do not change.

Google is seeking to profit from an advertising tactic that most people find extremely distasteful, if not downright evil.

Yeah and some people think providing free access to the Qua-ran is distasteful if not downright evil. Some people think making it easy for people to find pornographic pictures is distasteful if not downright evil. Who cares? Since there is no objective definition of "evil" Google is free to go by their own moral beliefs if their slogan is anything other than marketing. I don't care who provides advertising channels and I hope someone does. That does not mean I'll buy a game that has ads that I don't think add to the game, or which is not offered at a price I am willing to pay in compensation for that.

Just what we need, MORE in-game advertising

[adamkennedy]

Using EVE Online as an example, almost every site related to the game is covered by Google with ads for sites that sell you in-game currency for cash.

Some of these sites have said no matter what they do, that's consistently what Google thinks is the best ads for them.

So now will we have ads in-game for things that are against the Terms of Service for half these games? Presumably this is one big kink Google will have to work out before they start advertising.

Also there's the problem of being in an alternate universe (EVE, WoW, etc aren't set on earth) and seeing ads for real world products. Surely that will break your suspension of disbelief.