Google Looking to Join In-Game Ad Arena 52
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.'"
Re:It's Official (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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alteast in my book - not that it matters any
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Google is seeking to profit from an advertising tactic that most people find extremely distasteful, if not downright evil. The fanboys will stick up for them, but their image will be tarnished in the eyes of every other gamer if this thing takes off.
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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 artis
Hanlon's razor (Score:2)
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? Would you change your mind if the enabling company was called Microsoft instead of Google?
Makers of viruses, worms, and spyware are evil. Microsoft is merely careless in enabling this by choosing lax security settings for older versions of the Windows OS out of the box. Robert J. Hanlon warned us [wikiquote.org] in Murphy's Law book two to "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
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Try this one: "Just because hitmen offer a service that other users want, doesn't make them evil. The person putting the contract out is evil." doesn't sound so right now, does it?
Again, lets bring this conversation into something we can actually discuss and make it "ethical" and "unethical" rather than "good" or "evil." A hitman is taking an action that is unethical, or at least bears ethical responsibility. The person hiring them is directing that unethical activity and specifically knows that by payin
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While I will agree that generally the concepts of good and evil can be highly subjective, if you narrow the scope a bit you will see that it becomes significantly less subjective.
Let's look at general "business ethics". In business, from a CONSUMER PERSPECTIVE Business are "Good" when they provide a quality product or service at a reasonable price. Businesses are "Evil" when they lower the quality of their product or service without l
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Businesses are "Evil" when they lower the quality of their product or service without lowering the price, or raise the price beyond what is generally accepted as reasonable, or devalue their product in some manner that it becomes less desirable, while still maintaining a high price.
I'm a consumer and I don't consider that to be evil. I'd consider it them doing business and not giving me what I want. If they kill tens of thousands of workers in India because of lax safety procedures, I can see applying th
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How do we, or me at least, know this? Television. They now have television advertising during the shows, covering up huge po
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The real problem here is that we know that the most that the average person is going to do is complain, and that people can put as much horrible advertising in games as they want and no one will stop them or stop buying the games.
I will. You see I'm part of the largest market segment, the casual gaming market. I have choices and will choose the games that don't annoy me.
How do we, or me at least, know this? Television. They now have television advertising during the shows, covering up huge portions of
No problem here (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No problem here (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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BUT
The gamer's problem, h
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If you don't really buy games in the first place (which in your case appears to apply to MMO's, console games or any new 3D titles for the PC[1]) it's not really going to be 'voting with your dollars', it's just you continuing to not buy games.
It could be argued that in doing so you are sending a single to publishers to make cheaper / simpler games, but I'm not sure that is a message that's going to be paid any heed when there are so many gamers who can and are will
Entry barriers (Score:2)
if profits from in-game ads start driving total profit of the game company up to an attractive level new competitors will be drawn into this industry and competition will drive prices down. This is a pretty fundamental concept of supply and demand and would work wonderfully in this situation
Entry barriers may prevent new competitors from starting production if it requires products or services from a monopolist or oligopolist, such as the holder of patents on in-game advertising business methods or (unless HTPC gaming picks up momentum) the holder of trade secrets on the authentication keys used to get software to load on set-top gaming machines.
The gamer's problem, however, is going to be that they really don't care about the subscription price enough that they'd be willing to play something other than their favourite game because the subscription price is higher than a competing game they don't enjoy as much. In this case they're pretty much stuck. They have the ability to vote with their dollars but they won't. No sympathy from me.
For those playing at home: This market situation, where some buyers prefer a given service over its inexact substitute that may have a lower pr
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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!
I'd say this holds true for all industries, and not even limited to advertising. Companies want to make more money any way they can, and this is NEVER passed on to the consumer. If Gap sells a shirt for $15 that it costs them $4 to produce, and they find a new supplier that can sell them the same shirt for $1, are they going to lower the price of the shirt to $14, or pocket the extra dollar? They'd laugh at the idea.
Most likely... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Now, you aren't "forced" to watch the ads in the sense that you have to sit through a commercial while waiting for a level to load, or during game startup. But who is to say that won't happen in the future? The game companies understand the old adage about boiling a frog. They know that if they go full bore with s
Adword possibilities (Score:5, Funny)
Taking too many headshots? Use Tylenol
Extra Strength (TM) as directed to
take care of those nasty headaches.
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Make sure you can trust what you
eat- get your own tools to do your
own farming.
Time management
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Head on apply directly to the headshot (Score:1, Funny)
Head on apply directly to the headshot
Head on apply directly to the headshot
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Ads in Animal Crossing? (Score:1)
Make sure you can trust what you
eat- get your own tools to do your
own farming.
How much do golden shovels cost nowadays?
Oh dear! (Score:1)
Text ads on billboards? (Score:3, Informative)
Bad For Consumers (Score:1)
I applaud Anarchy Online for their Ad based business model. In exchange, they actually give you some value. So far, all other games want premium dollars for the game, then still want to show you ads. Ala Battlefield 2142. No thanks!
I am all for it, if... (Score:2)
We all know that is not going to happen, the Gaming industry will claim it's offsetting other rising costs, just like how the movie industry is claiming the same for in movie placement..
If I have to go to a Vault energy drink vending machine in Ut2007 to power up during battle, that will really affect gameplay.
Already been done (Score:2)
Don't get me wrong, one could conceivably handle Coke machines as part of the urban landscape. However, when an overhyped soft drink is made out to be something that can majorly regenerate your character's life and magic, and when vanquished monsters star
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Of course, in this case I'm pretty sure it wasn't product placement... though now I wonder...
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Of course, in this case I'm pretty sure it wasn't product placement
Then why not put in Mountain Dew, which has more caffeine per can?
Future ad ironies (Score:4, Funny)
Need ammo? Go to ammosuppliers.com! Save 20%
*breaking intoa bank*
"Need better security? Call 1-800-xxx-xxxx!
When Google does in game ads (Score:2)
Just imagine sitting behind a box with a sniper rifle in CS and seeing "HI I see you are camping, maybe you would like to own a real AWP, go to DeadCheapSniperRifles.com"
Or maybe as you are running around on DE Dust "Get your explosives at Joe's explosive shack, get into the real game"
Or "Take a breath, smell something? Buy Bobs Game Grit Cleaner for all those awkward smells"
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Why do people feel ripped off by advertising? (Score:2)
To me, in a "free market" (yeah right, but that's another post) as long as the company does not hide that it has this advertising in it, then you kno
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Open source console? (Score:2)
Which set-top gaming machine is marketed in the United States to run the works of "small labels, shareware people, or open source"?
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Nah. You can already play all your emus on Dreamcast and Xboxen... it'll never take off.
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Dreamcast is discontinued. Xbox isn't modded out of the box, and selling a modchip (even one loaded with Cromwell) or a modchip installation service is a crime in some countries.
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If you build it, they won't necessarily come. The GP2X is proof of that (though, design-wise, it really is a mediocre device, even for a handheld).
Emulators aren't the only thing (Score:2)
And you think the big software houses wouldn't decend on the emus and manufacturer of the box (and anyone else their landsharks can smell) like a pack of starving coyotes?
Why? If for reasons of violation of the copyright in the ROMs, then emulators aren't the only product of "small labels, shareware people, or open source". If for other reasons, than what exactly do you mean by this?
If you build it, they won't necessarily come. The GP2X is proof of that
The GP2X is also not sold in EBGames/GameStop or, to my knowledge, any similar chain in the United States.
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And you think the big software houses wouldn't decend on the emus and manufacturer of the box (and anyone else their landsharks can smell) like a pack of starving coyotes?
Why? If for reasons of violation of the copyright in the ROMs, then emulators aren't the only product of "small labels, shareware people, or open source". If for other reasons, than what exactly do you mean by this?
Because said "small labels, shareware people, and open source" don't seem to pay a lot of attention to these sort of devices. That's why I used the GP2X as an example. 99% of the talk on the "official unofficial forums" (gp32x.com) is about emulators. There's a GTA knockoff and a Bosconian knockoff being sold, but really, the emus are the only things that tend to survive past the "extremely beta" stage.
If you build it, they won't necessarily come. The GP2X is proof of that
The GP2X is also not sold in EBGames/GameStop or, to my knowledge, any similar chain in the United States.
Why would a set-top box be any different?
Just what we need, MORE in-game advertising (Score:2, Insightful)
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