Ads In Video Games And (Apparently) A Good PR Staff
from the what's-new-here? dept
People have been talking for years about the idea of ads in video games -- and, in fact, they've been showing up more and more. One of the issues, though, was always keeping the ads up-to-date. With that in mind, a few companies have been experimenting with ways to do so. In fact, there were stories last year about companies working on exactly that. So, with that in mind, it's not clear why just about every publication seems to feel the need to talk about a me-too offering that seems to do the same thing. However, the San Jose Merc, News.com, the New York Times, Reuters and plenty of others all seem to be carrying the story. Apparently, this particular firm has a fairly impressive PR team. Most of these articles seem to just be parroting the story that the company wanted released, which doesn't seem particularly interesting at all. They're just adding dynamic ads into video games. That doesn't seem particularly special. What would be interesting is whether or not anyone actually pays attention to these ads, or if they're a complete waste -- but only the NY Times piece seems to even question that, and they don't go too deeply into it, either.
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Longevity question
For that matter, will I be able to play the game on a machine that doesn't have an Internet connection?
You'd think the companies involved would consider these issues, but experience tells me they probably wouldn't.
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Can we boycott these games?
Therea re plenty of games out there. Do I have to play the ones that have ads?
- Precision Blogger
http://precision-blogging.blogspot.com
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Re: Can we boycott these games?
While I agressively filter almost all poorly targeted advertising (e.g. Firefox Adblock, no-call list, locked credit reports, disposable e-mail addresses, TiVo...) I strangely enough don't mind ads or product placement in games. Seeing a billboard for a soft drink in a racing game, or the ads surrounding the field in a sports game makes it more realistic.
The publishers will likely screw this up for a while. But, since game publishing is a zero-marginal-cost business, the situation will likely correct itself quickly if there is any backlash from gamers.
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Re: Can we boycott these games?
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