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Shadowbane News - In-game Advertising
Posted by Laura Genender on Mar 08, 2007 | 23 comments in our forums
This Tuesday, Ubisoft and Double Fusion joined forces to offer dynamic in-game advertising in Shadowbane.
Leading independent in-game advertising provider Double Fusion has joined forces with Ubisoft Entertainment, one of the world's largest video game publishers, to offer dynamic in-game advertising within its massively multiplayer title, Shadowbane.
There are two types of advertising models currently scheduled to featured in Shadowbane. The first is short advertisement videos will be implemented in today's update. These video ads will play on three occasions during game play; when a player logs into Shadowbane, when a player exits the game, and during the respawn period after a character dies. To minimize intrusiveness, advertisements displayed during respawn will occur only once every ten minutes. This means that if you die every minute, eleven times in a row, you will only see an advertisement video twice during the scenario; the first time you die and the last time after ten minutes have lapsed.
In future game updates, in-game ad textures will also be added to very few objects in the game world. The exact implementation for this second type of in-game advertising has yet to be scheduled.
Read more here.
Great now we will have Beer posters nailed to trees and always Coca Cola plastered on the side of a castle wall, Hey why not stick Everlast on the side of my mithril armour to whilst there at it.
It all sounded ok until the in game textures part, that could destroy immersion seeing present day things in a fantasy world. I hope they dont mess this up.
Garrik
It doesn't bother me much at all.I know these games cost a ton of money to produce and maintain,so as long as it doesn' t affect me in a bad way,then it is perfectly all right.People free load on websites everywhere,why not the internet for the most part is free.These sites wil have advertising ,however most people just accept it.
In game textures will look out of place ,may in some cases add humour where humour doesn't belong,but it's up to the designers to place them in appropiate places.Perhaps puting banners on guild houses where gameplay really isn't a factor ,or maybe giving players the choice as to wich advertisement goes on there mounts/ships/guildhall.This would be a brilliant idea as it may fuel battles between advertisers,to encourage more players to use there banners over others.If you look at the over all picture/future of this idea ,it can have some rewarding feedback for the players.Let's say ATI and NVIDIA want to battle each other over in game advertising and decide to bribe players by offering free giveaways ,like MOBOS/video cards whatever.
I started online gaming way back on HEAT.net a site run by SONY,that was free to play any game they had installed,and let you run your very own game server.Hard to believe but this was an awesome idea and a great place to hang out.There was all kinds of advertising and free giveaways every single day.I think all games should look to encouraging advertising,while at the same time giving rewards to the players for acknowledging or using the in game advertising.I know all of you didn't mind clicking on those 3 website banners just to get to your free emulator ROM,or voting for your favourite website just to get that free piece of software.This idea can benefit all and it should.It may only benefit the players by keeping sub costs down or keeping server bandwidth high or offering more servers to lessen lag for all.The majority of players are intelligent,so it'll be up to the game devs to show the players the positive feedback of this advertising.If there is no positive feedback for the players,then they are treading on thin ice,to keep there fan base from getting distraught.
Not trying to be critical here, but is Shadowbane really about immersion? Isn't it more about warfare and ganking? Again, not trying to be insulting here, I was just wondering. IMO of all the fantasy MMOs out there, this is the least immersive due to the nature of the game mechanics and the point of the game.
Yeah i know, SB isnt that immersive in an RP sense but when i played it i still felt like i was in a massive war somewhere else, im just hopgin they dont ruin it with stupidly placed ads. Im sure they wont though ;).
Garrik
Think about it this way; they essentially ARE paying you to play - $15 a month worth of free game, every month, is your profit-share of the money earned through the advertising. ;)
RP on.. " It was a hot and tiring run through the desert while scouting for potential enemies towards my guild. Stopping by a poster ad of coca cola at an abandoned outpost, i continue my scouting duties and having mountain dew poster ad in my mind for the next stop " RP off..
It would not be that big of a problem if it actualy was during the respawn period, but it is not. The game do not even starts to load until you have watched the advertisement. Thus it makes me wait more on respawns. Really annoying in my opinion.
OK, so charge players a single $12 payment for a 6-month sub, or maybe $20 for a one year sub. In return, those players get no ads.
If you're sticking with the nonpaying subscription, then you get ads.
Giving players OPTIONS is always a help. It's when players have no choice but to see those advertisements that they have the most issues, I think. If they have the option to remove them, for a modest fee, then the reasons for complaints would pretty much dry up.
this is halarious. let any MMO push advertisements into my game after i have an account. id cancel my account so fast. I can only imagine the people that actually play. you pay $14.99 or whatever shadowbane charges to be forced to watch video based ads lol. can the rapage be anymore violent?? these companies make me sick. i feel sorry for the people who actually play this game and realize the bullcrap they are pulling. my heart goes out to you guys and girls.
>gives finger and tells them to sit and spin!<
oops! gotta backtrack a bit.the game seems to be free lol. then i cant really bitch about a free game having ads as intrusive as they may seem. so illt ake back what i said lol. but it still willk apply to games that charge u money.
Err the ads arent really that bad. Only down side to them is that there is no volume control on them. So if you have vent or TS up and you die you will get blasted w/ noise of the dell ad. Easy to work around that though if you know what your doing. I do wish though I had an option to pay a small fee so I dont have to see the ads.
Actually the only time they are a problem at all is if you a dual or triboxin and get wiped at a bane or something cause you have to watch them. They pause automatically when you alt tab to something else whether its another client or not.
look, here is the deal from my perspective.
i HATE advertising. it is awful, sexist, racist, depressing, inhumane, lying, horrible bullshit. i'm talking about the advertising industry, not the essence of advertising. advertisements are FUCKING EVERYWHERE in america. i can't go a day without seeing near nude women, beer, cigarrettes, cars, and some weird random shit no one needs like lip suction therapy or eyebrow tucking machines.
it doesn't matter if you like a product, it doesn't matter if you even think the advertisement is cool, what matters is that we're playing a fucking video game in order to play the game. the only ads that should be on it should be the credits to the people who made it. there's enough ad bullshit smothering me all day without this added.
and you wanna know why game developers need so much money? it's because they make so many shitty fucking games that MMOs are becoming so common and fucking awful that they are starting to need more than just subscribers. MMOs shouldnt be free, if it's free it's probably a piece of shit that isn't very popular - no offense shadowbane, but i dont know anyone who even plays you - or it just doesn't cost a lot to run - like a MUD or something simple like that.
what game companies need to do is start making LESS CRAP and become more concerned with releasing complete final products and sticking to them. once you have a million dollars you don't need another million. these companies are greedy and they want money. if your game isn't a success then making it more shitty and angering your already small fanbase isn't going to help anything. now every goddamn MMO is gonna start doing this shit, or at least too many for my liking.
stop making CRAP so that you have to cover your asses by using advertising. focus on the goddamn games. everyone i know has some MMO horror story about the game crapping out on them or losing a character or losing items or weird glitches etc. stop trying to make money, stop making so many games, and just cool off and make a solid product instead of many faulty ones.
Anarchy Online is a perfect example of this methodology.
But everytime you logoff/logon/and DIE?? - no FLIPPING WAY! - this is WAY to invasive - I had thought of having a look at shadowbane now it was free but after this?.....not a chance....
thanks for the heads up MMORPG...
Uh....
You have been slain by XYP and LOSE yadayadayada.
This game is provided to you by Z!
LOSE = Z!
Advertising IN GAME is a bad idea, when I died I am pissed and unhappy, advertising at that precise moment is very bad for anyone, as I am unhappy and...pissed...so I will be conditionned to HATE whoever is advertising. At the load in and load out, sure, at the server selection menu as long as once per day (not everytime I crash, since if I see advertising at each crash I will blame the crashes as been done purposefully and stop playing the game), sure...but every time I do X, Y or P in a game? Bad idea, especially if I died and am unhappy.
Human nature is to reject what is FORCED upon us. Not because its bad. Not because we hate it. But because it was forced upon us without our consent. But above all that, is that I've noticed that most advertising is irrelevet to most people to begin with. The vast majority of what I use in my daily life and even the games I play came from word of mouth or from reviews from 3rd party people. Writing this I've been trying to think of one product in my house that I bought because of an advertisement and I am coming up with nothing except my cable internet itself. Six years ago a salesman came to my door and convinced me that dial up was garbage. And even that, it took a much longer conversation than the multitude of commercials on tv to make me want the product.
which other game has warring nations/factions actually fighting? what happened to elves hating dwarves? what happened to orcs hating elves? where's the WAR in world of WARcraft? if your idea of immersion is a 12 year old having his underwear clad night elf female toon dancing for dollars in ironforge, then i can see how you could make your statement. aren't there huge armies doing combat in most fantasy stories? elric of melnibone', draonlance, lord of the rings, pretty much any fantasy book/movie that comes to mind had huge armies waging wars. where is that in all the other fantasy mmos?
i see a cox toon for your avatar. immersion. the 5th column's name was changed because it was too directly related to nazis. they are now the council. YET, the (rudolph) hess task force still exists. one of hitler's main henchmen = hess. yet, if you make any sort of a toon with a nazi-esque name, based upon real people, you'll get renamed and flamed by cox fanbois. just wondering about that indiscrepancy.
ontopic: is shadowbane pay2play? is shadowbane + all expansions free2play? if it is, are they reducing the cost because of said advertising? if not, then this is crap.
i say advertise any/everything you want, just let me play for free. using cox as an example again, there are billboards up all over the place in the cities and such, and signs here and there. if they wanted to put REAL adverts on them and reduce my monthly bill to free or say to $5; then, i'd be all for the adverts. of course, if there were TOO many, i'd definitely expect free2play.