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[John Harker]

This is something I'm looking into for my job.

How do you respond to advertising in and about games?
*Note, I don't mean TV.
Not talking about commericals.

I mean IN game or INTERNET advertising only.

Such as, billboards for IBM products in Need for Speed.
AXE placement banners in sports games.
etc.

Do you notice them?
Does that irritate you?
Does it make you think about the product?
If your playing a PC game, and your driving around a town...
If you saw a coke machine, and it was linked to your credit card, would you buy one and have it delievered to your house? (For other products as well)

Would you be willing to be served a website from an in-game AD on a PC game?
Such as, if you find a detergent on your bed in a room, if you pick it up the game will open the TIDE website on your PC?
How do you feel about that?

And most importantly to me, how do you feel about text links in Gaming sites?
Like here on GAF - does anyone click on the Sponsered Google links?
Does those bother you, do you ignore them, or do you pay attention to them/click them?

*How often do you use SEARCH ENGINES to search for games to buy or research?

I know those are a ton of random questions - just your general thoughts would be great.

Thanks guys.

 

[Zaphod]

I usually throw my drink at the TV in rage because I've seen yet another Gaming ad with only CG cut scenes.

 

[Ghost]

Im the same, i get annoyed by the fact they are all 100% cg these days, especially when im watching with someone else who says "The graphics have gotten a lot better havent they?" then i explain that the game doesnt look anything like that and think about the 1000s of people who think (through no fault of their own) that the game looks like that, and that you can do the things that are in the advert.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

I'm suspicious about TV or pre-movie ads that don't show actual gameplay footage.

Sports and Racing games only. Anything else is "any attention is good attention" mentality of marketing.

I wouldn't believe someone would go wild for Tide after seeing it in a game.

Text links are silly, crass, and interrupt the flow of someone reading the actual content of the site (those shotty delay-loading flash adds over the text are even worse).

I have clicked on the google links; I notice them, but they're not in the way. I like that.

I use search engines all the times; sometimes the only place I can get a CD is from some tiny distribution center in Kent for instance.

 

[John Harker]

Sorry guys.

I edited the first post.

I dont mean TV ads.

I mean specifically, in-game advertisments, and internet advertisments.

Ads that are in during game play, ads that are on websites as banners, and ads that are text-links on websites (such as GAF, partner sites, and search engines)

It's all in the first post - sorry its so long.

 

[Danj]

Would you be willing to be served a website from an in-game AD on a PC game?
Such as, if you find a detergent on your bed in a room, if you pick it up the game will open the TIDE website on your PC?

How would that work, exactly? The majority of games don't react too well to task switching, even on a decent machine it can take a few seconds and a bunch of hard-drive churning to get back to Windows. Or are you proposing that the game should have a built-in web-browser of some sort (see Eve Online for example) which could serve up the page without interrupting the game massively?

Also, they'd have to make different versions for different countries - for example, I'm from the UK, and I've never heard of TIDE, so for the UK version they should put something like Persil or Fairy Liquid. Though to be quite honest I doubt gamers are terribly interested in detergent anyway. It might be cool if you could order pizza in-game, but again the game would need to have some idea of your location in order to transmit your order to a local pizza place.

 

[John Harker]

Text links are silly, crass, and interrupt the flow of someone reading the actual content of the site (those shotty delay-loading flash adds over the text are even worse).

When you say this, do you mean text links that are within the body of the page content?

Yea, I don't deal in those.

I mean the Sponsored links that are on the sides of the page, and on the Google.com and Yahoo.com search sites.

Which I believe you addressed in your next sentance. Thanks.

 

[Letter to Elise]

I have a magazine rack next to the couch that I casualy flip over whne I encounter the ads you speak of.

~l2e

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

When you say this, do you mean text links that are within the body of the page content?

Yea, I don't deal in those.

I mean the Sponsored links that are on the sides of the page, and on the Google.com and Yahoo.com search sites.

Which I believe you addressed in your next sentance. Thanks.

Ah, I see. Ok.

EDIT:

I have a magazine rack next to the couch that I casualy flip over whne I encounter the ads you speak of.

:lol

 

[John Harker]

How would that work, exactly? The majority of games don't react too well to task switching, even on a decent machine it can take a few seconds and a bunch of hard-drive churning to get back to Windows. Or are you proposing that the game should have a built-in web-browser of some sort (see Eve Online for example) which could serve up the page without interrupting the game massively?

Also, they'd have to make different versions for different countries - for example, I'm from the UK, and I've never heard of TIDE, so for the UK version they should put something like Persil or Fairy Liquid. Though to be quite honest I doubt gamers are terribly interested in detergent anyway. It might be cool if you could order pizza in-game, but again the game would need to have some idea of your location in order to transmit your order to a local pizza place.

The browser would open when you left the game. It's based on your internet connection, so when you sever from the game server, you get served the ad.

Yea, TIDE is just a random example. Though there are some free online games in the UK that do exactly this - the name of the game and the detergent escapes me right now.

And you can order pizza online in games. Pizza Hut delivers to your door - you enter your billing address and your credit card number when you sign up for the game service, and when you order the pizza it comes 20 minutes later, billed to your credit card.

 

[callous]

Internet: I honestly don't see them. I am aware that they are there, but I completely and utterly filter them out. I have never bought a game after having seen it advertised on the internet.

In game: Racing games mostly, really. I notice them the same way I do when I watch real racing. Some look aesthetically pleasing to me, some don't. They're just part of the world, like tires and chequered flags are. I have never bought a product that was advertised for in a game (or one that was advertised for while watching racing on TV, for that matter).

Would you be willing to be served a website from an in-game AD on a PC game?
Such as, if you find a detergent on your bed in a room, if you pick it up the game will open the TIDE website on your PC?
How do you feel about that?

No. That sounds very annoying, cluttery and a waste of time for all parties concerned.

And most importantly to me, how do you feel about text links in Gaming sites?
Like here on GAF - does anyone click on the Sponsered Google links?
Does those bother you, do you ignore them, or do you pay attention to them/click them?

I know I said I completely filter them out, but I have actually twice clicked on banners at GAF. Once for a review of a game I'd already ordered and wanted to hype myself for, once because someone pointed out in a post how funny the text in the link was.

*How often do you use SEARCH ENGINES to search for games to buy or research?

Almost daily.

 

[emomoonbase]

I hate ads of all kinds and I think they have no place in any game. I figure if you pay money for a game you don't deserve to bombarded with more ad bullshit. In fact I will purposely not buy not things I see in games just to spite them.

There is so much advertising in everything anymore that I think it's hard wired into my brain to automatically filter it out as well. It's like it has forced the human brain to develop a junk filter and cut out things that aren't relevant to the situation at hand, and if that hurts companies than it's there own damn fault for being so overly bearing and sticking their stupid name in everything under the sun.

I think about the only "advertising" that has any effect on me is the word of mouth type where my friend or someone I trust is like "omg look @ this!". And that doesn't include the fake "street teams" and people who show up message boards singing the praises of some random game that everyone knows is crap, and then disappearing forever immediatly after.

 

[Flynn]

What he said. I go out of my way to avoid advertising. That's why I like Tivo. That's why I go to the movies less and less.

Premium entertainment expereinces should be free of advertising, like going to The Arclight or watching a DVD.

If you want to class your entertainment with network televison or radio and increasingly, the cineplex, expect user opinion of your product to change.

 

[echoshifting]

This sounds like a great way to take something that is already atrocious and move it into the realm of downright abominable. Frankly, I'm not sure I would even buy a game that opened internet ads before, during or after I was playing.

 

[Victrix]

In-game ads = Berserk Rage

Web ads? What web ads?

 

[Gio_CoD]

It doesn't bother me really (seeing as in how it's usually not intrusive), but it's never made me buy a particular product. I'm the type of person that needs to have the advertiser explain WHY I should buy their product. Putting up a Best Buy logo in Need for Speed says nothing at all to me. But if they had a tagline underneath the Best Buy logo that said something like, "Buy future EA games at Best Buy and receive 10 percent off" or some sort of incentive or just reason for why I should shop there, I would take notice.

Summary:
Logos do nothing. Messages do something.

 

[Ranger X]

This is something I'm looking into for my job.

How do you respond to advertising in and about games?
*Note, I don't mean TV.
Not talking about commericals.

I hate it.

I mean IN game or INTERNET advertising only.

Such as, billboards for IBM products in Need for Speed.

No thanks, i want to seperate myself from reality the most possible while in-game.

AXE placement banners in sports games.

If it's the actual banner that is in the real life stadium, it's ok because it passes under
"realism". Otherwise, i don't want them.

Do you notice them?

Yes

Does that irritate you?

Yes

Does it make you think about the product?

Nope

If your playing a PC game, and your driving around a town...
If you saw a coke machine, and it was linked to your credit card, would you buy one and have it delievered to your house? (For other products as well)

Of course not. I would never encourage over-consumption, it's already a big problem in this society. This feature really is wrong imo.

Would you be willing to be served a website from an in-game AD on a PC game?

Please God no. I want to be in my game and don't want to hear about reality.
I can surf the web when i feel like it.

Such as, if you find a detergent on your bed in a room, if you pick it up the game will open the TIDE website on your PC?
How do you feel about that?

Terrible. It makes me think about Demolition Man movie and this vision of capitalism is completely fucking mind disturbingly wrong imo.

And most importantly to me, how do you feel about text links in Gaming sites?

They waste screen space.

Like here on GAF - does anyone click on the Sponsered Google links?

Not me. Never.

Does those bother you, do you ignore them, or do you pay attention to them/click them?

Well, i try to ignore them. When i think about them, i hate them.

*How often do you use SEARCH ENGINES to search for games to buy or research?

Quite never.

Thanks guys

No prob! Feel good to really say what i think about that shit.

 

[Link1110]

With internet ads, no exageration, I avoid everything I see advertised in pop up ads. Banner ads are OK because they're not that annoying. Also, flash ads are a moot point because I refuse to install flash on my computer.

 

[Ironclad]

In-game advertisements are despicable. Absolutely despicable. The most advertising I am subjected it to is when I am surfing the net. I don't watch that much TV outside of a few shows andn I haven't been to the movies in ages; I can just watch those films on DVD's. The last thing I need is advertisements in my games; ads have never really had an effect on me, to say the least and I feel that in-game ads ruin the atmosphere of the game.

 

[John Harker]

Thanks guys, some good stuff.

I wanted to start with the hardcore for what I'm planning.

Keep 'um coming, and I'll look into it in depth later on.