YourGamer.Net

In-game advertising; it’s a match made in heaven. Gamers focus their attention on the action, and if there’s some subtle billboards or ads in the background, who cares? The gamer won’t even notice it. It makes the games cheaper and it makes them “more realistic”.

There’s one problem. A lot of us don’t *like* advertising in media. There’s a reason I no longer pay for broadcast television. It’s not because I could care less about the 4400, or that I’m mad that Jim Halpert still hasn’t proposed to Pam. It’s because I can’t even follow those shows with the 10 minutes of advertising for every 30 minutes of show. Seriously, that’s a third! That’s 1 minute for every 3. And when you’re not in the middle of a commercial, you get product placements in your shows. And they expect people to pay for this service?

So, do we really want to let advertising affect our video games in the same way? Do we want Niko to buy some virtual MP3s off of Amazon’s MP3 store right in-game, and then tell us to “try it out, it’s easy”? Is it more realistic? I kind of dislike our branded “reality” as it is now, why would I want more of it? “Hey look honey, remember when we went to Aspen and we saw that billboard advertising Whoppers? Look, that same billboard’s here in Super Extreme Awesome Snow Boarding XI.”

The games aren’t any cheaper. Last time I looked, games still cost 60 bucks in the States when they first come out. They haven’t gone down. Sure, expenses are increasing when making games, I’ll agree. That cost is partially due to the insane amount of graphic work today’s games require. But do we really want to sacrifice enjoyment (ie., having in-game ads) for more expensive visuals?

And to take this in another direction, how long will it be until advertisers get to have a say in the game development? “Oh, no sorry, you can’t have Gordon Freeman pop that dude right in the face. We want to market lollipops and rainbows. We can’t give you money unless you give Gordan a happy-go-lucky attitude.” I think gamers need to stand up now and say “Screw your lollipops and rainbows. When I pay cash, I want advertising free games!”

Here’s a thought, developers. Make games people are willing to pay money for. Make them fun. If you start putting all these ads in your games, we’re not going to play them. Unfortunately, I’m sure you’ll blame your low sales numbers on piracy, rather than your lack of ingenuity.