I'm not even going to bother asking how you arrived at this "conclusion", because the answer will inevitably be "a little alien told me".
I will give you points for being able to speculate and spin things out the wazoo, though
Not that I think in-game ads needs to grow to have BK in games, but it's far from the end of the world you apparently want to make it out to be.
The funny thing is, I've been playing Far Cry 2 for 2 days now, and I've yet to actually notice an outside ad. Imagine that.
If you couldn't understand how I arrive at that conclusion of your own volition, no amount of logic would hammer its way through to you. I'll just tell you to look at recent trends in patch quality, and you tell me that publishers give a single shit about the patch process or game quality for people who already bought the game.
Just so we're on the same page, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, another Ubisoft game, still only allows ONE SAVE FILE for the PC version, which it corrupts and deletes the moment it autosaves, generally forcing you to start over at the very beginning of the entire chapter if you reload. Why did they never patch this critical game-breaking flaw?
Advertising itself isnt the issue here. When you think about it, games have had advertising in them, for like, evar. Think about a Tony Hawks game or a Grand Theft Auto game. In some cases, it just fits to put Ads in, and theres no harm in the Devs getting a few extra bucks by doing it either.
The Problem is that you expect that by tolerating Live-Ads you should be entitled to an additional level of Product Support. This isnt an unreasonable claim but it is unrealistic. It depends on what business model said company attempts to use. Normally speaking every game has a short period of After-Sales support, but its not indefinite. The only exception to the rule that I have found is - well, Sins - and Team Fortress 2, in which $20 Buys you a helluvalot of game, plus Free Expansions in the form of Class Updates.
Think about it this way OP - EA Fronts a fixed some of money to its Child Studio to produce a Game. It expects a return, and in some cases this can be gained pre-release by selling Static advertising space. Alternatively, They can get that same return over time, post-release. with Live-Advertising, you even run the odds that you might receive a larger return than the static ad, but on the books, its all still money gone to cover the cost of a games initial production.
Now don't get me wrong, it would be great if a game produced enough in advertising revenue that it could afford to support a game for months and years, but its just not happening any time soon. It works for websites because websites are cheap, and webmasters are cheaper (no offense) but games software and support of said hardware requires a much higher overhead than advertising can provide.
I understand that you don't like in-game advertising uranium, but you don't have to get that pissed off at it. just keep the reciepts to your games and if a patch isn't made that fixes an annoying problem, or you don't like the game in general, just return it to wherever you bought it.
Your example would be more of an exception rather than a rule. Gamers need to read reviews before buying games. If the product looks half finished, DON'T BUY IT. Wait until patches fully fix it and then reconsider teh purchase. Although the publishers/developers made a flawed product, you're not forced to buy it.
Patches and continued developmental support are not required on the part of the publisher. In general, they will still fix critical bugs (or face nasty backlash). If they add any features beyond that, it's a bonus.
Your wild conjecture regarding the advertising model has no basis.
If you couldn't understand how I arrive at that conclusion of your own volition, no amount of logic would hammer its way through to you.
So many things wrong with that. First of all, your arguement follows the same logic pattern of a conspiracy theorist. Sure it *can* happen, but it's not. To make such "sky is falling" claims without real proof is simply baseless conjecture. And yes, you need to demonstrate this on more than one game - and prove that there really is a trend that games these days without advertising have LESS support than those with advertising.
The second thing wrong with that is your wording of "no amount of logic would hammer its way through to you". By saying this, you're presenting your argument on a high horse, starting with the position that you're logically correct and everyone else is wrong. That's a big no-no if you want ANYONE to take you seriously. I vaguely remember a thread you made on the Sins forum which was a huge troll thread. I forget what you were arguing about but you were arguing in the same manner - you're right, everyon else is wrong, and you don't need to prove it. Needless to say, that thread didn't work out so well for you with everyone basically calling you out.
I'd also like to mention game budgets. AAA game budgets are rocketing towerds (and sometimes surpassing) movie budgets. However, the price of games are not going up. Are you able to see a problem with this?
Interesting. Didn`t World In Conflict have ads or ad content (some defense contractor, a fast-food BK store)? I can`t recall whether they were dynamically downloaded & updated/retrieved or not... partly because despite my game ownership I still have yet to fire up a campaign (!).
If an ad server goes down, does it delay or corrupt my attempt to play my game?
Philosophically I am averse to this too. In the case of Far Cry 2, I am VERY torn however, because this game just looks so damn good. I am a lukewarm fan of STALKER, and this kind of persistent open world play has been something I`ve been looking for for a long time.
And yeah, the advertising is simply bonus fiscal icing... despite innumerable testimonials to the contrary back in earlier days when the notion of ads was introduced, ad revenues were pitched as grails that would reduce the retail price of product and provide greater resources to put into the games. So much for that. Reminds me invariably of paying for the movie theater experience, only to be forced to sit through the usual mundane media we all tried to escape from... by paying for the movie theater experience... .
Again, I am very conflicted on Far Cry 2.
You're telling me things I already know - I understand why they do it and why they want it. I'm talking about the consumer end, the human side of things.
From what I understand, you're on the side of things that more advertising means supporting a game after-sales. I mentioned that I'd sit a little easier with this, if this were a guarantee, but it's not. I pointed out that BF2142, a game with in-game ads, has receieved no more support than BF2, a game with no ads.
Advertising is simply a way to attempt to derive revenue from me (after all, it requires a consumer to be advertised to). Hence why I said you're effectively paying for a game twice - once with the initial sale, and again for every ad you come across. This increased payment is a real amount - if they were paid $250k by Burger King to allow them to fill their game with ads, distribute that 250k across the copies of the game sold and that's your increased price right there. Now add on the cost of the Nvidia logo - the Intel C2D ad - and you directly have an inflated pricetag on a game, with no actual VALUE increase.
I know what you're saying, but that's exactly why I won't buy games with advertising - $50 is already borderline outrageous for a few hours of entertainment.
The problem I have with this is that you consider this the norm. Whereas with console games its simply a matter of "Is this game fun, yes or no?" But no, a PC Gamer has to make sure it doesnt suffer from bugs or glitches or performance problems. That, and PC Games are Non-Refundable. Tried it lately?
That is wrong. Producers have an ethical and legal obligation to provide product that works. Period. If you purchase a vacuum that does not pick up dirt, you have the right to return it and get a full refund, or to have the vendor 'make right' in some other fashion. Pursuant to that and another statement relative, returning opened PC software is hardly a viably painless option, to put it mildly, in the piracy-mongered industry atmosphere in which we reside.If you believe that (that patches etc. are "bonus" or "unnecessary" luxuries on a PC), then you must by contrast & comparison find that Stardock`s and Ironclad`s efforts are nothing noteworthy or exceptional. We know they are of course, but we know they are because we ask the question "Why?" And the answer to that question validates the logic behind this train of post.
Problem with this is that you can't name a single reviewer I would consider credible these days. Actually the only one would be Yahtzee on Zero Punctuaion, but that's mostly because him and I seem to be quite alike in our standards for games, and he still seems to know what the purpose of a review is. Simply put, most reviewers long since forgot their job, and that's to be a CRITIC. Game reviews these days are nothing but full-page advertisements, extolling the virtues of this pointless feature or that. Deceptive journalism is why I was stupid enough to buy a copy of Oblivion, inarguably one of the worst games I've ever had the displeasure of playing. Rather than point out how every aspect of the game was flawed in some way, or that compared to oldschool CRPGs the game didn't stack up whatsoever, instead I got a two page PC Gamer advertisement describing how varied and incredible the world is, all the great dark places to explore. Instead I got a huge forest of randomly-paced coniferous trees dotted with prefabricated lego-brick dungeons with absolutely NOTHING in any of them.
Let me put it this way.
This is all IGN had to say about the voice acting in Oblivion:
Actually engaging NPCs in conversation is absolutely impressive, as each character in the game has spoken dialogue. Considering the titanic amount of NPCs in the game, that's a lot of spoken dialogue. Though in many cases they're just canned responses using a repeated voice (every Argonian female sounds pretty much the same), there are always some unique samples for every quest. Whether the NPC is pouring their heart out to you because they need help or detailing an intricate history of a specific item, it's all voiced, though not free of occasional excessive cheesiness. 9.0 SoundAside from a few glitches, voices, music, battle sounds and enemy screams are a treat for the ears.
Actually engaging NPCs in conversation is absolutely impressive, as each character in the game has spoken dialogue. Considering the titanic amount of NPCs in the game, that's a lot of spoken dialogue. Though in many cases they're just canned responses using a repeated voice (every Argonian female sounds pretty much the same), there are always some unique samples for every quest. Whether the NPC is pouring their heart out to you because they need help or detailing an intricate history of a specific item, it's all voiced, though not free of occasional excessive cheesiness.
9.0 SoundAside from a few glitches, voices, music, battle sounds and enemy screams are a treat for the ears.
Here's how I would describe the voice acting in Oblivion:
The voice acting and character interaction is an affront to the genre and one of the most glaring flaws in the entire game. Expect to have any semblance of immersion torn away mercilessly as you stumble across a game world populated with NPCs who all sound exactly identical. Morrowind veterans can expect to be disappointed as most racies voice characteristics have been flattened in an attempt to cut development costs, and instead you will see most races voice by the exact same voice actor. Dunmer now sound exactly like wood elves, Nords and Orcs sound alike, etc. In addition to the repetetive sounding voices, expect to be battered with the same myriad of inane chatter. While walking through Imperial City, I ran across several NPCs spouting one of their whole of three dialogs at each other, usually about mudcrabs. With absolutely no pretense at how shamelessly low quality the voice acting is, expect NPCs to randomly change their tone, affliction, and age without any sane reason. A beggar with a raspy voice, when asked about local rumors, assumes an air of nobility and talks like a young woman. The Oblivion voice acting is without a doubt amongst the most poorly executed I've ever seen in a video game, and does not even begin to hold a candle to the clearly staged 'previews' Bethesda provided us.
This is not a matter of opinion. Are there only a handful of voice actors? Do they voice more than one race sounding exactly alike? Do they do this in lieu of established lore? Do they randomly change tone and affliction for seemingly no reason? The answer to all these is yes, and yet not one of them was mentioned in the IGN review. Curious.
Every aspect of every torturous moment of that horrible game was like this. I can seriously list off every aspect of the game, and how it was utterly crippled and poorly designed. Even the uninstaller left folders cluttering my hard drive.
Given how low people's standards are these days, I'm hearing a lot of negative things about FC2. My decision to buy/not buy was made long before I had to worry about the quality of the game, however.
I... actually thought I had that in there. I've been posting this on several forums (notably the official FC2 forums) and I think I accidentally chopped the end off, but I described why I don't see movies in theaters anymore. About $15 before I even get to my seat, and then I have to sit through 30 minutes of advertising which begins at 'showtime'. No thanks. I'm not a sheep.
This is quickly devolving from a conversation about in game advertising to a full blown inoherent rant at the industry for trying to generate revenue.
As for World in Conflict (thats the Russia invades America game right?) Absolutely mental game. Never once noticed advertising, outside of the usual tripe at startup (nVidia!)
I only have one issue with advertising; putting it in places where it just dosn't fit. Like a fantasy RPG with adverts for coke and cars... just no.
Adverts are esentialy a visual shopping cataloge, I can look through one of them and not see much I want either. If it WASN'T for advertising however I woulnd't know about some of my favourite games (nor a very good source for comedy - "We could save you money on your car insurance!")
I've never read such a load of shit in all my life. Seriously.
If in game advertising eventually brings down the price of games or we see better quality games for it then by all means, see if I care, I don't go boycotting websites that use advertising that isn't obstructive.
Uranium - 235 I get the feeling I could argue for hours with you in real life about why your tin foil hat attitude is only affecting you negatively, more so than any in game or cinema advertising does but then if I stop to think about it I realise I'd probably be wasting my time.
Well, to be frank: When I buy a TV and the stations hurl more ads at me than actual program everyone says that I'll have to live with it because I actually don't pay for what I watch (talking free TV here). But I do pay for the game. So I do have the right to expect that there is no BS included like a popup window stating:"This headshot was brought to you buy: Budweiser! Want another beer, don't get up, just pisss into the bottle, it tastes the same."
I can't bother boycotting, it's just not in my nature, at least not when good games are concerned...
But I do understand the issue, and I strongly feel there should be some kind of benefits for the gamer, whether it's cheapers games, extra content or something like that.
But in-game advertising doesn't really bother me as longs as it's not badly out of place. Crappy DLC on the other hand does bug me, having to pay for stuff that's already in the game like cheats codes is the lowest of the low. Luckily it's not really that big of an issue on PC yet.
I see no issue at all, if they can make more money from someone else's pocket, that's fine by me. More money for development. Either way, I let games speak for themselves, not the principles their producer stands for.
"I've never read such a load of shit in all my life. Seriously."
Ok, so Uranium is kinda nutty. Question, does the box state the existence of said advertising that uploads itself to your computer or console and changes your product on the fly?
I see no price breaks for the in game advertising. I see no quality improvements over games without ingame advertising. I do however see an industry making increasingly crappy cookie cutter games that are just rehashes of the old ones with better graphics, while complaining bitterly about massive profit margins on those crappy cookie cutter games that most industries would give both left and right nuts to have, progeny be damned.
While you're being milked, consider whether you're actually getting anything from it besides bruised tits. I find it revolting to be recieving product placement advertisement updates for a game I've purchased without being informed beforehand. I don't need to be a conspiracy theorist and fear the invasion of my privacy for it to be a backdoor attempt to make money off me using my internet connection, my computer, and my game.
I recieved my copy of Far cry 2 this morning, and i am furious about the inclusion of Ingame advertising, i have sent it back for a refund.
I have been gaming since the days of the Vic20 & C64. (first PC was a DX2 66)
The games industry has gone downhill in recent times, i have allways bought my games, and i have hundreds of them, i have boxes full of them in fact. Back then games came in a quality alpha box with keyboard overlays, printed manuals, maps in some cases. Yeah we now have special and limited editions but they are too expensive most of the time.
Older games never needed patching or finishing in some cases. partly because they used to pay people to playtest and debug them, rather than open beta's. Now we are lucky to get a manual squeezed inside a cheap DVD case.
Rockstar and stardock are the only decent games producers left imho, i read something in a pc mag about stardocks views on how the gamers are beeing treated at the moment, somthing about ten commandments. It was nice to hear a developer standing up to whats going on at present.
Everytime the games industry cheapens thier product, non of the savings are ever passed on to us.
oh couple of years ago i was trying to slipstream my copy of XP with SP2 and Starforce Killed my Optical Drive..... Nice...
BF2142 is still seriousley flawed with northern strike servers still crashing, and with no sign of a fix. The ads in this game have allways been an annoyance to most who used to play.
I see ingame ads as nothing more than spam, the difference being, it's a lot harder to stop.
I'm with Uranium on this one all the way, well said dude. i hope for gamings sake we can stop this rott.
I gotta agree with Aractain. If it's in a place that fits, such as an in-game billboard, and it's unobtrusive, I don't really mind.
As for low game quality and poor industry reviewers... read consumer reviews. Go to forums and see what the topics are. Never buy something you can't return without researching it. Couple of months ago, I forgot my own advice and now regret it.
Why what did you buy that you regret?
"Gamers need to read reviews before buying games. If the product looks half finished, DON'T BUY IT. Wait until patches fully fix it and then reconsider teh purchase. Although the publishers/developers made a flawed product, you're not forced to buy it."
"Problem with this is that you can't name a single reviewer I would consider credible these days."
User reviews. And there are tons of Site reviews; by reading a couple of them you will eventually get many things right. Also voice actor being bad etc, its a bad feature, not a bug. It can be based on personal opinion while a Bug is mostly a fact. I also believe that to wait before buying a game is a necessity, any smart player will do it. A week can give many info about the product you're buying especially since, I also believe, some games aren't worthing their price. No one should be giving 50$ to easy for a game, when these can sometimes be broke and have no gameplay worth. Games are controversial products. Most people frustrations have their own foults heavily involved, but they won't note it.
About "Live" advertising in games, it is questionable IMO. I don't the idea of Live Ads, and using my connection, still I accept Ads in PC versions with the idea of circunventing piracy. But the Ads should not be damaging. Live Ads use your connection and might bring new things to the game that might be against the personality of a gamer. I'm not against Ads for games; movies can use Ads before and inside it, games shouldn't be different. But no Ads can be so invasive to interrupt what you payed for, or bring harassment, so thats brings the importance of reading reviews to not loose your money and not encourage the company to go on. People who couldn't wait to buy or site reviews will point these datails to the patient, but the Live ads might make it impossible. So i'm against Live Ads, and I think the company should give something in return for it or do not use it at all. Wouldn't be the same for static Ads because those could be revised.
Companies don't listen so much gamers. Its a huge growing market, but games always have been related to kids and most who plays it are kids and teens but thats is changing. Many get so excited and buy in the first day, without knowing what they are buying. But has things are happening they are learning their rights, etc. I think Live Ads in a product not strictly online, is questionable but nothing to yell about. Those who are really against it, should of have researched before buying. I didn't buyed and already knew about it before it even comming out.
"I'd also like to mention game budgets. AAA game budgets are rocketing towerds (and sometimes surpassing) movie budgets. However, the price of games are not going up. Are you able to see a problem with this?"
About the market growing and price not going up, that wouldn't be possible or else you bet they would have done it already. Games are like perishable products, its more important to sell many copies then putting out a highter price. The market is growing because more people are comming to it, not that consumers want it more or desire it more than before, so making it expensive wouldn't work for them. The way they use to make better profit is done trough looking for ways to make the production cheaper and producing many games at a time while trying to sell many copies. That helps that games come shallow but they are very dependent of creativity which can come from anywhere; the game market seems like still looking for a way to stabilze, and these people get lots of money already.
Just to get one thing straight....World In Conflict doesn't have any in game advertising except for the intro screen of nvidia. All billboards, fast food joints etc are fictional.
One of the "In game advertisement' in WiC
Just........lol. Uranium 235 you sir are wrong. A rant like this does not belong in a forum, it belongs in a blog in your personal website, that way you don't clog other forums with such a ****** post.
You sir are a minority. Accept it, live with it, don't bother the rest of us with your whining. The majority of PC gamers do not view in-game advertising as an unholy plague upon us. The majority of us do not understand your "logic", and after reading the way you responded to your first critic, we do not care about anything else you have to say. The majority of us do not think Oblivion is the worst game we ever played, we did enjoy it. The majority of us do not care about reviewers who only bother to whine about a game's faults on their reviews, and we do like for reviewers to highlight the good sides of a game, that is why we buy the games and play them and enjoy them. The majority of us do not think our standards are "low", that is why they are "standards" in the first place, because the majority accepts them.
Please stop posting such **** on the forums, or at least try and have a decent discussion.
I really enjoyed oblivion. The voice actiing, while mundane after awhile, doesn't bother me. I think Uranium would rather Bethesda recruited 300 voice actors or something rediculous like that.
Anyways, I'm only going to address the first part of the op, ingame adverts. As long as they are unobtrusiv (like ingame billboards) and don't keep me from playing my game, I generally don't notice them, and depending on what time period the game is based in, I have found that some can actually add immersion to a game, if they are appropriate. And generally (in the case of lump sum deals, which you are using for your example) it's only the company of the advert that gets the return investment on the ingame adds, and that's only if you go out and buy their product BECAUSE of the ingame ad.
Anyways, that's my two cents.
While yes the majority do set the standard, not always does the majority set the bar as high as they could. Also it is not uncommon for the majority to decide to drop the bar. ie witch hunts and other "accepted standards". Which we now look at and cringe how "The Majority" actually thought those "Standards" were acceptable.
Over the years I have watched gaming go from Gamers demanding high quality games that ran well with little problems, to gamers who clamor to get the hottest and the latest with no cares if the game is poorly written and crashes constantly. But why should they? Ive seen many switch from game to game hollering look at me Im playing this game its so awesome, im so awesome.. huggle me.. folks in the 80's did the same thing with Jordache labels too. Gaming has become a fashion statement, If you dont have the latest and greatest, your not hip... Gaming has evolved, not always is evolution for the best
I played MechWarrior for most a decade. 1 game. I loved it and followed it thru the expansion packs, as it too evolved it became more of a pushed game pounded out to appease the masses of folks who dint care about the games quality or depths. Eventually it was disected, dummied down and made in to a Xbox only game. ( We the loyal MW community had to go buy Xboxes if we wanted to continue playing a game WE helped make popular..) The skill was gone, the fun was gone,but hey they sold a ton to folks who bought the game and played for a few weeks til the next hottest game was out.
I am disapointed with the gaming industry as a whole, no longer do the majority put out games that make the long haul, today its bash out another title, get the sheep interested and the cash will flow.. who cares if it works or is a game worth playing more than 5 days, they willl forget all about it tomorrow when we release the next shiny title.
HG_Eliminator prefers a reviewer that can actually do both and be unbiased. I dont want to be filled with Fluff,Nor do I want to be talked out of a good game because the Reviewer has a bone to pick with the MFG's. I want the full facts, not a sheet pulled over my eyes and then find the game sux when I buy it
As for the IGA.. if they actually used the revenues to pay for dev and support "above the normal level of support and Free upgrades, Extras" It would be a good thing.
Remember when IGA was touted to offer more support and more free content etc??? * In Game Advertising will offer us more revenues to be able to offer more content for free as well as hire more developers for support. The benefits to the gamers will outweigh the annoyances and they will be smartly placed as not to detract from the realism and over all gaming experience.* Well wheres the tons of content and support?
While I do not follow the Ops full scope, I do feel ripped off to an extent about IGA. As I do remember the promises made if IGA was accepted.
HG_Eliminator (Khan of the "Honor Guard" Mechwarrior Gaming unit.) *AKA* JF_Incommand, Former Khan of the Jade Falcon Clan.
Props to any MechWarriors still out there trying to find a new Home.
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