Interesting Stuff 7/30/2008

Some random stuff that I found interesting today:

Google Ads in Games soon – Keep your crappy ads out of my games.  ANY game – I don’t care if it’s WAR, Warcraft 4, or the next best gamne ever to be made – If it includes Google Adsense Ads I will never even give it the time of day.  Keep your crappy advertisements for shoes and Cheap WoW Gold to yourselves.   Can you imagine?  I’m at a NPC Vendor in The Inevitable City trying to buy a pair of shoes with my renown points and when I hover over an item I’m interested in it shows me a Google Adsense block next to the “What you currently have equipped” box with relevant Cheap Zapatos from Spain!

“We see that you’re resting to recover your mana… now would be a perfect time to make some HOT POCKETS!

Warhammer Online’s System Reqs are revealed – It looks like they’re keeping with the moderately low entry barrier for hardware.   Mythic recently said that any computer from the past 3 years should have no trouble.  This pretty much confirms it.

Tom Clancy’s HAWX Delayed – Another day, another delay, another reason to complain about the gaming drought.  Don’t expect this one until 2009.  Bets on which game will be delayed next?

Richard Garriott is sending gamer DNA into space – “A select few will have their DNA digitized and sent. And, theoretically, if anything happens to the human race, it could be their DNA that is used to resurrect humanity”, said Garriott.   Heaven help us all… A new breed of humanity that actually likes Tabula Rasa…

  • Those WAR system reqs are awesome news, I was expecting something kind of close to AoC reqs, but those are really low.

    This makes me extremely happy as I can put off upgrading my PC for a while longer now.

  • I think the reality of in-game ads, is a far cry from what most gamers are imagining. Does anyone really think Half-life 3 will be littered with Google ads? Not a chance. I can see big name studios taking the Hollywood route, all those random snacks in Doom3 are suddenly Doritos and Mountain Dew. Product placement, ok! Annoying commercials would mean I’m back to table-top RPGs and BB-gun fights…where’d I put those d20s?

  • I’m skeptical of the system reqs they list. I won’t believe them until I see a version of the client running well on my (3 year old) PC.

    Running at ten frames per second at the lowest possible resolution with a draw distance of ten feet and stick figure character models is pretty different from playable. Still, I’m glad to see that they are at least shooting low.

  • @Google ads in games ~ a similar thing was tried already in Hellgate and that got a very negative reaction from the gaming community. I think the tide pushing against it will withstand even the mighty Google for a while yet.

    @WAR PC specs: I always read MINIMUM as specs for INSTALLATION but for PLAYING (at an acceptable level) you have to be looking at RECOMMENDED. This has the been the case in the PC industry for eons and I don’t think WAR will be any different.

  • A wow gold advertisement is the kind of chaos that Tzeentch just loves. That motherfucker knows how to diversify his profit margins.

  • @Railith: Now that’s a good idea! Mythic could work out a deal with gold spammers to run in game ads but only for WoW gold. Any characters that try and sell anything for WAR would instantly be teleported to the closest temple of Khaine where they would become a sacrifice to the god of murder.

  • Ads in games are nothing new, I mean, Red Bull in Wipeout, that was what, 12 years ago?

    Adsense may be a bit odd tho, trying to cater to your needs based on what you buy in the AH?

    I think more likely, it’ll just be like product placement in movies, nobody really notices much.

  • Yeah I’m looking forward to Brutal Hauberk of Wallmart, or Giant Shield of Replenishing with a Gatorade logo on it. ^^

  • In game ads, yea maybe in games that take place in our time and world. Putting a Coca Cola ad in WoW is just a no no.

    And for the WAR system requirements, I always read the recommended stats only. Why do they even write the minimum requirements, most of the time it’s barely playable with lowest settings.

  • In-game ads are fine, when they offer a value to the customer. For example: Anarchy Online’s limited, but free client that is ad supported. Unfortunately, it is limited.

    In-game ads which earn developers money, but offer nothing to the customer are absolutely stupid. For example: Battlefield 2142 displays advertisements. However, EA does not HOST the majority of the game servers for BF2142. The server operators, players themselves, are paying to host servers that EA is making money off of. How that has not wound up in the court room yet is beyond me! Not to mention, the game still cost $50-$60 to buy!

    EA may have learned something though, as BF2142 didn’t fair nearly as well as other Battlefield titles. Battlefield: Heroes will be free to download and play, but will be ad supported with micro transactions, which to me is fine as long as players can’t buy their way into dominant positions.

    If WAR offered a free to download and play client that was ad supported and in no way limited, I would use it. Hell, I may even consider it if it offered a few bucks off each month.

    I don’t see the Google announcement at all shocking. Free web browser games are making millions off of Google ads already, so Google may now simply skip the middleman as they move into “real games”. Plus, Google just started Lively up.

    Also, Werit has a point that product placement can be done right. Racing games are a good example. Futuristic FPS games with giant Fanta Girl billboards would be a bad example.

    I think the major point about Google ads is that they are very dubious in regards to MMOs. Most keywords are locked up by the gold sellers unfortunately. Google sadly does not give great control over the ads that get displayed, unless you are a huge revenue generator for them and they can hold your hand.

  • Product placement and covert ads are not that big of a deal for me when they don’t hinder immersion. The ads in BF2142 were a joke and impacted my gameplay very little. However, Goodle ADSENSE ads (those block ads you see everywhere) are intrusive, ugly, and never relevant. Pretty big difference there in my opinion.

  • If it is a free client i think it is ok.

    If they gave you a choise between ads, or paying a fee i also think that is ok.

    If you have to pay a fee and they put ads, i quit.

  • Good point Ogrebears. If it’s free with ads I can’t really complain, unless they’re extremely obtrusive. If there are ads in a game that I have paid for or continue to pay for on a regular basis then that’s where I firmly draw the line.