Poll: Replace monthly fees with in game advertising?

[painfull2006]

I just had an idea, I was looking at the new star wars MMORPG and wondering if it was going to be pay monthly or not

Then I realised, why not just replace monthly fees with in game advertising?

Think about it, they could charge the companies judging on how many people visit the town or whatever the advertising is in, think of all the retro coca-cola adverts you could see in the likes of WoW or the ultra futuristic car adverts in the new star wars game

I would much rather see some custom DEV made adverts in games than have to pay monthly for there servers

What do you think?

 

[spudz47]

Whatever is free is ok...
As long as I don't hear the word "pay" outside the gameplay you can put whatever you want in there. Heck - put my mother naked in there, if it's free!

 

[pantsoffdanceoff]

Thats seems like a good idea. However its too good of an idea for a game developer to even consider.

 

[ace_of_something]

City of Heroes has had in game ads for a while. The bilboards around the cities are real bilboards.

 

[painfull2006]

City of Heroes has had in game ads for a while. The bilboards around the cities are real bilboards.

Yeah, that's the sort of thing id like to see instead

 

[Cpt_Oblivious]

Yea, mostly. But ti won't work in games like WoW unless they change a lot of their ads to suit the medium and setting.
FPS's and Modern / Futer -setting games I'm fine with it unless it's intrusive. Background billboardsa dn vending machines etc are ok. As are people saying "Want a Pepsi?" in the game. I wouldn't notice.

 

[Simalacrum]

free is good, but in game advertising shouldn't ruin the atmosphere of a game... should be like free-play Runscape, in which the advertisement stretches across the top of the gaming itself, but doesn't interfere

 

[Glerken]

City of Heroes has had in game ads for a while. The bilboards around the cities are real bilboards.

Yeah, that's the sort of thing id like to see instead

But is City of Heroes free?

 

[painfull2006]

If the developers designed the adverts or at least modified them then they wouldnt ruin the emersion would they? surely it would just increase it?

 

[darkcow55]

Don't worry, they'll figure out a way to have product placement AND charge you a monthly fee AND have micro-transactions.

 

[AssassinX66]

That would be nice. As long as it isn't money out of my wallet it works for me.

 

[ace_of_something]

City of Heroes has had in game ads for a while. The bilboards around the cities are real bilboards.

Yeah, that's the sort of thing id like to see instead

But is City of Heroes free?

It isn't. In addition to the billboards though they have vending machines and ads on the sides of buses.

 

[painfull2006]

So CoH has monthly fees and bad advertising, Im sure if a company did it right everyone would be happy

 

[fix-the-spade]

Not practical.

WoW not withstanding I don't think there's any MMO that could attract enough advertising revenue to support itself. Even Warcraft would struggle as the amount of money needed would be astronomical, it wouldn't be a cost effective method for clients.
Steam has plenty of advertising in it (as do a lot of private Valve game Servers), but Steam in of itself generates revenue, so it's not dependant it.

You could certainly supplement monthly fees with advertising, but as stand alone funding for MMO's it's just not practical.

 

[painfull2006]

Ok, so maybe replacing fees for good wouldn't work

say... if you paid like a normal rate for the first 12 months and then its free?

Then there would be the dedication factor of not wanting to waist the money and the companies would get even more money with the advertising?

 

[Chinchama]

Free is good, however, it would suck to have to sit through a 60 second advertisement ever 30 minutes of game play. But like in COD4 during the intermission periods between rounds a little add up in the corner wouldn't be bothersome since you have to wait anyways.

 

[Sunshinyday]

Perhaps it would depend upon the type of game...
For example, a racing-car game can have the 'NASCAR-ish' ads on the cars, and billboards as one races around, be it on a track or a Baja-type of race, but it would spoil immersion in fantasy games like Everquest, Lord of the Rings Online, Final Fantasy, etc...

 

[Glerken]

Even if adverts were placed in online games, and they were made free, greediness would show its head and micro-payments would come into play.

 

[fix-the-spade]

say... if you paid like a normal rate for the first 12 months and then its free?

Still not entirely practical. Even though you'd stop paying the costs of running/moderating/bugfixing the servers would remain. It would also mean that as server traffic increased with more loyal players, the amount of money coming in would go down.

I think Free and MMO will never truly meet. There will always be either a subscription or micro transactions to make sure the player forks out.