Auto Assault NDA lifted

[cevik]

Auto Assault® takes a bold step away from traditional fantasy-based online role-playing games.

Translation:  "Holy crap, we've completely failed to make an interesting game at all.  Quickly, lets try to get people (schild) to play the 'zomg wtf, u have 2 by 'dis bcause it not teh fantazy!1!!  if u don by 'dis, der will b m0r w0w clone!1!1 zomg LOLOLOLOL!11' card."

EDIT:  Signe didn't like my nested quotes.

[Signe]

Stupid Signe.  What the hell is she talking about?  She hated that game!

[cevik]

Stupid Signe.  What the hell is she talking about?  She hated that game!

Hey I just wanted to source you for the original quote.  After all the quoted material was being quoted from your post.  Honesty in reporting.

[d4rkj3di]

I got a press release this morning:

14 March 2006
NCSOFT CHOOSES MASSIVE NETWORK FOR IN-GAME ADVERTISING
http://www.bastion.co.uk/link.asp?i=1113&r=8370&r2=6231

Consider this game DOA.

[Nija]

Even if I hadn't been in this beta briefly, I probably wouldn't be that interested, either, for one of the same reasons I'm not keen on EVE.  I like looking at how cute I am in games.  It's a nice contrast to the mirror. 

You can be pretty in Eve.



See!

[Stormwaltz]

14 March 2006
NCSOFT CHOOSES MASSIVE NETWORK FOR IN-GAME ADVERTISING
http://www.bastion.co.uk/link.asp?i=1113&r=8370&r2=6231

Consider this game DOA.

In-game advertising is one of my hot-buttons, second only to Starforce. Sadly, I'll be cancelling my preorder. It really does bother me that much. I have no objection to AO-style implementation, where you get a free account if you look at the advertisements. Expecting me to pay a premium subscription and look at ads? No, I don't think so.

[Rasix]

I was mildly curious before.. now. Heh, saves me a download.

[Venkman]

Yea, just saw this over at Gamasutra.

Storm, do you know for sure this isn't a replacement for the monthly fee requirement? I only ask out of curiosity. I never intended on buying AA, and haven't even logged in for months.

[Signe]

14 March 2006
NCSOFT CHOOSES MASSIVE NETWORK FOR IN-GAME ADVERTISING
http://www.bastion.co.uk/link.asp?i=1113&r=8370&r2=6231

Consider this game DOA.

In-game advertising is one of my hot-buttons, second only to Starforce. Sadly, I'll be cancelling my preorder. It really does bother me that much. I have no objection to AO-style implementation, where you get a free account if you look at the advertisements. Expecting me to pay a premium subscription and look at ads? No, I don't think so.

I have to agree.  The last thing I want is adverts in my games... isn't that the reason many of us use DVR?  I really hope this isn't successful.  If it is, everyone will be doing it.

[Soukyan]

In-game advertising is one of my hot-buttons, second only to Starforce. Sadly, I'll be cancelling my preorder. It really does bother me that much. I have no objection to AO-style implementation, where you get a free account if you look at the advertisements. Expecting me to pay a premium subscription and look at ads? No, I don't think so.

I posted this in response to this exact topic elsewhere, but rather than attempt to retype and reword, here are my thoughts on the matter, because it has the potential to be a good or bad thing, based on perspective and bias.

I'm not fond of seeing advertisements when I am already paying for a service either, but look at the other possibilities here:

1. Banner or No Banner plans for players. Remember the days of free web hosting WITH a banner ad displayed on your pages? Pay us monthly and the ad goes away. That's one possible use for this type of advertising in these games. Free account types to draw more players and still generate some sort of revenue by ads served.

2. Free game entirely supported by ad revenue. Is it possible?

I'm not so sure, but I know that Anarchy Online has been extending their free play of the original game with no expansions for what, two years now? The original offer was to have been available only for a year and I created an account to screw around with since I no longer subscribed at the time. I am still not subscribed and can play classic AO. Granted, once a month, I get an offer to upgrade to the expansions for like 9.95 (with small print telling me that I will then have to begin paying a monthly fee), but I have not received any notice that my free account will die any time soon. Now I know that I see ads in-game in AO on billboards. I'm not sure if paying customers see the same thing, but if not, then this proves that my example #1 can work. How to implement it well is another discussion.

But taking this a step further, could FunCom put ads in for everyone and stop charging a monthly fee? Are the bandwidth and hardware costs such that the ad revenue would support them? Is ad revenue a shaky proposition because of the tenable nature of maintaining the advertisers on a month to month basis (see dot com bubble burst)? If ad revenue could support a MMOGs monthly costs, could a company remain solvent and still generate expansions for the game? And could those expansions be funded by box/online sales revenue? Looking to games like Guild Wars and Warcraft 2/3, it is apparent that expansion box sales pay for the costs of development, so it appears that this sort of MMOG implementation could work.

Taking this back to AA, why would they do this? Well, to me, it appears that NCSoft is hedging their bets. Based upon rather bad word of mouth about the game in its current state and the timeframe in which it has to reach release status, NCSoft might think they have a dud on their hands. So what do they do to prevent money loss on it? In-game ads. Why not? If AO can do it and turn over a little extra revenue with "free" accounts, then it can't be all bad. I've seen very little in the way of complaints about in-game ads (although I've yet to see them attempted in a medieval world ;). If AA bombs, at least they've got some additional revenue coming in to maintain the game and make it right or at least keep it solvent and perhaps build the playerbase over time as they correct all the problems and add the fun. But those are just my thoughts on it. Hell, if it bombs hard enough, NCSoft would be positioned to do the free account deal a la AO and still be able to maintain the game with no further development. Going free still looks better than closing the doors to the game (see Turbine and AC2 and the mistrust of gamers of Turbine with the Tolkien universe).

[Rasix]

I really hope this isn't successful.  If it is, everyone will be doing it.

That's all I want to see.  "Welcome to Molten Core brought to you by Pampers.  Forget the sock."

This at most will be successful in a Uwe Boll kind of way.  Everyone will hate it.  It'll be done in the most distasteful manner possible. It'll be mostly ridiculed while touted as a success by Netdevil.  In the end, it makes money, and humanity is worse off for it.

I'm really hoping this game goes down in flames faster than a Chris O'Donnell sitcom airing at 7pm Friday on Fox.

 

[Yegolev]

You can be pretty in Eve.

Ha, I almost fell out of my chair!  Congratulations!

[Soukyan]

I really hope this isn't successful.  If it is, everyone will be doing it.

That's all I want to see.  "Welcome to Molten Core brought to you by Pampers.  Forget the sock."

This at most will be successful in a Uwe Boll kind of way.  Everyone will hate it.  It'll be done in the most distasteful manner possible. It'll be mostly ridiculed while touted as a success by Netdevil.  In the end, it makes money, and humanity is worse off for it.

I'm really hoping this game goes down in flames faster than a Chris O'Donnell sitcom airing at 7pm Friday on Fox.

 

You hit the nail on the head. In the end , it makes money. Vive la capitalism!

And as to how the game will do, didn't NetDevil also make JumpGate? Where is that these days? Sure it exists, but whether or not it was a success is arguable... you get the idea. Ads and NCSoft are going to be all that will save the game at this point in time. That's why NCSoft did it. They don't want to have a piiece of vapor in their online gaming line-up, nor do they want any massive "close the doors" failures to tarnish said line-up.

[WayAbvPar]

Are we sure this game isn't the result of some bet between billionaires as to who could produce the worst game and get get people to subscribe to it? EVERY step along the way NetDevil has made what I consider the wrong choice. Their consistency is amazing.

[Venkman]

Ingame advertising only pisses people off who are used to a time before them, probably similar to TV and Radio commercials.

Personally, I see as one possible harbringer of this the focus more on sci-fi and real-world theme titles. No matter how one spins it, advertisement in a medieval-fantasy game just doesn't work for the players. But also, of course, the genre is dominated by fantasy titles. So with the eventual rise of other environments can come more appropriate territory for advertising.

Whether I like it or not is irrelevant, but I will say I don't mind it in those games where it adds to immersion. If I see Coca Cola ads in GTA or AA, fine. It makes sense. I'd personally rather see Coke ads than "generic drink I've never heard about". That's why I didn't hate the use of McDonald's advertising (and others) in the movie Fifth Element (though if you watch it on FX, you notice they cut the scenes with McDonald's and covered any surface that had the logo on it), or Taco Bell from Demolition Man. Light hearted use to create believable connections to the current world.

When it violates my immersion though, then I don't like it.

[Soukyan]

Are we sure this game isn't the result of some bet between billionaires as to who could produce the worst game and get get people to subscribe to it? EVERY step along the way NetDevil has made what I consider the wrong choice. Their consistency is amazing.

You might be on to something there.

[tazelbain]

Once you drop the subscription fee, we can talk about other payment models.

[Stormwaltz]

Storm, do you know for sure this isn't a replacement for the monthly fee requirement?

I saw nothing to suggest that in the press release. If that is the case, I would be much less offended by the decision, and opt-out through subscription if I could. I get deluged in enough advertising over the course of the day. I don't care to see it in my games as well.

Ingame advertising only pisses people off who are used to a time before them.

Yes, the cable TV argument. I don't buy it. Or rather, I buy my way out of it. I can understand the need to generate a revenue stream for a "live" product, to continue funding development. My opinion is that in the case of MMGs, that's what we pay monthly subscription fees for. Subscription + ads rankles me.

[HaemishM]

The advertising revenue being able to fund things on the Internet burst for a lot of reasons, but mostly because the advertisers themselves finally realized that just having someone see your ad wasn't enough. They actually wanted someone to CLICK the ad, and then they wanted that person to convert to a paying customer. In short, they wanted results, and most of the places they were advertising on just plain couldn't deliver; all they could deliver was eyeballs on the ad. Shit, TV does that and has established metrics. The Net ads could provide the eyeballs AND they could provide the metrics about where the customer went at every step of the process and where they bailed out or continued on. So podunk sites that specialized in drawing eyeballs (re: portals) failed because the advertisers actually wanted to see results and the podunk's results showed all they did was bring viewers not customers.

Ad revenue in games is a good thing, so long as the ads are done right. But they won't fund a game all by themselves. And there are more effective ways of having ads in medieval fantasy games than billboards that don't belong or other stupid shit like /pizza. Those annoying ass logo screens when you first launch a game could easily be used as ads, patcher screens could deliver ads, hell the client could direct the user's web browser to the advertiser's web site once the client was exited. All of which is annoying without being immersion-destroying.

[Soln]

is there any published evidence (market research) that proves that in-game advertising actually works?  I mean, stuff like Doubleclick/Ominture tags being tracked and some actual click-through revenues published?  Or is this more just bad business-type-A thinking?  I don't understand companies that spaghetti test things like this otherwise.

[d4rkj3di]

I don't know about any market research, but Massive was at a game marketing conference last week talking about it.  And there is another upcoming conference dedicated specifically to advertising in games.  Maybe we could get lucky and Massive will get a noob cab driver and stay lost for the whole week.

[Nebu]

When it violates my immersion though, then I don't like it.

I must be an anomaly.  Seeing people named Legolaz or XxxxRumpRangahxxx tends to violate my immersion more than seeing a banner ad for Nike shoes. 

If in-game advertising provides me with a fun game that's properly maintained and relatively bug-free, then I'll happily quaff Diet Pepsi heal potions while eating a Big Mac for stamina.

[Krakrok]

I didn't really notice static "billboard" objects in AutoAssault. When you exit AutoAssault they dump you to their website where you rate the experience between 1 and 10.

Planetside shows full motion video ads w/ sound for TV shows and movie trailers in the empire home base areas. The ads in the combat areas that I've seen so far have been limited to animated images only without sound. Most of the ads also seem to be for Sony properties like the Station Pass, Sony movies, other Sony games, etc. Bullet hole sprites don't stick to the ads.

EVE has a floating billboard ad at every jumpgate but so far the ad is only for ingame lore based stuff.

Branding advertising (vs. direct response) is up ~20% over last year.

[Lanei]

From: http://boards.autoassault.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=109587&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1#109587

One thing I always felt was missing from AA was the remnants of modern real world culture, which if you take a look around any urban center, is oversaturated with ads, billboards, posters, etc. It's a fact of the landscape. For example, why wouldn't you find an old rusted out Coke can in this world?

Until now, we haven't been able to use any real company logos or advertisements (and have had to in some cases, specifically alter or remove things that were close), which means there's always a bit of a subtle disconnect with the real world locations Auto Assault is supposed to take place in.

The use of Massive's technology allows us the legal right to use those materials in a way that enhances the setting. Judging from what I've seen so far, I think everyone will appreciate the treatment we're going with and it will be a positive gain for immersion.

Sounds more like "we need to do this to get the rights to use their copyrighted ads in our game on rusted out old billboards that you can blow up."  If that is truly, and solely[/u[] the case, then I don't have a problem with it.  Theres a crapload of half-blownup, rusted and aged billboards in game.. for stuff and places that are changed 'just enough' from the real locations or products they advertise.   Meanwhile the terrain in game is practically modeled from topograpic maps of real world locations (start a mutant character and tell me the tutorial location isn't Boulder Canyon, NV and Hoover Dam) .. I'd have no problem at all with it being a Coca-cola billboard I jsut blew up by the side of the road, instead of a soundslikecoca-cola one.

[Krakrok]

The use of Massive's technology allows us the legal right to use those materials in a way that enhances the setting. Judging from what I've seen so far, I think everyone will appreciate the treatment we're going with and it will be a positive gain for immersion.

Andy Warhol is probably rolling in his grave.

[Venkman]

is there any published evidence (market research) that proves that in-game advertising actually works

I think it's too new, relatively speaking. Games aren't really considered "serious" places in which to advertise, at least insofar as serious advertisers are concerned. I think part of the problem is that while games can be hyped into hundreds of thousands in sales, there's such a high churn rate that attention is lost rather quickly. Further, games themselves have not really been taken seriously as an industry until rather recently, and mostly because of negativity.

Heck, it's only really been in the last few years where the product placement's been such big business in televison.

Ingame advertising is sorta more analagous to Product Placement than the Banner Ads that Haemish references as part of the dot.com bust. I mean, sure, you could click a banner ingame and be launched into a browser window, but the act of doing so is even less likely to happen than clicking a banner ad. What remains though is something Banner Ads could never do:

Provide relevance.

Ingame Advertising isn't about billboards. It's about using a Browning 9mm gun instead of just a 9mm, drinking Coke instead of Generic_Powerup_00 or driving a Ferrair instead of some car stylers wet dream. Games, like TVs and Movies, can all use product placement to link properties to protagonists to objectives to plot. It's not easy of course, but that's where I think the promise is for those who think there's promise.

[Margalis]

Most of advertising is really just getting the product name out there and keeping it out there. The message really isn't nearly as important most of the time. Look at beer - every beer ad by every beer company is basically the same. There is no message at all.

Your message matters if you are doing something like selling a database to a fortune 500 company. For consumer products name recognition is all that's important. So I would guess in-game product placement works fine.

[Trippy]

I'm like Stormwaltz and hate in-game advertising. I also hate Internet advertising in general with a passion and go to great lengths to disable that sort of stuff. Which is ironic since I worked at an early competitor to DoubleClick back in the day.

For those of you who haven't seen the Massive system in action here are some screenshots from PlanetSide. Fortunately it was easy enough to disable the ads in game though I expect that to get more difficult in the future if it isn't already.

Ingame advertising is sorta more analagous to Product Placement than the Banner Ads that Haemish references as part of the dot.com bust. I mean, sure, you could click a banner ingame and be launched into a browser window, but the act of doing so is even less likely to happen than clicking a banner ad.

In game advertising in an MMO with technology like Massive's goes far far beyond a banner ad or even product placement. With a system like Massive's the advertiser can tell *exactly* who looked at the ad, for how long, which parts of the ad they looked at, and from what angle. In other words unless you lied in your Account profile and pay only by time cards advertisers can know your name, age (or date of birth), sex, where you live and whatever other personal information you filled in and tie that into the ads you looked at. It's a fucking advertiser's wet dream. Now I don't know if Massive's system is currently tied to personal account info but it can obviously easily be done and the other technology aspects (info about how the ads were viewed) are already in place and being used (it's something Massive likes to brag about to their advertising partners).

[schild]

Ya know, if everyone hated internet advertising, the internet would fall apart. Half of the companies and websites you like - they'd cease to exist. It's high time everyone learned to fucking deal with it. If I like a website, I'll go decent lengths to click on any ads they might have, even if they're terribly annoying. The same will eventually go with games. And when everything goes to RMT, I'll set aside $15 a month to pay for my gaming in that game.

It's just how things have to be.

[Stormwaltz]

It's just how things have to be.

Horse puckey. Nothing has to be any one way, so long as the game gets enough to keep going. Warcry.com offers an ad-free subscription service on their network. AO offers ad-supported free subscriptions. That's the way things should be.

To be blunt, if your MMG can't be profitable collecting $15 a month per subscriber, your business model needs a reality check somewhere.

[schild]

RMT is the future. It really, really is. It may be far off, but it's inevitable. Client is free. Playing is free. Uberness is not free. It's a fantastic way to do things. Buy tokens in a shop, use those tokens in game. But everyone still sees the ads. You know what, I'm OK with that. I pay taxes for nice clean roads, but there are still billboards that I find hideous that don't even cater to me. But it makes sense that they're there. If I'm spending 1-8 hours in a game, I'd expect ads in some places. Sure, there should be a set of rules, no ads should appear on main quest routes, in quest instances, etc. But for the most part, Developers should work hand in hand with people who want to advertise to make the ads blend in cleverly. It'd be more effective.

As for websites...Yes, the alternative is to pay to get RID of ads. That's fantastic. And supports my entire point. Instead of clicking on an ad once a month and them getting .10c. You're paying them $15 to not see it. In other words you're paying them 150x what they'd get from you seeing the ad. I'd rather click the ad. I don't see why anyone would not click the ad. Advertisements apparently touched people in the wrong place at some point.

As for websites that let you punch a donkey for a free PS3 (Blues news started doing those). That's just weak fucking sauce.

At the end of the day, it's not about "profit" it's about providing the best game experience and total package available. If advertising money gets me more content per year, or an extra skilled quest writer, or another expansion pack every 2 years, it's worth SUFFERING THROUGH. I think the real problem is that people just let it bother them. Fuck, it's really not that goddamn bad.

Edit: I mean dev controlled RMT btw, think Gunbound or Gunz, etc. Not IGE.

[5150]

The problem I have with clicking on web ads is the whole slew of java/adware/spyware bollocks you probably just invited in to your PC for milk and cookies

If advertisers had some integrity (yeah right!) maybe people wouldnt be so anti-adverts (what I'm basically saying is the bloodsucking marketing types have brought this on themselves)

Personally I have Javascript set to prompt - sure it bugs the piss out of me every page but at least the machine stays clean

I dont have a problem with in game ads if they are done correctly, Matrix Online, Neocron and Anarchy Online did them well, Planetside did not. Unfortunately this kinda comes down to the games settings, I just cant see adverts working in a fantasy settings regardless of how well they are done

"Hail barkeep, how many silver pieces for your finest wanta fanta?"

[Murgos]

I pay taxes for nice clean roads, but there are still billboards that I find hideous that don't even cater to me.

Bad analogy.  Billboards are on private property off of the public right of way.  In MMO terms they are on the fansites.

[Venkman]

Now I don't know if Massive's system is currently tied to personal account info.

That's it right there. We don't know really. But there are people who have gotten in trouble for doing this sort of thing without full disclosure to the consumer, so we'd basically have to know if they're doing anything more than the average banner ad is doing (which measures click throughs, stickiness, and other things you know about).

RMT is the future.

Micropayments are the future. RMTing connotes the sort of unlocked uberness of weapon or armor purchases. Micropayments meanwhile are more abstract. It's the difference between EQ2's Exchange Enabled servers and everyone being able to buy an Adventure Pack.

RMTing is not the future because of this. While the industry makes a lot of money, it's not making that from a lot of people (much like MMOs actually). And true growth comes from more people, because there's only so much you can leech from a limited quantity of contributors.

But in general, I do agree with you that people just need to deal. I couldn't care any less about banner ads or those popup/under things or the highlighted hypertext at 1up or anything. I really find it amazing what pisses people off. There's an entire category of stuff I don't have the time to be bothered by. Advertising is one of them.

[Signe]

I'll assume that if the adverts in MMOs are too subtle, people won't notice them.  If they're not subtle enough not to notice, they'll probably annoy me.  Why can't they just put their adverts on their website... even in the forums?  I have clicked on adverts on websites if they are hawking something I might be interested in and sometimes to support a site I enjoy, like here.   I expect adverts on websites.  I can also avoid websites.  Maybe adverts in a game such as CoH or AA wouldn't bother me quite as much as one in WoW or EQ2 because of the game's environment... billboards and newspapers would look ok and my mind could deal with it.  You know, however, if it's a success of any sort that other games will give it a go.  I think my head would assplode if I was questing my way through Stormhold Keep and saw a Big Mac adverts scribbled on the wall. 

And Stormwaltz is right.. I already pay for my MMO... will I have to pay extra to avoid commercial interludes?  Or will I even have a choice?  Can I buy Tivo for my game?

(please add assplode and Tivo to the demented spell checker)