Well-
Where it doesn’t break the reality of the gameworld I don’t mind it. Obviously if I saw McDonald’s adds in Oblivion it would break my immersion a tad.
Here’s the latest EA streaming ad fiasco that has infested every copy of Skate.
Also, every notice how when you load a new area in Skate, it stops any background downloads? Or when going between holes in Tiger Woods 08, it pops up the “download stopped for x” message? That’s the game stopping your downloads to talk to the ad server to see if it has any ads it would like to stream into your game world.
Let me reiterate:
You’re downloading something in the background, and EA says “NOPE, stop everything, -WE NEED TO LOOK FOR ADS-. No downloading for you, ads are more important than anything you might want to do right now”.
In game ads are the best!
Those bother you? That they dare put advertisements where in the real world there would be… so they should make the games less realistic? Maybe you should stick with elves and fairies?
Man, that totally fuckin’ sucks. Too bad EA is the only publisher left…
Yes. I wouldn’t say they just bother me. I find them absolutely maddening.
As always you missed the part where they interrupt whatever the hell you’re downloading at the time. But do go on.
Sorry for taking your example of a subway hallway and thinking your were complaining about a subway hallway. I apologize and forgot _ OMG ADS ALALALALALWEFHEQWFGHJoiewphjfe rjpewhruioewhrewhro vwhr heaskljheskl f sdhjfags
Frankly I’m disappointed. You’re not even trying any more.
I think there’s a subtle difference between product placement that works within the game world and papering every surface with a completely unrelated advertisement, and it’s pretty obvious which example is being discussed here.
I don’t mind in-game ads as much in free games, but games I pay for? I paid for them. If you cannot make a profit off the money I gave you, perhaps you should rethink your business model.
Let me repeat myself: I did not pay $60 so my eyeball time could be resold or my bandwidth used for financial gain. I paid $60 for a fun gaming experience. If you are strip-mining that in pursuit of ad money, then my money will go elsewhere.
This is why I haven’t bought an EA Sports title in 3 years, and why I didn’t buy Battlefield 2142. And yes, it’s the only reason.
chet, can you honestly not see the difference between adding verisimilitude to a game by having a few real-world ads vs. EA covering the game world in Skate with a single ad, repeated over and over, for one of their own upcoming games?
As well as EA stopping anything else you happen to be doing on the console you own to grab ads to put into a game you paid $60 for?
Chet, can you see how someone might see a difference between ads showing up in a realistic context like the subway, and the exact same ad being on every possible ad surface in the world? (edit: sorry three other people made this point in the time it took me to type this)
flyinj, MS, EA’s not doing anything particularly nefarious by interrupting your downloads. Every 360 game will interrupt your background downloads if you’re doing anything online in the game. It obviously makes sense for multiplayer action where you don’t want bandwidth going to your demos in the background, but there are plenty of other interruptions. Checking for downloaded content, updating online leaderboards, etc. You’re going to run into that in any game. I recognize it might bug you that the only reason you’re getting interrupted here is for something you don’t want, but it’s not like they’re giving you an experience noticeably worse than other games by interrupting your downloads.
That’s not true. I can download in the background just fine when a game uploads/downloads leaderboard stats between races in some games. EA is intentionally shutting down everything to free up bandwidth for it’s ad streaming.
I purposely download car skins with all kinds of ads all the time… but racing cars are supposed to be that way, so that’s not what we are talking about.
And I don’t mind a few coke machines on some FPS map.
But keep the hell out of my bandwidth in a product I paid for. I paid for my hardware, pay for my bandwidth, paid for my game, yes MY game. Offer them for free and I can perhaps consider watching your ads… Or maybe I just prefer paying and not watching them.
I don’t mind in-game ads as much in free games, but games I pay for? I paid for them. If you cannot make a profit off the money I gave you, perhaps you should rethink your business model.
I guess the same could be said of product placement in movies, but I don’t disapprove of it entirely. It depends how well it is done. If a character is drinking Pepsi instead of Generic Cola, it can make a movie more realistic, and doesn’t harm it. On the other hand, if the movie stops to tell you you should buy something (my favorite example is in Back to the Future II, where Michael J. Fox has to deliver the line “All I want’s a Pepsi!”), then it goes too far.
Then I’ll have to shift to attacking your apostrophe abuse.
Sorry I don’t have examples, I can’t remember what games I’ve had it happen to me in. I just know it’s happened often enough that I just assume downloads are going to be interrupted from time to time if I’m gaming. I’m surprised your experience has been different, but maybe we just play totally different games.
Are the rest of you complaining about your bandwidth paying by usage? Is that like, a European thing or something? Aren’t most of us in the US just paying a flat fee for our residential broadband?
I would say you only notice this for the most part because they aren’t mixing in other ads yet. Of course I never even noticed the AXE ads as being out of place in R6 until the complaints here. I honestly haven’t seen the issue, I don’t obsess about it.
That is not to say there aren’t bad implementations, there are. I think last year’s NCAA football was unplayable because of the ads, but really in urban settings I just don’t notice it - unless they are all the default ads maybe then, but where they are set to be shown seem reasonable. I haven’t gotten a break yet to play skate so I am only going off the screen shots. Might I suggest people go outside and look around!?!?
As for the breaking the download, what Wholly Schmidt said… and how much bandwidth do you think they are using to show the default ads??? Huh? But that will be lost because of flyinj’s OMG ADS my TV no longer works… Which is always really funny that those people whose handles are plays on being ads themselves, complain the most about this stuff…
Chet