TV Style Ads in Console Games? No thanks.

[owsf2000]

An article over on Kotaku talks about a push to bring TV styled commercials in console games.

The tech would basically be licensed out to game devs to use. Instead of being something to show players in the middle of a game, it'll be something that players would choose to view to get a "reward".

So expect essentially more microtransactions which will get shittier and shittier. Eventually they'll get down to a point where you'll get a tiny bit of in-game currency to buy (eventually after 1000 ads) some cosmetic item. I give them 5 years to get to that point.

Either way they'll add more and more of them and do more and more to force players to watch them.

I can just see an RPG where all the treasure chests are locked - and keys are only given when you watch X ads. I could further see them turning the keys given randomized. Will you get a bronze, silver, gold, or platinum key? They'll match the chests so hopefully you watch enough ads!

It's likely going to be at least 2-3 years before I bother looking at buying a PS5, so we'll see how bad it gets by then. It'll probably make my decision easy.

Comments

[kane_magus]

I was just thinking of cable TV, which was pitched as "TV without commercials" when it first started up (despite recent attempts to rewrite history to try to say that that was never the case, which will probably also happen concerning commercials in video games 50 years from now or whatever). No commercials because one pays for it, as opposed to free, over-the-air TV with commercials. But now, there are commercials out the wazoo even on cable TV. And while a few grumble about it, and some even "cut the cord" to get away from it, most just blithely continue to pay for commercial-infested cable without a care in the world. Because it's what they're used to. And the streaming shit like Hulu or whatever that lots of people are "cutting the cord" to switch to, that shit has ads now, too, even though that's also something they're already paying for. And even with Netflix, which still boasts no commercials (for now), they get around not having commercials by having egregious product placement in its shows. (See also: video games.)

Sort of like how video gamers just blithely continue to buy DRM/DLC/always online/"surprise mechanics"-infested video games without a care in the world. Because it's what they're used to. If/when forced commercials in console games ever becomes the "norm," that trend will most assuredly continue. And even before it just becomes generally accepted, the shills will be like "Well, it's already like that in mobile games, is it really so bad in console games, too? Think of the poor, pitiful, money-starved developers/publishers. They have to feed their kids too, don't they?" or some shit, just like they always do. And eventually, everyone will just... accept it. Sames as with all the other dogshit.

(And if you think about it, some games already force you to watch "ads" when the games start up, via the too-often unskippable company logo screens that sometimes take up to a minute or more to get through, every single time the game is started up. That's not exactly the same thing, of course, but it goes to show that they already don't care about inconveniencing end users to shove company logos down their throats. It's to the point now where games like Lair of the Clockwork God are even parodying it by having logos run forever, until you finally click a button to move on to the game proper.)