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ET: QUAKE Wars to Include Ads

[Jun 19, 2007, 9:21 pm ET] - Share - Viewing Comments

A Word About In-Game Ads on the Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars Official Community Site reveals plans to include in-game advertising in Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars, saying this will fund post-release support for the upcoming multiplayer shooter:

Hi, I'm Neil Postlethwaite, Splash Damage's Managing Director and one of the Producers on Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars. I'd like to talk to you today about the in-game advertising we have in ETQW.

For the last four years, we've put all of our effort into making Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars. So, we're not planning to ship this game and walk away. We want to keep supporting ETQW in as many ways as possible. We'll be maintaining the persistent stats servers and the community site, and continuing to support ETQW with updates and improvements.

To help cover this level of on-going support without passing the costs on to the gamer, ETQW will feature appropriate advertisements in select locations of our levels. The ads aren't intrusive and you won't have to interact with them; they'll just be part of the normal environment. In fact, there are some places it's quite odd not to have an advertisement - the sides of container trucks, for example. Great care is being taken to ensure that all our ads are appropriate for the game world and we have absolute approval rights in this area. If it's not appropriate or it's distracting, it won't go in.

The company providing the ad system does not and will not store any personal information or data that otherwise can be used to identify you. All they track is if and how long you look at the advertisements.

For those of you participating in the upcoming beta, you will get a chance to see them for yourself very soon. And of course we will be releasing a demo prior to the retail launch of the game so everyone can check them out first.

Choosing to place ads in Enemy Territory was not a decision we made lightly. However, in doing so we hope to be able to provide a higher level of on-going support to the Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars community than would have been possible otherwise.

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72.

Re: Here we go again.

Jun 20, 2007, 00:14

Beamer

Advertising is never "unobtrusive." You'll always notice it.

Sure it is.

EA did it amazingly in Def Jam: Fight for NY.

All of the ads fit the game. And none were obtrusive. One level was a subway station. The station had three billboards in the background, one when the action was to the left, one when the action was to the right, and one in the middle there all the time. The left and right ones were Axe ads, put in perfectly to match the surroundings. The middle one was blank.
In another part of the game you saw a Stuff Magazine hanging on the wall. It was almost instantly covered with a menu.
All the other name brands in the game fit the theme.

I can't applaud the advertising in that game enough. Nothing bothersome at all.
Compare that to SSX: Tricky where an entire level was so dedicated to some shitty car that you actually snowboarded through it. Not a single frame was lacking the car name. That game got tossed.

I'll gleefully boycot games that take advertising too far. I'll gleefully support those that are restrained. I think advertising has a place in games, but the devs can't let it become the game.

That said, this idea sucks. I'll do the beta for this game, but I can no longer see a purchase happening. As everyone has mentioned, it's the future. Even if you're doing it that these are ads from before the world went to hell it sucks. Have some fun making interesting futuristic ads, don't give us random shit.

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Comment [quote="Beamer"Jun 20, 2007, 00:14]q[Advertising is never "unobtrusive." You'll always notice it.]q Sure it is. EA did it amazingly in Def Jam: Fight for NY. All of the ads fit the game. And none were obtrusive. One level was a subway station. The station had three billboards in the background, one when the action was to the left, one when the action was to the right, and one in the middle there all the time. The left and right ones were Axe ads, put in perfectly to match the surroundings. The middle one was blank. In another part of the game you saw a Stuff Magazine hanging on the wall. It was almost instantly covered with a menu. All the other name brands in the game fit the theme. I can't applaud the advertising in that game enough. Nothing bothersome at all. Compare that to SSX: Tricky where an entire level was so dedicated to some shitty car that you actually snowboarded through it. Not a single frame was lacking the car name. That game got tossed. I'll gleefully boycot games that take advertising too far. I'll gleefully support those that are restrained. I think advertising has a place in games, but the devs can't let it become the game. That said, this idea sucks. I'll do the beta for this game, but I can no longer see a purchase happening. As everyone has mentioned, it's the future. Even if you're doing it that these are ads from before the world went to hell it sucks. Have some fun making interesting futuristic ads, don't give us random shit. ------------- Doomriders: the first new band worth a signature - http://www.deathwishinc.com/ [/quote]

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