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Advertising is a necessary irritant in the world today. You can't drive down the
street without coming across an ad, either a billboard suspended over a road or
a large poster plastered down the side of a bus. If you walk into a shopping
centre it doesn't matter where you look, you see an advertisement of some kind.
Even the tables in the food court now have ads embedded in them, and on my last
trip to Melbourne I noticed that they were starting to embed flat screen TVs
into the tables to deliver the full commercial experience to your meal. If you
jump on the Internet you have to contend with pop-ups and banner ads, with some
advertising agents being ruthless enough to write malicious code that embeds the
ad into your computer so that you still receive the pop-ups even when you're not
at the original site.
In the past, pop-ups and banner ads have been easy enough to avoid with the
right software installed (incidentally, am I the only one who finds pop-up ads
that advertise pop-up blockers tremendously amusing?) but now the software
developers have worked their way around that little problem. The solution was
simple; sell advertising space in your software, not just on your web page.
As much as I like to complain about this new idea, it does come with a
significant upside. These days, not all Shareware applications drop out after a
limited period of use, nor do they constantly remind you to register. Having ads
in the software provides the application developers with the necessary funding
to live but leaves the user free from having to pay to use the software. It ends
up being in the developer's best interest to ensure that the user continues to
use the software for as long as possible, because that means an increased
income. In my opinion this was a brilliant idea, and I wholeheartedly supported
it until they started building unblockable pop-ups into the software.
The gaming world is getting in on the act as well, which could be both positive
and negative. The Internet provides the functionality for games to constantly
update the virtual world with new billboards, TV ads, clothing and so on,
keeping the content fresh and the ads current. From an advertising standpoint
it's an amazing idea, people are spending less and less time watching TV and
more and more time immersed in virtual worlds. The interactive nature of the ads
means that they will remain in a player's mind for a lot longer than the TV ad
break that can be walked away from, flicked over or simply ignored. The game
developers on the other hand now have an added source of income, meaning that
they can take more risks without the fear of losing money.
Advertising in games is not a new idea, the soft drink '7-Up' created a game
many years ago called 'Cool Spot', which had the player controlling a red dot
with sunglasses in his quest to collect 7-Up logos. The game was remarkably
solid, leaving the players to enjoy the game while still getting its message
across. I played it a long time ago as a child, but I still remember how much
fun it was and exactly what product it was pushing. Pepsi released a Playstation
game called 'Pepsi Man' that involved a blue and white striped super-hero
running around collecting cans of Pepsi. Red Bull got in on the game with 'Wipeout'
featuring 'Red Bull' banners and a loading screen bearing the phrase "Increase
your reaction time with Red Bull". 'Worms 3D' featured Red Bull as a power up.
'Crazy Taxi' had customers jump in the player's taxi and holler "Take me to
KFC!" or any of the numerous other licensed locations in the game. 'True Crime'
had the characters dressed in 'Puma' attire, with the main character changing
his outfits several times throughout the game. Until now I've always thought
that the ads in games were amusing and, so long as they didn't interfere with
the playing of the game, I was all for them. However, there are new ideas afoot
that seem set to change my mind.
The main problem I have with ads in games now is the same as my issue with Pay
TV. You're shelling out a lot of money for a product (new games being sold for
upwards of $50.00 U.S.) and you're still getting ads. If developers are going to
start flooding my entertainment with advertising, I'd like to see a significant
drop in the price of games.
The other big issue is that of spyware. Until now, spyware has been a hated part
of existence. This malicious software digs its way into your system and collects
information about you: your Internet surfing habits, the contents of your hard
drive(s) and even the unblocked ports available on your computer. This has lead
to the necessity of loading a system with anti-spyware utilities to run
alongside the pop-up killers, anti-virus programs, firewalls, registry guards
and whatever other protective measures a paranoid PC user has to implement. Now
paradoxically, someone has had the 'fantastic' idea of building spyware into
software, and games in particular.
In the future the games that you've just paid such a high price for will sit
there monitoring you in the background, watching your every virtual move. Then
they can target ads that are more likely to have an impact on you based on the
contents of your hard drive or your Internet surfing habits. The best part about
it is that as soon as you click 'I Agree' and install the software, it becomes
legitimate and you've agreed for them to access information about you. Many
software products already feature clauses in their license agreements that have
the user permitting the developers to collect 'anonymous information in order to
provide the customer with a better experience'. The other part of this that irks
me is the fact that I'm going to have to have my computer connected to the
Internet and chew through my download limit just to play a single-player game.
In the end, I suppose that there's no way to avoid advertising in our current
world. Having it implemented into software and games was simply the next logical
step. I suspect that I will be looking to download the inevitable 'Ad Blocker'
cracks that I imagine will appear shortly after the wholesale introduction of
advertising into the gaming industry, but I do believe that with appropriate
tact and respect for privacy, advertising could turn out to be a positive
addition to the interactive experience.
About The Author
Daniel Punch
M6.Net
http://www.m6.net
danielp@m6.net
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