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kleptophobiac
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Sep 24, 2001
- Messages
- 7,839
I first got into serious gaming with Unreal and Halflife. It was a pleasurable pastime; it was a way to let go of the world and have honest entertainment for a few hours at a time. Times have changed since then. Back then, a user would walk into a store, buy a game, and use it forever with no additional strings attached. Then along came the "pay to play" MMO, and the pay once, play forever model became obsolete. Game boxes started to come with advertising leaflets in the boxes. Then they shed the boxes altogether (to cut costs).
Today I fired up CS 1.6 for the first time in about a month. What do I find? A game I first played in the last millennium now has in-game advertisements. The world has come and invaded my game, a game for which I paid full price. Nobody asked me if I wanted Valve to make more money off of me. Nobody asked if I wanted ads on my computer. The server operator (who has to support the burden of the bandwidth I consume) gets nothing from the advertising.
Publishers tell us that in-game advertising enhances the players' experience. It should add to the "realism" of a game. But games exist precisely because they are *not* real. If I wanted maximum realism in an FPS, I'd enlist in an army participating in the theatre of my choice. Publishers feel that advertising will be a benefit to the user in providing them information about products and services that they will find useful. This is the same hogwash that the television industry has been saying for years. How often do you stand up and relieve your bladder during television commercials? How many of you use personal video recorders specifically to avoid those obnoxious advertisements? How many pop-ups actually do you any good?
The advertising industry doesn't make sense. Companies make money to do things that consumers don't like, but because we are all consumers they all benefit in the end anyway. The false perception that more advertising is always better is leading us to a totally advertising saturated society. Ads on security trays in airports? "Admobile" vehicles dedicated to the sole purpose of distracting drivers? Where does the madness end? Clearly it won't.
Advertising is an attack on my senses, and I fight back as best as I can. I automatically block 99% of ads on the internet. My PVR automatically flags and skips television commercials. I read my content online and do not buy print publications.
I stray. The point of this diatribe is that I have never purchased a game that requires a subscription or has in-game advertising. Now that that has become the norm I feel that gaming will never again be my relaxing step away from the real world. I'm getting older, I'm getting my degree, and my spending power is increasing. I'm not playing games anymore.
Today I fired up CS 1.6 for the first time in about a month. What do I find? A game I first played in the last millennium now has in-game advertisements. The world has come and invaded my game, a game for which I paid full price. Nobody asked me if I wanted Valve to make more money off of me. Nobody asked if I wanted ads on my computer. The server operator (who has to support the burden of the bandwidth I consume) gets nothing from the advertising.
Publishers tell us that in-game advertising enhances the players' experience. It should add to the "realism" of a game. But games exist precisely because they are *not* real. If I wanted maximum realism in an FPS, I'd enlist in an army participating in the theatre of my choice. Publishers feel that advertising will be a benefit to the user in providing them information about products and services that they will find useful. This is the same hogwash that the television industry has been saying for years. How often do you stand up and relieve your bladder during television commercials? How many of you use personal video recorders specifically to avoid those obnoxious advertisements? How many pop-ups actually do you any good?
The advertising industry doesn't make sense. Companies make money to do things that consumers don't like, but because we are all consumers they all benefit in the end anyway. The false perception that more advertising is always better is leading us to a totally advertising saturated society. Ads on security trays in airports? "Admobile" vehicles dedicated to the sole purpose of distracting drivers? Where does the madness end? Clearly it won't.
Advertising is an attack on my senses, and I fight back as best as I can. I automatically block 99% of ads on the internet. My PVR automatically flags and skips television commercials. I read my content online and do not buy print publications.
I stray. The point of this diatribe is that I have never purchased a game that requires a subscription or has in-game advertising. Now that that has become the norm I feel that gaming will never again be my relaxing step away from the real world. I'm getting older, I'm getting my degree, and my spending power is increasing. I'm not playing games anymore.
