In-Game Advertising Comes under Political Fire

[CSN NewsBot]

Hot on the heels of Valve's announcement of in-game advertising coming to Counter-Strike 1.6, comes a new twist out of California. Ms. Givens of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse had this to say.

There is a technology that looks at all activity the entire family participates in. This is particularly vile and calls for legislation.

A Democrat out of San Diego, Lori Saldona, may possibly push for legislation that will try and put an end to the practice of including in-game advertising.



Is this just another case of politicians not knowing what they're talking about (wouldn't necessarily be the first time when it comes to gaming), or is there a legitimate cause for alarm here? EA already stated that their in-game advertising is not a form of spyware, and Valve has also alluded to this, but the question still remains. Is in-game advertising a form of spyware?

CS-Nation: How are you going to address concerns that the inclusion of ads are a form of spyware? This allegation has already run rampant with games like Battlefield 2142, a game that also features in-game advertising.



Doug Lombardi: Valve places tremendous value in its customer relationships. We wouldn’t ship anything to customers that we would not run ourselves.

Thanks to Evil Avatar for bringing this news to light.

[DevgruSeal H.E]

Edited by [user="353279"] @ [time="1166582842"]

It sounds like this is just politics trying to get uninformed and/or undecided gaming individuals to vote for their party because they "Saved the gaming world from advertising."

[Snakebyte]

A parental notice telling (consumers) private information might be at risk is important to have.

It sounds like she just wants a notice if the ads act as spyware, which is good, but doesn't really do anything to prevent having them.

[-:Nighthawk:-]

About the most I can see coming from this is some sort of warning label written in tiny text on the side of a game box, and only if the game in question actively collects data from the user's computer.



In-game advertising is a reality, and it's not a trend that's going to die out. I hate advertisement, so much that I've chosen to live without even owning a TV. I can ignore the subtle advertising done in movies, but I simply cannot stomach commercials and blatant advertising. That said, I realize very much that I am in the minority, and that most people are perfectly willing to watch commercials if it means getting to watch their favorite TV show for free.



Really, though, I don't see how in-game advertisement monitoring will come across as any worse to the legal world than your average hotel TV set which monitors which channels are viewed for ratings purposes. It's already clear that in-game advertising itself is in no danger of legal recourse, but I really don't see a high likelihood that any court would rule against inclusion of advertisement monitoring and feedback (aka spyware). That said, I don't know how you could really monitor the effectiveness of in-game advertising, other than simply logging the number of times said advertisement was actually viewable on a given user's screen.



So at the end of the day, as much as I detest advertising and am disappointed with VALVe for resorting to viewing their user base as merely a consumer base, there's really not much legal ground to stand on to oppose such action. I, for one, will simply continue to avoid anything which features blatant advertising, even when doing so means denying myself some things that otherwise might be enjoyable.



Most, however, will continue to consume blindly and trick themselves into believing that they're not affected by what they're seeing in the background of every frag. That's just how things are.

[_Shorty]

so, does this mean Valve is going to start paying for servers that we currently pay for? Heh. I mean, I find it hard to believe they'll be giving us any of that ad revenue. We're the ones that pay to run our servers. Why would we want to advertise for them and get nothing out of it? They'd better make the ads capable of being turned off. There's absolutely no reason they should make money off of something we're paying to even have running at all in the first place.

[Zips]

_Shorty wrote..

so, does this mean Valve is going to start paying for servers that we currently pay for? Heh. I mean, I find it hard to believe they'll be giving us any of that ad revenue. We're the ones that pay to run our servers. Why would we want to advertise for them and get nothing out of it? They'd better make the ads capable of being turned off. There's absolutely no reason they should make money off of something we're paying to even have running at all in the first place.

If it's client side, why should server ops even think about receiving a penny?

[Hutz]

Edited by [user="311268"] @ [time="1166593585"]

If it's client side, then that means it shouldn't be too difficult to bypass.



Valve stated that they were doing this as an experiment to see if the gaming public will accept reasonably done advertising in games. With the absolute uproars I've seen in every gaming community imaginable, I don't think Valve can possibly kid themselves into thinking that people won't care. People do care, and lots of us will go to such lengths as not take part in a game that forces more advertising on us.



People won't put up with ads that intrude upon the things they already paid for. Simple as that. Are there ads in TV show DVD cases? Yes. Are there ads in the actual show? No, because they paid for the show and they know people would be incredibly annoyed to pay $30 to watch ads. Same with music - you might get ads slipped into the case, but none of your songs are ever interrupted. Nobody would stand for that. Same with movies - they show ads beforehand, but during the movie you'll only get the odd product placement. Well actually I do have a thing against product placements - even when they're 'cleverly hidden', it completely removes suspension of disbelief when you realize 'Oh, McDonald's paid them to put that line in there'. Product placements completely cheapen any scene in which they appear.



There's so much more I could mention. Like magazines, and newspapers, and the Internet. Why do we accept ads in those? It's because they are a medium for many different articles/ideas - ads generally don't intrude on individual articles, just in between them. Hmm, except for popup ads. Why do people accept those? OH WAIT NOBODY DOES! There's tons of software available to handle popup ads, because they get in the way of what people are trying to read.



What about cable TV shows? Well you don't pay for them, advertisers do, which is why they get to interrupt the show every once in awhile to yell at all the viewers. We don't pay for the individual shows, so we accept the annoyance. But when we pay for something and then are forced to look at ads to further benefit the seller, NOT US IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM, I'm just gonna tell them to fuck right off and give me back my money.



Most free services will make you see ads unless you pay a special fee (IGN, for example). Steam could do the same. Plaster ads all over the Steam interface for all I care, and give us the choice to pay to not have them. It's not going to interfere with the games I paid for, it's just going to cheapen the platform which I downloaded for free.



In fact, I don't understand why we can use Valve's bandwidth to download games without any form of repercussion. The download window could be always-on-top with ads on it, unless you pay to have them removed.

[DeAceShooter]

What is spyware? Spyware is any kind of software (or to be pedantic, process within any software) which collects personal information from users without their knowledge and consent.



Will in-game advertising become a form of spyware? My opinion is that advertising will not reach, or even scrape close to, the activities spyware are infamous for. Simply put, unless they collect personal information without consent, in-game ads are not spyware. Only if in-game advertising is dynamic, somewhat like Google Mail's advertisements, then we have room for discussion because the line between what is "personal information" and what is not becomes blurred.



As far as I can see, as long as ads are not specifically tailored for any individual but is standardised for every player, meaning every player sees the same kinds of advertisements, then this fear of advertisements in game being a form of spyware is unfounded.

[The Family God]

I agree with the above statements. If the game was free, then I wouldn't mind the ads - somebody's gotta pay for it.



However, we pay money for these games. It's the same as buying a DVD and then seeing an ad during the DVD stream - that would anger me.



I suppose its not that simple. Valve might be hoping to use the ads a method of lowering prices? Wishful thinking perhaps.

[entRo]

I thought Steam was a way to lower prices. Ads are just a means for Valve to pull some pretty greedy bullshit.



I have a hard time believing that they're strapped for cash.

[DeAceShooter]

The Family God wrote..

However, we pay money for these games. It's the same as buying a DVD and then seeing an ad during the DVD stream - that would anger me.

Yes, but look at it this way, you don't get replacement DVDs if you lose your DVD every time, Valve's Steam service gives you the freedom of not having to back up your files, and stream them every time you reinstall.

[_Shorty]

Steam *was* supposed to give us lower prices, and this was a very big selling point that Valve trumpetted over and over before Steam was released. Games would cost us less, because there were no middle-men. Be easier to get, etc, etc. And then Steam was released. And prices didn't budge. And Valve never mentioned prices again. What a surprise. In fact it is usually more expensive to buy it on Steam, because retail stores usually sell the same thing for less. Then you just go home and plug the key into Steam. In fact, I like to do that whenever possible, just because Valve lied about prices being better. Then Valve gets less, because they always get less on copies bought at retail. They get more from Steam purchases, naturally.

how are you going to play without a server? Who pays for that server? Heh.

Zips wrote..

If it's client side, why should server ops even think about receiving a penny?

[Thortok2000]

Nighthawk, you're not that much in the minority. I too, use a television only to watch DVDs on and play console games on. By choice, I typically don't "watch TV".



I strongly dislike advertising. I feel its impact on my decision-making tends to be more than I would wish.

[DevgruSeal H.E]

Hutz wrote..

What about cable TV shows? Well you don't pay for them, advertisers do, which is why they get to interrupt the show every once in awhile to yell at all the viewers. We don't pay for the individual shows, so we accept the annoyance.

Technically we do pay for TV. Cable Service Provider? DirecTV? Dish Network?

[FAF]

The main issue that most people, myself included, have with IGA is that it's immersion breaking. Playing any game, especially in first person, the player is required to remove him/herself from reality for a while and submit to a set of rules, codes and systems that are inherent to the new universe we are playing in. To then force the player to suddenly accept "reality" again goes against EVERY rule in the "how to make a great game" handbook. This is why we can cope with ads alongside the road in racing games, or even on some maps like train....but to have them everywhere regardless of meeting the asthetic of the game location is criminal to the extreme.



As many of you will be aware, EA will soon be bringing IGA to BF2142, which is even more game-ruining than it is for CS or CS:S. A futuristic setting, in a post-apocolyptic world, with ads for McDon**ds or P*psi everywhere will really destroy the game for a lot of players.



I'm sure we would all understand advertising in game menues or at startup, but invading the unreal world with real world adverts is insane and will only cause gamers to hate the publishers responsible....bang goes the next time someone will consider a Valve/EA game.