The filing points to a possible ad-supported model for PC and console games that is less disruptive than the approaches commonly used in mobile titles.
Watching an ad would earn players another block of ad-free play time, called a “credit”
This is to refine existing F2P advert inserts so the timing is less abrupt. It is also for an ad-supported game-pass tier so they can inject ads into any game in the library.
Will it mean more developers/publishers choose to inject ads into games? Maybe. But plenty of games already have convenient spots for ads that don’t require this kind of tech, like match queuing, etc. and they don’t run ads.
Pretty sure that in a decade, the norm will be that ads are absolutely everywhere. Only holdouts (think Kojima etc) and tiny indie setups will be able to avoid it. Every AA+ title will be riddled with it, and just like you can’t imagine people just “accepting” that today, we couldn’t imagine people “just accepting” microtransactions fifteen years ago.
Yet here we are.
Ads are already everywhere, nobody said anything about it being unimaginable. You have product placement (especially IP crossovers) in lots of live service games. That doesn’t mean you won’t be able to pay for an ad free experience. You can watch a movie on cable TV with ads every 15min, or buy the movie, or rent it, or stream it ad-supported/ad-free or go to the movie-theater with front-end ads. If you don’t want to watch Dune with a commercial break interrupting the middle, there’s an option for that.
Or the ads are incidental to the aesthetics of the activity, like sponsor ads on sports jerseys, in the stadium, and TV/stream. So what if the car chasing James Bond is an Audi because they paid for that.
I’m not pro-advertising, I do think “all major gaming experiences will be ruined with advertising” is a bit overblown.
This is to refine existing F2P advert inserts so the timing is less abrupt. It is also for an ad-supported game-pass tier so they can inject ads into any game in the library.
Will it mean more developers/publishers choose to inject ads into games? Maybe. But plenty of games already have convenient spots for ads that don’t require this kind of tech, like match queuing, etc. and they don’t run ads.
Pretty sure that in a decade, the norm will be that ads are absolutely everywhere. Only holdouts (think Kojima etc) and tiny indie setups will be able to avoid it. Every AA+ title will be riddled with it, and just like you can’t imagine people just “accepting” that today, we couldn’t imagine people “just accepting” microtransactions fifteen years ago. Yet here we are.
Ads are already everywhere, nobody said anything about it being unimaginable. You have product placement (especially IP crossovers) in lots of live service games. That doesn’t mean you won’t be able to pay for an ad free experience. You can watch a movie on cable TV with ads every 15min, or buy the movie, or rent it, or stream it ad-supported/ad-free or go to the movie-theater with front-end ads. If you don’t want to watch Dune with a commercial break interrupting the middle, there’s an option for that.
Or the ads are incidental to the aesthetics of the activity, like sponsor ads on sports jerseys, in the stadium, and TV/stream. So what if the car chasing James Bond is an Audi because they paid for that.
I’m not pro-advertising, I do think “all major gaming experiences will be ruined with advertising” is a bit overblown.
Sounds like a whole lotta words to say the future of non shit entertainment flies a black flag
Kojima put monster energy ads into death stranding