Ads Invading Games

Microsoft announced this week that they are planning to bring Silverlight to their console within the next year. Sliverlight is basically a rich media technology which will enable companies to create advertising for the system; this means that companies can target gamers more affectively. Of course, this isn’t the first time that adverts have appeared in a game or on a system, but due to the placement of the adverts it seems a little strange.

We have had adverts in games for a while now; if you swing around New York City in Spider-Man 3 there are plenty of ads around Times Square or if your patrol around the streets of Ascension City you will see more adverts. You will even encounter adverts in Burnout Paradise all around the map, but that isn’t too much of a problem as you don’t really see them as you rush pass. Now the placement of these adverts for Xbox Live are going to be like that of website, does this means that you will have long banner across the top of the dashboard? Or in the middle of the Spotlight will there be corporate business number 7’s advertisement?

It may seem that I’m a little annoyed at this, well that is because I am. Most users of Live pay for the use of it and thus expect something from the company that you pay to. I mean, if you are paying a premium then we shouldn’t have adverts invading the gaming space. You would have thought that the £40 a year that millions of gamers pay to Microsoft would be enough for them to run the service without any problems. Major Nelson has stated that these adverts won’t affect the use of Live or the dashboard and that they will compliment the use of Live and the dashboard for users, but that isn’t really the point of it all is?

One other place that has these kinds of adverts is Sony’s Vidzone. The system has small banners at the bottom of the screen adverting new games etc. This I can tolerate purely due to the fact that I’m not paying for Vidzone but can use it for free and see whatever music videos I want. But then again most of the adverts are from first party products so it’s actually Sony that is fronting the money for them. These adverts I see in the same way as the in-game ones they are there for a few seconds and then gone, so it doesn’t interfere with watching or listening to the music.

What do you guys think about this change in the Live service? I’ve read a fair few opinions across the web. Some have supported it as a good way of getting the Live service to be even better, which in my opinion is overly optimistic of them. Of course, most of the views have been on the other side of the fence and don’t want the adverts on the service. So as always post your comments below to spread your opinion around the World Wide Web.