They say ths is the next evolution to gaming. I was just thinking this would give people some more incentive to putting up Nexuiz servers, and building more maps. It might help pay the bills of development too.

The idea is to build maps with billboards in them that would display some basic ad content. Nothing too fancy that would slow down gameplay. The content of the billboard might rotate per game.

The result would still be a "free" game.

Thoughts?

First of all Nexuiz does not support such a thing out of the box.. The engine would need to change textures by choosing a random one at each level start. Then i THINK you will have problems with animated textures are those shader things collide with the realtime lightning stuff.
And finally i'm not sure its a good idea in general. I do not like those things.. Also it will be very hard to prove exposure time which is what people want to know if they are to give money for such an thing.

You don't like advertising, at all?
Or you don't like in-game advertising?

For the record, I don't like advertising in game. Uses bandwidth for an unwanted feature.

-=BUT=-

Why not use some in-game ads to give some pimpage other FLOSS projects, etc. Think about the in-game video ad screen in warsow....
Or, if such a feature is implemented, perhaps hold a vote on which organisations can advertise in the game.

Whatever the case, players should be able to disable any in-game advertising feature.

My £0.02 is in the pot...

If there was an in-game advertising feature, people could do whatever they wanted with it. They could sell ads or they could offer free ads to other FLOSS projects. If people didn't like the ads on a particular server, or if the ads interfered with game play, then people wouldn't play there. Simple. It would be direct feedback. It would also give the server operator more inventive to respond to user feedback and to implement the best maps.

If in-game ads are the future, then the future is going to be a really annoying place.

Or, it will provide a way for open source game development to be more self-sustaining.

IMO, if there are to be ads keep them in a motd file like Counter-Strike. When joining a server there's this windows that popsup which can state the rules of the server, kids clans and members, some urls etc. But I don't know how it could be done in Nexuiz, maybe just plain text or whatever. I'm not saying that I want ads and I'm not saying I don't want them. That's up to the devs. But if there were to come I would like an option to turn them off for people that doesn't want them.

And btw.. I've heard about FLOSS but forgot what it is.. What is it now again?

Dokujisan wrote:Or, it will provide a way for open source game development to be more self-sustaining.

Potentially, yes, but the big-name studios will be able to get lots of big-name contracts, meaning lots of big money being thrown around. OSS will make money, but the big businesses will make a lot more money, which will be more to monopolize the industry. I speak mainly of EA, because they're awful, but yeah. I don't care much for the idea, even for a good cause.

ai wrote:And btw.. I've heard about FLOSS but forgot what it is.. What is it now again?

Free/Libre/Open-Source Software

More often its just called FOSS

I guess this realy depeds on how its implementd and how it develops. Someone may very well start with a nice discreete solution that wont bougther to many ppl and still bring the needed cash. Then pehaps someone feels they need a bit more income and provides a lil more space. In a year or two 80% of the free games are nothing but 3d advertising for viagra and microsoft bloat 3001 (c). Just look at how mutch junk some "free" webservices put their visitors through. Or perhaps it will be kept descrete and work well; its hard to speculate abt.

I do however think that alot of ppl, myself included, would be very suspicius and not choose thise games/apps if there was an alternative. I also think that part of the reson why many opensource projects are inovative, fun and usualy have nice community support comes from the ppl working on thise do it becuse they want to do so, not couse theres money involved. Im not saying thise projects dont need cash for things like serevrs and so on, or that noone should ever be payd for working on something gpl'd. But once you start making money on the product itself it starts becomming more of a job and less of a choise.

Then again its all just guessing untill someone realy tries.

Perhaps everyone that leaves their 0.02 in forums should donate the same amount and this will solve it

Advertising in games are not unsusual for a long ime. But most of them isn't direct, but an easter egg or something. Think abou the Dust puppy showing up in Quake3.

Taiyo.uk wrote:For the record, I don't like advertising in game. Uses bandwidth for an unwanted feature.

-=BUT=-

Why not use some in-game ads to give some pimpage other FLOSS projects, etc. Think about the in-game video ad screen in warsow....
Or, if such a feature is implemented, perhaps hold a vote on which organisations can advertise in the game.

Whatever the case, players should be able to disable any in-game advertising feature.

My £0.02 is in the pot...

http://www.warsow.net/forum/viewtopic.php?id=8519
warsow is not FOSS!

Advertising and lawyers is the devil. But i fancy the idea of marquees, neon signs or big posters with stuff like "Drink milk!" or "The Gun Store" written on them. XD

The devil?
You don't use search engines like Google? They exist because of ads.

Ok, I just wanted to make a clarification. I'm not suggesting putting ads INTO Nexuiz (the game). I'm suggesting the option of putting billboard spots in maps and allowing the people running the Nexuiz servers to place ads there.

As a player, if you don't like the ads, you pick a different server.

My theory is that, since money drives so many things, allowing ads to help pay for server costs would help improve server offerings so we could have 2-3 Herforst-type servers.

After paying server fees, the server owner could donate excess money to the Nexuiz development team if they wanted to. Or, some money could be spent on advertising Nexuiz on the web to attract more players to the game.

Just throwing around ideas here.
I have no idea if Nexuiz is even popular enough to make advertising viable. How many unique players do you think visit Herforst during a week?

With ads...
The game would still be free.
Ads would be optional.
Players would still have a choice of which servers they use.
I think if they really like the server, then they won't mind a couple of ads, as long as it doesn't slow down game play.

In-Game Advertising To Top $800 Million By 2012

http://games.slashdot.org/games/07/06/29/1511254.shtml



Just saying.

This forum post is brought to you by:


How bad could it be!

oh c'mon.

More like targeted advertising.

...unless there's something you're not telling us, vomit?

Dokujisan wrote:More like targeted advertising.

So more like http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=1gfCbpEEuo0?

Dokujisan wrote:oh c'mon.

More like targeted advertising.

Ohhhh!, targeted advertising.

I don't get it...
Who the hell would pay for in-game ads?
In other words: Who the hell would look at in-game ads!?

I wouldn't mind seeing banner ads in the server lobby, that's what Starcraft does. But once I'm in the game, I want to be in an ultraviolent fantasy world. And let's face it, in game ads don't exactly work for many Nexuiz maps, which are either castles, industrial hells, or futuristic fantasy worlds. It would ruin the mood.

Well in-game ads also do not fit many other 3d shooters. Also many players use picmip while ads would have to be forced to no-picmip to look good. Do people accept such a thing? Even worse if its animated. Most 'serious' gamers (try to) disable every distraction..

I'm drawing some mock advertisements for my subway map. But thats a joke, see.