Clockwork Knight said:
1eyedking said:
Any kind of ads is inexcusable, goddamit.
Eh. One of the themes of the setting is "big corporations everywhere", and big corporations put ads everywhere. There's a problem if the ads don't mesh with the scene, being from our time with our money and our celebrities. It's a matter of...
Just because ads are "realistic", "thematically appropriate" or however you want to justify them, really does not change the fact that they are still advertising. Advertising exists for one reason: to sell products. For me, it constitutes a force of malevolence when it is imposed upon me without my consent, or in a situation where it is inappropriate (such as, for instance, a product I have already paid money for). There are a few exceptions to this; for instance, sponsored products in simulation titles, for instance, because the mandate of the genre is to capture and emulate reality, or at least to provide a portrait of reality. Outside of the simulation and sports genres of games, I have yet to see a game in which ads provided a positive contribution, or even a subtle, non-harmful one.
I also don't buy the message that it doesn't take away from the core game experience. I think it does, incredibly so. In-game ads are distracting, more so than regular ads on television or in print because they are often placed to be seen, and can't be filtered out in the same way because the entertainment experience is interactive - you can't just "turn your brain off" or "mute the volume" in the same way you can elsewhere. A while back I bought Burnout: Paradise, and while I more than enjoyed the game, ultimately much of its atmosphere was killed by the fact that I was constantly being exposed to billboard ads, ads on the sides of trucks, in menu screens, etc. I'd be getting into the game, only to see yet another brightly-lit advertisement parading around, almost pushing its way into view, the camera lingering just a little bit too long for comfort, and I'd be pulled out of my fantasy, back into cold, harsh reality, where I am nothing but a number and everyone wants more of my money no matter how much I spend it.
Truth is, it really doesn't matter who's advertising, or what, or for why. It has no place in a product I have paid for unless that advertising is providing me with a service that goes beyond what other games offer without advertising (since the argument used by publishers is that it pays for server costs etc. instead of, you know, "we just want more fucking money"), and publishers certainly lose much of my respect for trying to hide the fact that they have in-game advertising, for deliberately being vague and obfuscating just what data they collect, but not providing an opt-out function, and for not releasing mod tools or providing community support largely because it would infringe on their ad revenue. It fucking stinks no matter who's doing it, and it instantly drags down just about any game. No matter how good Deus Ex: Human Revolution is, it will always be a game that's trying to sell me something beyond its core experience I have already paid for.