Thoughts on Jim Sterlings video about Advertisements in games?

[Odyssey]

Sorry, npüe. The exact opposite is true. Game development never was this cheap as today. Companies mainly use middleware or third party engine. Not to mention all the texture packages avail on the market. So nope, game development isnt expensive at all. And lets not mention a game market which expands by double digits since a decade!!! So you got a way larger market to sell your produc to. Whats expensive is horrible marketing costs which exists cause they games are pure trash. And what also really exists are investors which like to get a higher and higher profit marge for their money. Thats, and only, thats the reason for insults like in game ads for full price games! Greedy companies, greedy CEOs and greedy investors. And not the urban legend of expensive development.

[Merlin]

Games do not cost more to make. Companies spend more money making certain types of games. For ever AAA huge budget crapfest with Hollywood voice actors and photo realistic graphics theres a 1 man indie studio making freeware 30 hour RPGs. Needlessly expensive voice talent stunt casting. Bloated advertising budgets. Always-online servers. A whole slew of lawyers, advertising executives, middle management, diversity officers, etc. All of these are things that drive the price of games up leading to cries of "but it's more expensive making games now!" It's like saying movies are more expensive to make because Michael Bay's latest snoozefest costs the GDP of a small country. Meanwhile there are thousands of fanfilms and indi films released every month with basically zero budget.

Advertising in games was a big issue about a decade ago. It was starting to be shoehorned into games. Publishers first said they had to do this because they could then make games cheaper. "$20 AAA games!" they said. Subsidized by advertising. But game prices didn't come down. Then they said they needed the money or prices would go up! The be-all-end-all excuse of greedy publishers.

Advertising in games is bad, in my opinion. But patching them into a game someone has allready paid for is downright dispicable.

yeah I like the idea of don't change the product I already bought. Shadow of Mordor did that, Battlefront 2 did that when they removed the lootboxes, both games radically changed.

And yes too many useless employees can increase game costs. What I think really is underrated is that graphics increase more and more and need more people to work on them. There are tons of tricks to mimic reality. That is why, despite how people are right now bitter at Nvidia, I'm really hopeful about ray tracing and path tracing technology for games. The reason why is that it should make it easier for the graphics people so that they don't have to employ so many complicated tricks. Its complicated, but just trust me. If you want an in depth explanation(and can understand a really thick scottish accent)https://youtu.be/SrF4k6wJ-do watch this. You can turn on subtitles too.

That being said, I expect that in the 2020's we will see this tech alleviate graphics artists enormously.

Back on topic though. Advertising may seem like its a waste, but you can't say that because, well, it works. They wouldn't advertise if it didn't make more money than it costs, and it works. Normal people don't read reviews, they aren't consumer activists or picky. They just buy what looked good on the TV commercial. So that doesn't really miff me much. Paying your talent well and treating them well is another thing. I've always asserted that crunch time is a waste of money. When you are overworked, stressed, not having social time outside work, days off, and too much overtime means that your quality of work plummets. So they are wasting money, and the product starts to get messy and buggy. Then they fire a lot of these people after they don't need them anymore, so the feeling is that people feel no loyalty to the company and feel no need to do their best, again, giving an inferior product, and again they will perhaps not work as hard without the desire to do the best they can. So how do you counteract that? managers and managers who crack the whip, but now you are paying management whose sole job it is to whip people and nothing else because you don't trust your own staff. Depressing right? Again, a waste of money. Treat the employees right and they will manage themselves to work their best and stay on task.

We know that HR departments in all big companies have grown out of control. Google seems to have probably the biggest and worst, which for them is not an issue, but for smaller companies(relatively) not so much. This drives up the price for the end user. I've been very much in favor of good less technically dazzling games anyhow. I want to play it and be done. I don't want tons of 100+ hour games so much. They are also biggest investment gambles that if the fail, they will fail hard and hurt the company. Then if the game is popular, make a sequel sure. Its my biggest gripe about JRPG games is that even when they aren't super grindy and the level curve is just right, they often last longer than I'd like, even if I'm enjoying it.

This preorder culture is part of the drive to exploit people's fear of missing out of something exclusive, new, popular and big. They want to belong to the coolest and latest thing. Its morally wrong in my view, and they are monetizing that emotion, and now they are dolling out that monetization through a partner to make even more through mountain dew. I hate it. I feel bad that people are being exploited this way. None of us would ever fall for this, but a more unconscious person will give in. Its rather foul.

[Astraea]

It's been around for DECADES. Why are we bringing it up now? Anyone remember Pizza Hut in TMNT, Axe body spray in MGS, or even Duracell in Alan Wake? Whatever, as long as it's not intrusive, I don't care.

That might have to do with Capcom retroactively putting advertisements in games they sold already. It's a new thing and very blatant at that. To get away with something like that requires massive amounts of consumer complacency and I don't think we're there yet.

[Aidy]

Games do not cost more to make.

You also think that stealing games helps the industry so I'm going to be honest in saying that I take your opinions with a pinch of salt. A quick google will easily see your assertion that games do not cost more to make as false. Now please focus on semantics to rebut what I'm saying because how you define words alters reality.

[OverdriveActive]

I think the "no p2w mictotx pls" sentiment has been around for a long time, so they're now just designing games around the idea that you'll pay for the convenience / cosmetic because the game is awful without them. When methods like that don't work, well, expect more. We're living in weird times, at least creatively, when it comes to video games as a medium. Seems like the people most invested from the consumption side (core gamers) want their games to be art and design focused while the industry has learned that this group is a vocal minority. So extracting money from people on phones or children is much easier than convincing well-informed 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 somethings to give up their money.

I don't want ads in my game. I don't want microtransactions. I don't want incomplete products. Fundamentally I want game companies to resource themselves and their teams to make a profit while delivering the best possible consumer experience. I want less Mass Effect: Andromeda (£58 million, by my count 1986 people in the credits) and more midsized game studios that make games so they can be profitable but with no immediate intent to float themselves and become a 1bln+ company. The midsize market is woefully underdeveloped and it's leading the entire industry to a place of consumer fatigue and the place for the art of a well-made video game to be narrow in the entire space.

I want more dope games from companies that don't just want to do 2D sidescrollers or cutesy takes on concepts. I want fully developed games with some design ambition made by people who are competent that can chill out this top heavy publisher / investor dominated swing that we have at the moment. I feel like at the moment there's so much happening in the "handful of developers" and "football fields of developers" sides of the industry but not much in the "regular office" size businesses. I think that's ultimately where the salvation of gaming as a medium lay.

Unfortunately it looks like things have to get worse before they get better. I'm not quite ready to say that we're heading for a full on crash. Markets are mostly error-correcting so I expect that we'll see that happened 2020 onwards. My concern at this point with regards to everything Jim mentioned is that the voice he represents, the core gamer voice, is simply irrelevant in the profitability space. EA has made it emphatically clear that they're not interested in courting core gamers. The lack of BFV sales isn't a win for core gamers in my eyes. EA/Dice made a bold move to alienate and scoff at core gamers, this had an effect. Now we're going to see the correction they make. I doubt we'll see them returning to core. I think that they, much like Activision, will simply start selling to the other markets and if we follow then that's a bonus.

It's in their interest to have somewhat uninterested, low-energy, no critical opinion consumers. They want malleable people with no interest in engaging with games critically. All that stuff gets in the way. So I expect that their correction will simply be to stop selling to us. It's too hard and too easy to get swept up in nonsense. You're much better off making a few games a year that top the Google Play / AppStore and get them out there for the kids getting bored of Fortnite on their iPads. They're ripe for the picking with their brains desensitized and their preference for flashy, sloppily designed PvP single map skinner boxes.

I really hope I'm wrong but I think we'll get to a a point where many of the people that the industry labels as "core gamers" today will simply leave. They'll stop playing games as they go through their late 20s / 30s, focusing instead on all the other stuff that's around. Maybe they'll watch some esports but I think a lot of people will just stop playing. So the landscape will fill up with noncritical voices from people born in the last 18 years that think lootboxes are perfectly normal, microtransactions that sell you gear and power are fine and early access games are worth the time. They simply won't know any different because that's been their gaming experience their whole life.

So to sum up:

- Things are horrible
- Advertisement like the one in SFV is just the latest outcrop
- Things will get worse, this is a drizzle compared to the coming storm
- Demographics will change and landscape will follow

On a more direct note with regard to the Jim episode; I can't imagine preordering a drink. I'd have to bleed green and have my farts smell like Mountain Dew before I'd consider that. What a load of bollocks. Not to even speak of how boring the Division was. I regret pushing myself through to finishing that. Bloody waste of time.

[Methpoodle]

I'm relying on the hope that by the time the gaming industry has gone to far and cant be brought back, I've become demented and cant even remember what a game is.

[Aidy]

That's just semantics. The games that people expect today cost more than the games people expected 10 years ago.

[Irritablesquid]

Advertising in video games don't bother me for they're tastefully done, a billboard in a city, brand of tyres in a racing game.
I also don't mind advertising in sports games because that's true to life.

As long as it doesn't interfere with gameplay and make it hasn't been shoehorned in them I'm ok with it.
What I'm not ok with is the fact they aren't going to take out micro transactions, it's clearly a money grab.
Base games in the UK cost £50 but you normally have things taken away, like in rdr2 they take away 2 missions which cost an extra £15 to buy.

They want to make as much money as they can and the blind followers are more than happy to pay for it, just look at the collectors editions, publishers are suffering now because they've tried to get as much money as they can by any means necessary and now some people aren't happy and not buying the games. Companies rely on micro transactions because they can make good games anymore, even some classic games are getting micro transactions in them.

If they want to make money the need to make good games, it doesn't cost more money to make the game than it does to buy the game that would be stupid. God of war doesn't have any money grabbing in it and neither does the witches 3, they are both solid games.

[fenrif]

Games do not cost more to make. Companies spend more money making certain types of games. For ever AAA huge budget crapfest with Hollywood voice actors and photo realistic graphics theres a 1 man indie studio making freeware 30 hour RPGs. Needlessly expensive voice talent stunt casting. Bloated advertising budgets. Always-online servers. A whole slew of lawyers, advertising executives, middle management, diversity officers, etc. All of these are things that drive the price of games up leading to cries of "but it's more expensive making games now!" It's like saying movies are more expensive to make because Michael Bay's latest snoozefest costs the GDP of a small country. Meanwhile there are thousands of fanfilms and indi films released every month with basically zero budget.

Advertising in games was a big issue about a decade ago. It was starting to be shoehorned into games. Publishers first said they had to do this because they could then make games cheaper. "$20 AAA games!" they said. Subsidized by advertising. But game prices didn't come down. Then they said they needed the money or prices would go up! The be-all-end-all excuse of greedy publishers.

Advertising in games is bad, in my opinion. But patching them into a game someone has allready paid for is downright dispicable.

[fenrif]

Games don't cost more to make. Companies spend more making games. Those are two different things.

This is also the same argument that was used to justify advertising in games 10 or so years ago when it became a big issue back then.

[vippy]

Honestly I'd very much prefer advertisements to pay-to-win microtransactions, but they're not gonna remove one in place of the other, they will keep them both. And of course, they will also continue selling an incomplete product and then selling the rest of it as DLC.

[Merlin]

Preorder culture hath ascended past the realms of this Earth. You must now pre-order a beverage to even deign to try a demo for games. We truly live in dark days my companions.

[RevolverGirl]

Those aren't ads, those are credits.

[metalspider]

all you people saying depends on the implementation dont understand we already have some games where you are forced to sit through an ad and cant skip.
for example forza horizon 4 when i opened the game yesterday forced me to watch an ad for the new dlc of theirs,was probably half a minute or so.
you give them an inch they will only take more.also all those company and game engine logos at the beginning of each game are ads too in case you forgot.

[Ryan]

Doesn't bother me too much. I guess it depends on the implementation. We've had in-content ads for decades with paid movies and television, so not a big deal in my book. I would only be bothered by it if the ads become intrusive and take away from gameplay - very much like on mobile games.