IGA : Good or Bad?
Posted by Craig on November 6th, 2006
I’m sure you’ve all heard of IGA, or In-Game Advertising, at some point.
With the recent release of EA’s Battlefield 2142 and NFS:Carbon, i think we should talk about this, perhaps even do something about it.
The thing is, IGA has both good and bad sides. Although, as i’m sure you can see, that screen is killer.
Smack that jump for the full story
The Good
-Lowers develpment costs in most all cases, thus makes the games cheaper for us.
-Can add to the experience, such as the ads around a football pitch.
-A higher budget for developers means they can fully explore their ideas.
-A better game means more sales, which is an incentive to create even better games.
The Bad
-Not all the cost reduction comes to us. If they can make the game with IGA and sell it for £25 at profit, they will still sell it at the norm of around £30-£40
-It can detract from the experience. If im raiding a dungeon with my Dwarven buddies, I don’t want to know about how my +3 Axe of Subliminal Messaging knows that “Hienz meanz beanz”. I’ll just get annoyed and stop paying subscription.
-You’ve already paid for the game. I can understand if it was freeware, but its not. Its something i’ve paid for.
-More recent IGA involves background programs bordering on Spyware
The Ugly
-If games with IGA sell, the more games with IGA will be made. no cost reduction. just more profit for publishers and the like.
-EA will keep making FIFA badly. Off topic a bit, but it is pretty ugly.
So, what can we do about it?
Well for starters, you could spam IGA worldwide, the company responsible for targeting the Ads in EA’s recent innovation killer sequels.
Not that 8bit Hero! in anyway condones that.
Not at all.
There is of course the more simple option of not buying the Games.
This of course assumes that you think IGA is bad. Well do you?
I personally think a bit of product placement is good when done right, but that hardly happens.
Give some opinions, this is a hot topic in gaming right now.
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November 6th, 2006 at 10:23 pm
like I was saying earlier, I think IGA works fine, if not quite well during games where it is appropriate, ie sports games where it actually adds to the realism of the experience. When we played PGR3 on xbox360 the adverts around the track wern’t overwhelming but still got the point across.
I really think loading times would be the best place for adverts if they have to have them at all - its just dead space most of the time.
November 7th, 2006 at 8:53 am
I think it adds a little more realism to games. But I dont think every game should have IGA.
I mean I wouldnt mind IGA being in a movie spin off game, game based on a comic book character, racing/sports games or basically any game based in the real world. IE those that say “it’s as if your really in [Insert major city name]” on the backs of them
But stuff like Mario, Zelda, fantasy RPG’s, Id hate to see IGA in.
But like Kerri was saying, IGA in loading times could also be a good way around it.
But Im sure that the games that are well made, the directors will know if their game is suitable for IGA. I dont think Nintendo will start wanting Link to be cracking open a Pepsi can after defeating a level 1 boss.
But I’m sure there are alot of companies that do put alot of there profit back in to games an not just in to the Big Salray Man’s back pocket. So in that sense it could be a really goo thing.
November 7th, 2006 at 8:53 am
ps, I kow its off topic, just wanted to say the site is looking really good. Nice makeover.
February 26th, 2007 at 10:37 am
[…] new Battlefield game and you’re not far from an advert at every corner. Craig wrote about ‘In Game Advertising‘ before and its becoming more widely used as the online industry grows and […]