Gaming

Is r/gaming just a sounding board for these awful shareholder questions now? Nobody that actually enjoys playing games would even bother asking something so obviously terrible.

Ah yes... willingly encourage more predatory pricing schemes by investors... nice try, Ubisoft

Don't give the companies ideas bro

Sick idea I'm putting that in my new indie game. Follow for more updates!

Hell to the F no.

Just taints the overall experience and leaves a bad taste in everyones mouth any way you slice it

Id quit gaming.

Ads: The Microtransactions of the Brain

No

No

Yeah I'll just pirate shit thank you very much

How about making games that don't cost hundreds of millions to make -- simple, good games like we used to have back in the old days -- and charge less for them?

What a concept.

Sounds like 💩

You work for EA or Ubisoft by chance?

Better idea:

Go back to the age where you just put in a disc, turn the power on, and it goes right into the game with 0 bs and menus

Cool so I can buy the game, afterwards buy me some skins in the game, right after I bought the battlepass ofc and then also have to watch some ads before I can actually play.

If this is "gaming", then I rather don't play at all. Saves me money, and keeps my dignity intact

Absolutely not, because it isn't as simple as "Buy the cheaper version with ads if you don't want to pay full price/can't afford to." It sets a precedent, and we can see the effects in the streaming industry.
What used to be one subscription price has now turned into multiple tiers with half of them being subscriptions with ads, and more streaming services are picking up this model every year. The problem is that this gives them the perfect fallback when people complain about price hikes, which they've been doing a lot of in the past few years. "If you don't want to pay an additional $8 a month, just get the cheaper ad supported tier." which poses as a reasonable alternative but in reality only serves to hand wave away customers upset with their business practices. You have an alternative, you don't need to continue paying for your subscription that just went up in price, but you'll be getting an inferior product for the same price.
Now apply this to the gaming industry, one already rife with deluxe editions gating content with price tags frequently north of $100, yet still including microtransactions.
Today the core game would be $70, with the ad supported version at $50.
Tomorrow the core game is $100 with the ad supported version at $70. And you know what they'd say?
"If you don't want to pay $100 then just get the cheaper ad supported version."
It opens the door to increase base prices much more easily in a way that dismissed public outrage much more effectively. And before you know it, it's the industry standard. Ad-supported tiers are money making schemes masquerading as consumer friendly "options".

Man, this has got to be the worst suggestion I've ever heard for gaming!

I wouldn't mind a system, but there is no way developers would integrate this into single player experiences. The ecosystem already has demos to sell the game, and then trying to personalize ads for each player, game, region, age would infringe privacy at some level. Evolve them as games age, just seems like a way for systems to stagnate or when the ads stop games are free.

You already have F2P experiences which do this, social media is plastered with ads, even used to be free products like Microsoft Solitaire or Minesweeper are riddled with ads until you become a member. It just burns goodwill for companies while being a hassle to get people to upsell.

Could it work, sure... but it's more likely to work on subscription services versus individual games because you can be sold games within the same ecosystem or franchise. Battle net has cross pollinated products on "Buy a game, get a mount or card back in WoW/Hearthstone. Get a free music kit/announcer for Dota 2/ CS with a purchase, it does work. Getting the Stanley Parable adventure theme, or shrimp facts while the game tempo slows down is at the very least a smile and laugh.

Give an inch and they’ll take a mile.

I have a better idea. How about no ads or they can kiss my ass?

This isn't a passive medium like television. Showing a player an ad in an active medium means taking control away from the player for a while to show them something that they don't particularly care to see. All the negative qualities of a cut scene with none of the upsides. There would be a massive backlash against not only the publishers that do this, but also the companies that put their ads in those places.

There are ways to put advertisements into games. This ain't it.

Absolutely the fuck not, you can't be serious.

I think this kind of system would eventually become the standard without the "pay less" part if it became the norm. So a hard no from me.

Ads don't make much money, like somewhere between $10-15 per 1000 views on average. If you consider how long some single player games are, say 50 hours or 3000 minutes, that is 1 ad per 3 minutes of gameplay to save $10-15 on a 'lite' version.

Hey OP, add Edit 3: I am dumb that this has been discussed years before and didn't realise mobile games are free with ads or paid to have it removed BECAUSE NO ONE WILL PAY FOR A GAME WITH ADS.

What you want to profit from sales and profit from ads on top. It is either or none, ads are for profit otherwise it wont be a multi billion dollar industry and just having ads in paid games in any way will only lead to full priced games with ads as the game companies are driven to profit and are always striving to milk every single dollar from customers with less effort to do so.

If "pay less to do X with ads" is ever implemented and doesn't immediately crash and burn, then it inevitably and swiftly morphs into "pay more and still have to put up with ads." So no. However, if your company does this, at least would allow me to drastically cut down on the amount of money I spend on your games. Like to zero. So I guess that's a plus.

How do you play video games and even suggest something like this lmao

Have you never seen any “pay less with ads” thing?

Netflix with ads is more expensive than Netflix was about 5 minutes earlier.

It's such a slippery slope. Companies would soon turn it from "watch ads to pay less" to "watch ads to not pay more"

Eventually I’m just going to find other things to do. I am not ok with this model in any way whatsoever. Because all it would end up being is a way for them to charge more and put ads in. It would be alright for about six months until an IP that everyone buys fucks the whole system up and everyone else follows suit.

Yeah mate this is a really poor take idk why you would think this is even a remotely good idea

All that happens is that this becomes the new standard and the ad free services become a LOT more expensive. No, no no no. Ads are horrible, and Netflex and Amazon Prime Video adding them to their services in different ways are a terrible move. Ads are a scourge on society.

Oh, ich can easely tell you the end of this storyline. It's gonna be "Pay the same price... with ads".

That'd be the good timeline. Instead we'll pay full price AND watch ads
https://www.pcgamer.com/assassins-creed-players-started-having-their-games-interrupted-by-full-screen-pop-up-ads-but-ubisoft-says-it-was-a-technical-error-and-quickly-patched-it/

Absolutely disgusting. I would rather quit gaming forever than deal with that.

Or... Companies can just quit being greedy.. idk sounds like a better option

Nothing kills your soul like sitting through a ad.

I’m astounded how people put so little value of their free time.

How about no?

So 30 seconds of ads for 10 minutes of playtime? That sounds like a good way to pad the length of the game as well as requiring an internet connection.

You realise it'd be pay what the cost of a game is now and have it with ads or pay $29.99 for the game with no ads, right?

This is a shitty idea but I think it's funny that people have a problem with this but don't care at all about Kojima jamming blatant product placement in all of his games.

To make this clear:

I view advertising, in any form, as harassment and a waste of my precious lifetime.

They also quite literally steal from me by wasting the laughably limited bandwidth i pay for in this absurd 12th world country that is germany.

Gaming is the last safe space i have. If you invade it with your filthy ads i will do anything i can to fucking destroy you.

Problem is with stuff like this is that it never ends on just that, does it now? It always goes further and of course, it is always worse for the consumer. I don't want this to even be a suggestion for an OPTION, this should never exist.

If people want ads they can freely bathe in the mobile game slop with other piggies, I will stay here and pay to play actual games.

No ads. I refuse to play Ubisoft games after that little “technical” issue they had in Assassin’s Creed.

If it's just an option then it's fine but I feel like the target for this would rather just pirate and/or wait for sales after a few years of release. I'm the latter and I won't be buying a game with ads :)

It feels like the wind is blowing towards this...it will start as optional then become industry standard. It will be a hard "NO" from me.

I always pondered why advertising is assumed to actually work. I assume it's supposed to be subliminal? In my case and others it seems to have the opposite effect and just creates revulsion and annoyance, if not outright anger.

I would act like the company that successfully implemented this never existed. And like their games are all Gollum.

To be clear, you're getting hate because you're suggesting something that, if it happens at all, is going to once again blight the gaming industry.

Other services like Netflix who have done something similar just end up putting their prices up to the point that the option with ads is only barely cheaper then the old price without. And the new price is substantially more.

Nevermind we already have 3 different versions of games, pre order bonuses and in-game shops always saying "BUY THE NEW BATTLE PASS" Every time you login. This just seems like extra bullshit.

What a shit idea. You should be ashamed for thinking of it, OP

Let me come up with a really stupid idea, then post it on Reddit, everyone’s gonna like it and I’m gonna be so popular.