Massive Incorporated Expands

[thoreau]

Originally Posted by Svetlana

MA has given us all a great thing that most other games with ingame adverts (ehem Second Life ehem) don't even offer their gamers.

Not exactly true.

from mtv.com

What's genuinely unusual is that earlier this week the store's owner started selling something real — computer hardware — and he did it by attaching a price tag that's figured not in greenbacks, Euros or even pesos but with Linden Dollars, the virtual money earned by playing "Second Life." You heard right: Shoppers are able to use play money to buy something real.

Further, I know of one team that is developing a virtual showroom for a major car company in SL. You can test drive and order a car that will be delivered to your home.

[nutter]

Originally Posted by Svetlana

*missing the forest for the trees*....

The way this will affect loots is rather insignificant imo.
The SIGNIFICANCE of this is much grander. This further solidifies PE as a 'virtual reality'. It's kind of like 'one small step for PE, one giant leap for online gaming'

Let's imagine something together (everyone close their eyes, hold hands, sing in harmony- whatever you have to do ): imagine in the not-too-distant future you walk into a town, let's say Hades. You see billboards (if you so choose to enable that function) and you can click them to learn more. Perhaps you see a newspaper box... you click it. It asks if you would like a free, downloadable version of such-and-such advertiser's wares sent to your email... or even better, perhaps they even offer to send you a sample of their things or something cheesy like stickers and magnets but it's still no unique that you want it! Then you walk into a building in Hades, and there you see a big screen t.v. of sorts- you turn it on and there is a streaming video that someone has paid MA for (the content of such things would be a fun debate tho! We'll cross that bridge when we get there I suspect ). Say you want to order a pizza irl... by all means who among us can really say they would greatly disapprove of being able to eventually order things from game? For those of you that are complete PE junkies, you'll love it: you will never have to leave your house again

I realize how many of us prefer to 'escape' reality by the games in which we play. By enabling us to choose this option, MA has given us all a great thing that most other games with ingame adverts (ehem Second Life ehem) don't even offer their gamers. But, I do think with regards to PE especially, that those that do not want this complete 'virtuality' will not survive long... and I say that affectionately btw. There are some great games that cater to the surreal, ideal, and fantasy realms. Those will always be great for those of us that prefer a complete escape- no worries of money, no worries of anything at all remotely like what we see in our day-to-day lives. But PE has never purported to cater to such a group of ppl. It has always claimed to be entirely 'virtual', and accordingly I expect this ingame advertising to be simply the tip of the iceburg.

I agree that this is indeed the tip of the iceburg for ingame income streams for companies that develop the games...

However, Entropia as you know is about the peds, except to those who have thousands and thousands of peds or uber equipment and they can afford (in game anyways) to able to log in and just chat about their latest uber-hof or camo drop or run around viewing adverts.

Everyone else is trying to get higher skills, equipment, guns; killing bigger mobs etc. All of which cost peds. Virtual universe? Yeah right, just like Caesars Palace is a virtual universe.... It is a GAME! Sorry for the emphasis but it really is just a game, a game that costs money to play if one hopes to have a greater 'experience' than just using it as a graphical chat client.
This being the case, anything that increases the chances of getting PED's (in order to advance skills, buy weapons and have that better 'experience') is imho very welcome, but should not be exlusive to those who get HoF's.

[thoreau]

Originally Posted by Svetlana

Let's imagine something together (everyone close their eyes, hold hands, sing in harmony- whatever you have to do ): imagine in the not-too-distant future you walk into a town, let's say Hades. You see billboards (if you so choose to enable that function) and you can click them to learn more.

from mtv.com

Massive's Davis has a new technology of his own that he expects will smoothly glide into games without disrupting the flow. He calls it "3-D object replacement." Instead of zapping ads into players' games, the service will inject a new car or ad-themed character for players to look at. The idea, Davis said, is to bring ads to gamers, rather than funneling gamers to ads. "We don't want to take people out of the gameplay," he said. "We don't do click throughs."

[Da Snake]

I usually like to bash MA, but I think this ad thing is great. More peds coming into the game can only have positive effects. Even if not a single pec of the advertising money goes into the loot pool, MA will have the cash to buy more servers and have more QA testers to eliminate bugs.

A huge danger is going to be inflation. With soo much more money coming into the game the cost of items will skyrocket. I bet the cost of most items will double or triple.

[Darkscorp]

Originally Posted by Tyra

Etopia has Asked the questions that i want answers to

Better have your Imp "Marcoese Universal translator" ready then because if you don't one of the following may happen:

1. You read more into the statement than is actually there.

2. You find yourself bewildered and confused, making you angry.

3. You copy/paste the entire statement into notepad,print it out and rush frantically over to the best cryptographer known to mankind and camp out on his doorstep till he deciphers it.

4. All of the above.

lol

[Rikky]

Originally Posted by Darkscorp

Better have your Imp "Marcoese Universal translator" ready then because if you don't one of the following may happen:

1. You read more into the statement than is actually there.

2. You find yourself bewildered and confused, making you angry.

3. You copy/paste the entire statement into notepad,print it out and rush frantically over to the best cryptographer known to mankind and camp out on his doorstep till he deciphers it.

4. All of the above.

lol

ROFL
amen to that !

[Svetlana]

Originally Posted by thoreau

Not exactly true.

from mtv.com

Nice article which I read some weeks ago myself . It points out that the other games that have ingame adverts have been quite pleased, as have the majority of their player base (at least according to the article).

I believe you misunderstood me Thoreau- so for the record and to clarify for you, I said that MA has given us a unique feature in being able to turn off the ads (unlike, as I pointed out, the game Second Life where everyone sees the ads regardless).

[MistyDawn]

I don't see the problem here tbh, most people accept the fact that they will never will get an uber ATH, or at best their chances are mighty slim but they play anyway, so what is the difference if they turn the ads off? We have a choice, until it is stated that ALL loots in general will be affected then there wont be a difference in your game, you should still be able to get HoF/ATH but just not the ones paid for from advertising.

One thing that does make me wonder though (no, I'm not bashing cND) is that when ND gets live DJ's streaming and lots of people just join for the 'free' music who will pay the extra bandwidth? If the ad system helps cover this then I'm certainly all in favour of it.

If it helps with R&D, Great!
If it helps MA then Great!
If it means MA relies less on our wallets then FANTASTIC!!
At the end of the day all I can see are benefits, if it means more lag then....
but.... I have a choice, I can turn it off, heck I don't even have to play PE, it's my choice.

I for one will at least give it a try, if I don't like it then I'll turn it off

[Natasza]

I want to rename my avatar to

Natasza The Beta Tester Hmm and make advertising for Sony

anyone minds?

[Lan]

I do think real world items in PE, diminish the escapism factor...for me it is not a big deal as I tend to turn the sound off and watch TV while I play anyway.(I already get my share of commercials, thank you very much.) I guess it could be worse. We could be fighting Keebler elves and the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man.

Hmm, it would be kinda cool to loot a wand of buttery goodness...