Are you willing to accept mass-marketing from third-party sponsers in-game?
For instance, say a well known car company decides to sponser an epic quest. First person that completes this quest wins a vehicle.
or
Completing a quest that generally takes you about 20 minutes to complete results ina code you enter on the third=party sponsors website that results in a coupon for a free ? Companies already spend MASSIVE amounts of money on markedting/advertising.
While I can say that this totally ruins immersion for me, I can also agree that this could be a way of gaining a good del of development funds. A lot of folks would say that this could never happen, but here's a thought...
The video game industry is now greater than the Movie industry. And the music industry. We already see commercial sponsers in both of those formats. How far would you let third party sponsers go in Pantheon?
I can't speak for VR, but my guess is that they will accept marketing and sponsors during the initial login screen (example: Nvidia, Ati, AMD, and Intel logos) on the way to character select, and mayabe, maybe something like /pizza, which really wasn't as a big a deal as many people made out. It was after all nothing in the game and just exited you to your browser via a command. Sponsored competitions or ads are certainly possible but how those might take form will vary and likely not be something that would appear in the game itself (example: PlanetSide 1's streamed ingame ads). A competition might take the form of a giveaway that would be promoted on the website and social medias, and "maybe" during that login screen depending on what it happens to be.
Anything that can help keep the game running and expanding without compromising the ingame world or gameplay is always a plus.
All that said, I wouldn't expect to see them serving Ye Olde Coca Cola at the local taverns nor the local caravans, brought to you by Ford.
Nephretiti said:Ugh, just checked and found out that in the last few years JUST Coca-cola spends well over $3 Billion a year in advertising. I would love to see some of that spent at VR, but at what cost to us, the players?
If they were to do something like that it would best be left at the initial login screens to character select unless they put in some feature like a /pizza that came with some sort of deals for using it with that product on order. There are ways, but you really don't want to start encouraging the appearance of items outside of gaming worlds they wouldn't fit in. While Ye Olde Coca Cola crafted mead might not be too big a deal, once the door is open, plenty more will follow. I, and I'm sure most people don''t have much of a care about certain ads landing in game if it fits the setting. The Secret World could use whatever they want because even with it's supernatural style setting, it still takes place in the modern world where these things would exist. But nobody wants to see a horse caravan trolloping away with a Ford sticker on the back. Careful planning and execution is the key to anything ad related when it comes to gaming. And I'm sure there will be plenty of passionate (and likely heated) debates to those points coming to this thread soon.
Persoanly I don't want to see the Coca-cola Headquarters building in-game. I think I might be willing to accept something like a small UI at the end of quest stating "This quest brought to you by Coca-cola! Congratulations! You have won a FREE 20 oz Diet Coke! Just go to www.coke.com and enter this code".
Even that might be too much. But what if they gave us a toggle to turn those types of commercials on/off? Then if you never wanted to see it you wouldn't. But if you DID want to see it - then you could. What if the reward wasn't a free soda? What if it were a Pantheon/Coke T-Shirt tastefully done? What are we willing to put up with in exchange for what we consider to be prizes?
Nephretiti said:Are you willing to accept mass-marketing from third-party sponsers in-game?
For instance, say a well known car company decides to sponser an epic quest. First person that completes this quest wins a vehicle.
or
Completing a quest that generally takes you about 20 minutes to complete results ina code you enter on the third=party sponsors website that results in a coupon for a free ? Companies already spend MASSIVE amounts of money on markedting/advertising.
While I can say that this totally ruins immersion for me, I can also agree that this could be a way of gaining a good del of development funds. A lot of folks would say that this could never happen, but here's a thought...
The video game industry is now greater than the Movie industry. And the music industry. We already see commercial sponsers in both of those formats. How far would you let third party sponsers go in Pantheon?
No to all of that. I play video games to escape that crap, it's the last thing I want to see in-game. :)
And if Pantheon goes that route, I don't think I'd want to play it.
It would be a major negative.
I would rather see Pantheon with advertising or even a cash shop than see it collapse utterly but this would be a move of desperation quite likely to backfire.
So... Nvidia/AMD ads in the startup/login sequence are kinda standard for games these days. If such a partnership helps fund Pantheon, I'm ok with that. I also don't mind a "sponsored by" listing in that sequence or on the launcher and in the game credits as long as it's not ridiculously long.
As far as product placement advertising or billboards within the game itself - No. Hard no. The setting isn't right for it. Now if Pantheon were a game set in contemporary Earth, or even a sci-fi future Earth or parallel universe, that might make sense. (FF 15 was really pushing the boundaries of product placement believability though, if I'm being honest).
Papa Johns has reported losses due to the NFL debacle that has been going on. I wouldn't mind seeing an official Pizza sponsor. I don't want to see billboards or anything like that in game but if I typed in /pizza and it brought up an affiliate link (for VR) that takes me to one of my favorite pizza joints, I would be fine with that. I'm spending that money anyways and if VR can take some credit for that and make some money in the process ... take my money!
Loving the responses so far.
Still, we are talking about just ONE company that spends 3 billion a YEAR on marketing, as since gaming now has more consumers than movies and music - I can see this coming. Coke ISN'T the only advertising dollar out there. Let me ask you a serious question: If Coke had known that WoW would get 25 million subs before the game went live, do you think they would have a problem getting into gaming? The only reason they don't right now is probably due to the older marketing execs they have are clueless to modern purchasing. I kind of wish they HAD bought into WoW - cause then they would look at this niche game and say "it's just not big enough for us".
Another thing to consider is this: some companies spend more for SuperBowl ads than VR spent on this awesome game. Somewhere out there is a junior advertising exec about to put 2 and 2 together. It would be cheaper for these companies to outright BUY the gaming companies then to pay for advertising. Please do NOT misunderstand me - I dread this coming. But we have to be realists here. Advertisers go where the greatest market is - and Gaming is now "it".
For the rest of this thread let's go with the assumption that advertising IS coming to the world (hopefully not with us here in Pantheon). Let's discuss what you WOULD find acceptable. Personally - my statement stands - let them have WoW. Especially Barrens chat. Would LOVE to see that there.... hmm, does that make me a hater?
As a side note, I just want you to understand WHY I am doing this. I would rather have US decide what we are willing to accept and let them react to us, than to let THEM (advceertisers) TELL us what we are going to get.
I think you're vastly overestimating MMO playerbases.
Gaming is "it" for advertising in eSports, not in MMOs. Pantheon won't have the population to make it remotely worthit to advertise random **** here, and that's not including the number of people who would quit (myself included) if product placement became a thing in a high fantasy MMO.
This thread is pointless.
