Enemy Territory Quake Wars ads won't be intrusive

by Steven Williamson on 21 June 2007, 09:26

Tags: Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars, Activision (NASDAQ:ATVI), PC, Action/Adventure

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Neil Postlethwaite, the managing director of Splash Damage has confirmed in his development blog that the upcoming Enemy Territory Quake Wars will feature in-game advertising, claiming that the move will help them to continue supporting the game whilst not needing to pass the cost onto the consumer.

"For the last four years, we've put all of our effort into making Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. So, we're not planning to ship this game and walk away ... To help cover this level of on-going support without passing the costs on to the gamer, ETQW will feature appropriate advertisements in select locations of our levels," reads the blog.

"The ads aren't intrusive and you won't have to interact with them; they'll just be part of the normal environment. In fact, there are some places it's quite odd not to have an advertisement - the sides of container trucks, for example."

"Great care is being taken to ensure that all our ads are appropriate for the game world and we have absolute approval rights in this area. If it's not appropriate or it's distracting, it won't go in."


If it takes the cost down for the gamer then we're all for it, just as long as the adverts don't become too intrusive. Activion's CEO, Bobby Kotick, gave us a taste of what the future holds for videogames when he told Indian television.com that, "Video games will soon be as mainstream an advertising medium as television."He's right, and it's happening right now.

Source :: Development Blog


HEXUS Forums :: 7 Comments

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Do they intrude much in other games that have gone down this path, such as bf2142? Not played any, so am not sure what the hit is.
I've never found in-game ads to be overly intrusive to be honest. I think with the plans that Massive have though that we may see that change in the next couple of years.
In a game you don't want to be distracted, esp multi-player, just taking a look at that new rollon deodourant could get you dead.

Looking at it from a diif angle, if they put loads of bra ads on there, at least it would give me a chance against those kids.
i was dissappointed to say the least when i saw this, i play games for escapism and fun i dont want to have ads trying to convince me to buy more rubbish.
I do agree with stevens comnment that the ads at the moment arent very intrusive but how long till we see more ads.

From the consumer point of view we dont seem to get a good deal, SD or whoever gets money from the ads but yet we are still expected to pay full price for games and expansion packs, is running a server really that expensive
Being an avid BF2142 player from the day of release, I've seen the levels with or without adverts active.

The adverts themselves aren't particularly distracting, probably because most of the time they aren't real ads, just in-game stuff like propaganda ('he's doing his part' etc.) or fake ads. You might look at them if you haven't seen one, but otherwise you largely ignore them. The rest of the time they're adverts for the one company that is using them, Intel. When that's the case. they just look….well…..see for yourself:



I mean come now? How does this sort of thing fit into the context? It just looks ridiculous when there are real ads on them. For a few weeks this was all I saw on all the billboards. Of course the situations that could arise from this sort of thing have long been noted…

I should also point out that this particular advert implentation has some effect on gameplay - these things are so big and numerous that they're part of the level and as such get used as cover. Alot of the time they're also in strange places - why have a billboard in a military base or in the middle of a strategic power plant?


So, Quake Wars…unintrusive ads? I'll believe it when I see it, although it sounds like they have actually thought about this a bit. Then again I saw this so it looks like things won't be any different when compared to BF2142. This all bends on what the PR guys term as ‘intrusive’. If ‘intrusive’ means pop-ups, then they're always going to be home free, as implementing that would probably be suicide for the developer and publisher.