Well, it looks like there's no turning back now.
As it turns out, Valve is starting to test out the use of in-game ads for their titles, and the first guinea pig for this experiment is none other than Counterstrike 1.6. Despite the flurry of protests that the mere mention of in-game advertising tends to generate, many game companies may soon be following Valve's lead.
Microsoft just posted the third quarter of its 2024 fiscal financial results. The software maker made $61.9 billion in revenue and a net income of $21.9 billion during Q3. Revenue is up 17 percent, and net income has increased by 20 percent.
Xbox content + services up 62% while hardware down 31%... seems about right with the way they tout you don't need the hardware to play. People can play on their phones or smart tv or other means. I don't hardly play on my consoles directly since getting devices like the logitech g-cloud and ps portal. Which is to also say I have been playing more digital than physical because of these devices.
Too expensive hardware when others offer the same or more for less? Good work, Green Team.
"Despite some early successes for Xbox games on rival platforms, Xbox hardware is down by a massive 31 percent this quarter."
"Without Activision Blizzard, Microsoft’s overall gaming revenue would have actually declined this quarter."
"Xbox content and services would have only been up a single percent without Activision Blizzard..."
"It looks like next quarter is going to be a similar story for gaming at Microsoft, too."
That is crazy... so A/B/K is carrying the whole Xbox gaming.
Oh and Microsoft will be fine. Windows, Office and Cloud are growing with each pc purchase.
As of right now, there are no monopolies in the games industry, and for the sake of the medium as a whole, they never should either.
And yet the biggest tech companies in America are essentially that. They buy up all the small comps only to kill them off and steal what they have, and if they can't buy em they bleed them to death.
They buy IPs not talent. That's why these buyouts never work and the IPs die. Right now it's too expensive to develop games - but I expect that to shift maybe as AI tools can make it easier. The best games have been indie games for awhile as big developers fuck their ips to death with "games as a service" -
GL compiles a list of some of the most mind-blowing video game narrative twists in recent memory, from The Last of Us to Outer Wilds
With articles like these cant you tag the games mentioned so that we can know ahead of time if there’s a spoiler to avoid?
Not clicking on your article otherwise.
If it's a billboard or 2 who cares. If this will offset dev cost and keep good games coming I am fine with it. Now if this renders a game unplayable then I have issues with it. I don't care if a see a Blu-ray movie sign in Killzone 2 or a sign for Windows Vista in Halo 3.
rainbow six: vegas has had ads in it for months already.
HBO ads.
Movie ads.
Axe body spray ads.
don't forget that the burger king was in Fight Night 3.
I despise this idea. It's only a matter of time 'till even load-out screens are packed with marketing B.S..... and lucky us, we still get to pay the same "next-gen" prices even with the ads. If you want me to swallow the whole advert thing, CUT THE PRICE OF THE GAME!!!
"After all, it generates revenue for game-makers.
Revenue equals more (and better) games."
Yeah, just like taxes generate revenue for the FED.
And this revenue equals more (and better) social services. *COUGH*
"On top of that, there have been promises that the ads will remain discreet and out of the player's way".
LOL! promises eh?... well since you put it that way... :(
If anything depending on how its done it will ad to the realism of certain games. FNR3 is an example of a game that took it too far with ONE sponsor...but the premise was spot on. Fights are constantly being promoted by advertisors. Think about fights on HBO...you have that big HBO in the center of the ring. Dodge has been sponsoring lots of events...the scoreboards in the upper corner of our TV screens usually will have a sponsor logo. My only complaint about Fight Night was they were primarily the only ad sponsor....so the BK thing got old after a while.
As for what will come of this....I HAVE ZERO PROBLEMS WITH ADS IF THEY DO TWO THINGS: 1: Don't interfere with the game, i.e. make load times longer to display a logo or cause graphical slowdown because of the number of ads flashing, etc. 2: Give back to the community...i.e. cheaper games and/or as what Discovery did and sponsor download content and make it free (Gears of War). If these two things come to be true then how could anyone complain about ads.
This doesn't bother me, seeing a billboard or sign within a game makes it seem that much more real.