I wish these idiots who seem desparate to shove adverts into every part of our lives would just fuck off quite frankly. The influence advertising has on people must surely be over exaggerated by marketing types who believe their own spin. I can't remember the last time I was influenced by an ad, although I am coming over with an overwhelming urge to buy a Sony Vaio and maybe get some Crucial memory to upgrade it with...

If you TELL them they don't get back the money they put into web advertisements and in-game advertisements, then they'll stop funding sites like the Register and other smallish websites who otherwise would be forced to shell out of pocket for ALL of their server costs, instead of (well) most of it...

It's apparent to everyone but Web 2.0 nuts and Madison Avenue types (who don't want to realize their advertising relevance is past) that webvertisements DON'T WORK, and more often than not just annoy people. But as long as they're willing to dump money into a hole to support MY browsing habits, I'm willing to let them do it.

... does a great impression of 'EA SPORT - it's in the game'..

ah, get them young and keep them a la mcdonalds

...do I have to say this?

Fuck off and die, advertising lamers.

If you start placing ads in my games, guess what? I'll stop the games retrieving the ads from wherever they get them from, whilst passing the solution on to as many people as possible.

If that doesn't work, I or someone else will mod the game so that I don't have to look at your crap, again whilst passing the solution on to as many people as possible.

If that doesn't work, I simply wont buy your games, period! And while I'm at it, I'll make damn sure I spread the word around that your games are shite and do whatever I can to put people off buying your junk.

I wouldn't even buy a game supported by ads if they dropped the price of the game, which is unlikely anyway, as I play games to get immersed in them. Not to be reminded that Nestle has a new fucking chocolate treat on the shelves halfway through making portals in walls or conquering the city of Rome...

If I thought I needed the crap you're peddling, such as 'I'm A Celebrity Because I'm On This Show So There... Series Seventy-Eight' or 'Massive SuperNova Smash RnB Hits Man Yeah Volume Twelve - The Definitive Annual', I'D COME OUT AND FUCKING FIND IT MYSELF, ALRIGHT?

Now, GTFO of my games before I start actively trying to ruin your hobby.

"Extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds"

First published in the mid 19th century, this continues to be the best dissection of the ongoing craziness that is humanity. All potential Web 2.0 investors should read the South Sea bubble chapter.

Peace out......

I find myself agreeing with Dazzer but maybe not for the same reasons. It is insane to suggest you do not pay any attention to adverts. Of course you do. That is one of the ways you find new out about new products that you are interested in. It is almost certainly the way you find new suppliers for those products.

However, I do agree that you do not need advertising on every conceivable surface, whether it be real or virtual. Ultimately the amount you can spend on anything is limited by your income and budget and even if every purchasing decision you made was influenced by advertising, economics would still mean that advertising could only be a tiny proportion of the overall economy.

So where to draw the line? Well, advertisers need to make people aware of their products and yes that does require a variety of channels in which to do that. But there is no need to go beyond simple awareness - that could even be counterproductive. I am sure many more potential customers of the iPhone are aware of its limitations than would be the case without the marketing hyperbole, for instance.

So, say advertising is restricted to TV, radio, billboards, newspapers and magazines and maybe a few other media. It would still be the case that it would be impossible to avoid but potential customers would not be annoyed by rampant commercialism where ever they go. I find it particularly annoying when advertising is on top of services I have already paid for - that is charging me twice. So if I buy a game, I do not expect to be indirectly charged on top of the purchase price through constant exposure to advertising.

No matter how much I hate in game - in movie - in TV anything, I know quite sure that most of the game titles from this year and later on will be infested (as has been with DRM, surprise!surprise!...)

Some disturbed users will and have already began to download/create/apply different kinds of medicine for the epidemic. Piracy seems to be the only option to keep sane.

I suggest you watch the first episode of "Century Of The Self". Makes you will realise that advertising for brand awareness was ditched years ago in favour of generating demand for products that cannot sell themselves without reprogramming the population to believe that they need this crap to be alive.

If the propagandists are prepared to go to that length then why would they ever constrain themselves to a subset of potential media outlets?

I'm with Bairdy. Block the ads or take it back for a refund.

I'm sure I'm not alone here. During an intense game, the vast majority of the time is spent focussing intently on a tiny area around the crosshair and the actual goals of the game.

Nothing else, not even the hud. I know if my health is low and where health is and so on..I'm not looking for stuff in the sense that I'd register an advert.

I'm not admiring the scenery. Pretty much everything that is peripheral to playing the game is just ignored.

I do the same on websites I visit regularly too. You could plaster the sides of the reg with hardcore pron. I only read the blue headlines, click the ones I want to read into a new tab, and then read the text in the middle of each one. That's it. Anything else you've put around the stories, in the hope that it'll attract my attention simply won't.

That's how, over years, I've "learned" to use your site...I've learned that you plaster the sides with irrelevant crap. Google too, I know where the results are, I know to skip the yellow block and to ignore the right - unless I'm actually looking for the advert from a company.

If you want me to take notice of something you'd need to change the whole site - enough that I'd have to stop and think about how to find the stories and get to read them. But, you'd have to do that all the time for advertising to be effective, and that would annoy me, and I suspect countless other regular readers.

In the same way the supermarkets change where everything is - because otherwise we learn to shop in the store, and ignore everything peripheral to that goal [i.e all those impulse buys they want us to make] OTOH, they get away with annoying everyone.

Interpreting what you see, and how you react to it, becomes instinctive and automatic. Moreso as an adult - my son is always pointing out irrelevant background stuff to me on the TV and websites "Dad, free PS3 look" "where?...oh, that's just a scam..."

It's no different to cycling or driving IRL. If you're doing either in a focussed, determined way [especially as a sport, but even if you are doing either where traffic is busy] then, whilst you're aware of all the stuff around you, so you aren't crashing into it, you're stopping at the appropriate times and so on, you simply aren't admiring the scenery or taking in irrelevant details.

Sure, you can cycle along at a leisurely 5mph, gawping at trees and squirrels and generally inconveniencing others because you are going to slow to have control and aren't paying attention to where you're going.

But that's not the way you play a game is it? You don't slow down to look in the shop window during a lap of PGR2 or read the signs in TF2.

So, unless EA add passengers to their driving games or picnic areas to their FPS I don't see adverts being effective. Although that sounds daft, getting spectators is probably where adverts will matter - Lewis Hamilton probably doesn't reads them on his way around Silverstone, but evidently they expect the audience to. But, I doubt we'll have a Bernie Ecclestone of video games anytime soon - ergo the ad revenue from watching pro gamers won't achieve those big figures.

For players, I can't see the adverts being effective at all - at least not in the kind of multiplayer games that are played for years, which you'd think would be ideal for this dynamic advert idea.

Not unless the adverts manage to do that supermarket thing, but, in this context, that effectively means they have to break the game for people that have learnt to play it - which clearly won't work. A new level might, perhaps, but it costs a lot of time and money to generate good new multiplayer levels compared with the time taken for gamers to learn it and be playing it instinctively.

Games like WoW and runescape might fare better - but then it seems the adverts will clash horribly with the environments and scenarios typically used for MMO.

For single player games, I guess they have the ability to set the pace, or even force what you see for a time, ITV style, with a cut scene - with the added advantage that they could put some game relevant thing there too - a bit like revealing the plot to a film during the advert break.

But, generally speaking you play them a few times max, often only once. Even then, on the 2nd and subsequent times the instinct is starting to take over from the exploratory side of the first play through. The eye candy effect has worn off too and you're soon comparing it unfavourably with the screenshots appearing for ID Tech 6 or UT4 rather than gawping at how amazing it was the first time we saw it.

Leela: Didn't you have ads in the 21st century?"

Fry: Well sure, but not in our games. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games... and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts, and bananas and written on the sky. But not in games, no siree.

I do not mind seeing a Dell PC in a game--FEAR for instance. I don't mind seeing drinks cans with a coke or Pepsi logo on them. I don't mind seeing the the occasional static advertising billboard on a high street in the games I play. Product placement in games can serve to make those games more a reflection of the real world, and thus more realistic. However they should be static, non-intrusive and appear as part of the game world. No pay per click advertising, No opening a browser to a sponsors site should your crosshair pass over or click on a placed product. No dynamic advertising subverting bandwidth and interfering with game play.

The real world is full of real products one can identify and/or purchase, I have no problem with a game world reflecting this reality. Of course this approach would not work with games that recreate medieval, or pre age of advertising game scenarios, so those genres should be left ad free.

Other than product placement in games where it appears natural, I agree wholly with A Baird

I really do dislike intrusive advertising. I use adblock and no script whilst browsing. I have forgotten what internet advertising is like or whether it actually still exists. I rarely ever see an advertisement, and certainly never more than once.

"If you start placing ads in my games, guess what? I'll stop the games retrieving the ads from wherever they get them from etc"

Surely the game itself is an advertisement - for the company, the hardware maker, the sequels, the tips books, the premium subscription etc. Games aren't made for the love of art by monks, they are brand penetrators. It is silly to go on a crusade about in-game advertising, the entire industry is a giant advert for itself. I am reminded of the fuss over Sigue Sigue Sputnik selling advertising space in between album tracks; pop music is a big advert, it's all just an advert.

I choose Paris Hilton as my avatar, because she is a walking advert for herself (and perhaps a negative advert for Hilton hotels - I've gone off them since Paris Hilton came about).

Often I fined "ingame advertising" adds to a game world much like well done product placing in films and series.

I prefer it far more to traditional model advertising.

I don't see the point of pissing off your customer for what amounts to a few percent of extra income.

I canceled my pre-order of "hellgate london" as soon as I heard about the spyware. In fact I'm not buying EA games if at all, until well after they have come out so I have time to find out what nasties are hidden in there.

"If anyone in the audience is in marketing - Kill Yourself! There is no justification for what you do. Suck a tail pipe. Borrow a gun from an NRA buddy. Remove yourself from the planet, you soulless, blood sucking scumbag. Kill yourself!

But you know what anyone in the room who is in marketing is thinking? "wow bill's going for "the anti-marketing dollar" that's a huge market! Look at our research."

Please don't turn everything into a dollar sign...

"Ooh the plea for sanity dollar - huge market! Huge market!"

For example, I've played an old cyberpunk mmofpsrpg where in some parts of the city (especially around the plaza zones and the underground) you could constantly hear ads for the various factions of the game. You could also see their video ads on the walls, along with political graffity and other bulletins and on their office buildings and shops.

Besides adding a lot to the immersion, because walking along a crowded plaza with ads and armed riot police and private security patrolling the streets feelt just like in real life. (i'm from east europe) The whole scene looked like in real life two corners from my flat in the nearest shopping mall (called plaza by the locals), except in real life you can't shot everyone in sight if you wanted to.

Changing fake ads to real ones would decrease the immersion, but if they are part of the game world that would feel normal for everyone. And these ads stick, more than the ones you see on tv. Mainly because you are exposed more to them and mainly because they can be seen inside the content that you see. It's like putting ads into movies by showing them inside the film as part of it's world.

This approach works more than you think and I think it's dangerous. Swap the ads to some political propaganda and you get a game that does the brainwashing perfectly. Also make it free and everyone will be playing it.

Charlies angels: Full throttle had a game that was sponsored by a mobile phone company. I remember playing the demo (as the game was too shit to buy) and thinking as the character took a photo of a fast moving truck with a mobile phone, from a distance, at night then zooming in to the licence plate "No fucking way. What a load of crap." 3 odd years later and my new phone couldn't even do that.

2ndly in Tabula Rasa there are Dell computers in there. I've heard more about dells problems than anything due to them. The problem with in game advertisement, especially with tech, is that you have such a large and diverse user base that some people with hate the product enough to very publicly rubbish it.

But in the end I have the same opinion about product placement in movies. If it doesn't detract from the experience its fine. If it does the company who paid for the add just pisses me off. I have a blacklist of companies that have annoyed my through advertising. Some have been on the list since I was 8 now 14 years later the list is longer and I have never broken the blacklist.

Another one who uses a list.. An advert annoys me enough? No more buying from that company. But most of what we buy these days is truly worthless crap anyway. I often regret the hours that I spent in front of a TV or games machine (or reading El Reg :) ) that could instead have been spent with a friend who is no longer around...

Sure, things can be a bit harder to find, but it does seem to improve the quality of what I end up with..

Maybe more of us should do it, become more organised, and start letting these companies know which ads piss us off the most.. Then they would stop running them.

OTOH, that would give them more of an idea of what we do like, and they might start focusing on that.... Still, would improve the TV watching experience overall I guess..

"Will anyone even notice?"

Call me paranoid but, maybe that's their idea. You are so engrossed in the game that the ads affect you in a subliminal way i.e. processed by your subconscious with no higher brain processing.

Especially as the ads are dynamic. Static ads you will filter after the first few times you encounter them. If ads are refreshed in-game then you will notice the change.

I am pretty keen gamer. I already pay these companies for their product. I neither want them to pipe me ads nor (and I'm looking at EA here) monitor "anonymously" my web activity.

Nothing a properly edited hosts file or firewall can't solve. For the moment.

My problem with the whole thing is the tracking and analysis of these ads in-game that goes on. What was I looking at? For how long? How did I behave? Using up processing cycles that I'd rather go on AI calculations or whatever.

Not to mention that the shitty low-res ads that Massive or whoever try to send through jar horribly against the gloriously-rendered world that a dev team have slogged their guts out to make beautiful.

"Immersive advertising that enhances your gaming experience"? I'm not buying. It's a losing battle, but I'm bloody well going to fight it anyway.

Well done for ignoring advertising, yet you still buy into the biggest scam there is by paying monthly for a game you've already paid for.

... as long as they give out said games or DVDs for free.

What I will NOT do is pay for the privilege of having unwanted merchandise marketed during my "me time".

I will NOT buy DVDs or games with ads in them and will do my best to not buy products advertised in this way.

But that's just me.

> Call me paranoid but, maybe that's their idea. You are so

> engrossed in the game that the ads affect you in a subliminal way

I don't think so. I think dynamic ads have to get your click / interest because it isn't realistic to go back and wait for the advert again when you think "Time for a new TV...hmm....didn't I see an advert on that wall in Quake 5? What was the name of the firm?"

Usually, if I'm reading the paper and / or reading a mag like PC Pro I might spot an advert for, say, PC World / Argos / Comet and so on, with the latest TV / Camera / Game console deals.

Hundreds and hundreds of times I barely give them a glance. Now, say the conversation gets onto a new TV or whether to get a 360 or PS3, then someone will say "Wasn't there an ad in today's paper for them?" - at which point we'll look at the deals etc by going back to the newspaper.

Ultimately though, if we get to the stage of buying something, more research would be done anyway - at this point, firms need reviews / websites / shops - that kind of marketing, so we can find them and see what products they sell and for what price.

Yeah? So dynamic adverts might be registered in the "There was an ad for some memory chip firm" sense - but, at the time I actually want to buy memory and thus care who sells it, a dynamic ad on a web page or in a game isn't really going to help much. If I go back to the web page and a completely different advert for some completely unrelated thing is now displayed, it's a complete waste of time.

Because, subliminally or otherwise, I don't recall the name of all the potential firms that are trying to flog computer parts [or anything else] in the back of PC Pro or the top of ign.

Assuming we're not talking about a firm that, because I've bought from them a number of times I already go to them in the first place, they need to advertise in the specific issue when I decide to buy [which effectively means they need to repeat their advert month after month after month]

For an in game advert or web banner, I wouldn't be likely to start running a game, creating a server and running around hoping a specific advert I have some vague recollection of, will be shown. Nor would I want to sit and click 'refresh' on some web page hoping that the dynamic advert will eventually be shown again so I can pay attention this time or click it.

Brand placement might work, as some have said Coke cans / vending machines, iPods or whatever, but, for me, if no one else, adverts won't - dynamic ones certainly not.