I’ve caught mention of former Shiny operative Dave Perry off doing something for Acclaim, but hadn’t really paid too much attention other than reading about it on Blue’s News. Turns out what he’s doing is kind of interesting. From the Wired article “In-Game Ads Burrow Deeper” (Link):
Acclaim is about to take product placement to another level with its free, ad-supported massively multiplayer online games next year. Game industry veteran Dave Perry, who’s directing 2Moons for Acclaim and creating several additional MMO games, wants to open up the door for corporate-sponsored micro transactions.
“When you buy a virtual item, we’re going to do a search to see if any advertiser in real-time is willing to pick up the cost of that item,” said Perry. “If you want this sword, it would put up a message and ask if you would like Coca-Cola to buy this item for you.”
Perry said this business model makes the customer happy because they get the item for free and the corporate sponsor is happy because they’ve had a positive exchange with the consumer.
Less than an advergame; more than an in-game ad. And better than mere sponsorship. Clever. Slimey, but clever.
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I was going to rip into Dave Perry’s idea, but I think he’s talking about an out-of-game method of buying virtual goods. Presumably if you’re buying virtual goods with real money, you’re not doing it inside the game world. If that’s what Perry’s talking about, I don’t object much to the idea of sponsored acquisitions–there’s no immersion to break in an out-of-game environment.
I’m not so sure, Tony. This could very easily be an in-game system. Only it might be something that’s done while the player is in a “shopping menu”, which – depending on circumstance – could already be breaking immersion. I mean, if a player stops his quest to buy a sword and drops out of the “game space” and into a HUD-style menu (which by its very nature is disruptive – elves don’t use heads-up displays), it could be argued that players will be okay with this; the game is, after all, free. I’m not sure, but maybe.
Regardless though, there’s something about corporations-as-mealtickets that bugs me. Forget immersion, this is Corporate World getting too close. They’ve bought you dinner, what else might they want? I wouldn’t want to find out. Give me the billboard. That I can ignore.