Nielsen tracking in-game ads for Sony

This is yet another sad announcement for gamers everywhere. In-game advertising is something that only belongs in free games. When you're paying $60 for an often ~8 hour game, it's completely unacceptable to have atmosphere-ruining ads shoved down your throat with no option to remove them. And then to track the viewing of the ads - it's spyware/adware built right into our video games.

I won't purchase any games with in-game advertising and I fear this is going to severely limit the number of games available to me. I know this is just Sony, but it's definitely a direction developers for all consoles seem to be taking.

samfish concurs with dwells55.

As long as it's uninvasive, I don't mind. But if it's like BK in fight night, no thanks.

But considering this is Home we are talking about and Sony has always stated this was a community of commercialism, can't really say I'm shocked...

Well, they've got to pay for that free PS network somehow right? Better to look at a few ads here and there than pay $50 ala Xbox360 - assuming an ad supported PSN is eventually on par with that.

It's always invasive. I was watching my brother play Ghost Recon and the Dodge ads are just grossly out of place compared to the rest of the world. Or say Quake Wars. I don't know what brands are going to be advertising in it, but I know it's not going to fit in well to have today's companies advertising in that environment.

The only in-game advertising I wouldn't mind would be 100% accurate advertising. A GTA game where all the stores and billboards and things are exactly the same as real life. Where I'm using a H&K USP Compact to carjack a guy out of his Mercedes SLK. That would make some sense. But to have random billboards plastered everywhere is terrible.

sad day for gamers unless this will lower the price, but i doubt this will happen

Jerk Face concurrs with samfish, who in turn concurrs with DWells55. Well said, buddy.

Abscissa concurs with samfish and dwells55.

Abscissa adds: I already find it irritating enough to have to put up with seeing the characters in Tony Hawk and even Splinter Cell (?!?!) using "Sony Ericsson" and "Nokia" phones. And it's even baked into the menus! REALLY annoying. (Terrible joke but gets the point across: "Maybe they should just call it Splinter Cell Phone") And then Tony Hawk dedicates an entire level to Jeep. And in Downhill Jam, the options menus are designed so strongly like a cell phone's UI, it actually ends up decreasing the usability of it.

@#4: Not a bad point - for multiplayer gaming. But for single player games it's still just getting shafted.

Jerk Face also can't believe he spelled 'concur' wrong twice in one post. He is a bit shamed, at the moment.

Why does Sony continue to give me reasons not to want to buy their system? Are they purposefully making bad decisions to scare off customers? I love games, and I've bought every relevant system since the 2600, BUT the PS3 keeps acquiring some serious baggage that I'm not interested in supporting. How long until this malware crashes the console? It's not unreasonable to assume that serious problems could come from this.

umm chris... you DO realize in game advertising...isnt just happening on Sony's system right?

Anybody who likes the idea of Home and hanging out there to look at movie clips and trophies is a tool... of the Neilsen marketing machine!
Enjoy your "free" PSN. AHAHAHAHAA

@12
I turned on my 360 yesterday and the first thing that I see is a freaking McDonald's ad. At least PSN doesn't charge you to look at ads (and you can avoid them by not using Home).

*loves Wii*

I hope we don't get any adverts. There will probably be pressure too, what with the domination it's having. I trust good developers will just turn down adverts.

I personally find it to be an abomination to have ads lazily/flagrantly posted inside a game universe IF it kills the mood/theme/etc. Like the billboard thing commenters cited previously... a disgrace! But in the example of a FIFA game on the other hand, ads would be commonplace.

Also, I find it horrible from a consumer's camp to pay a game full price to have otherworldly stuff in it. I mean, come on, do you get Budweiser ads in your movie bought on DVD? It just kills the value of your purchase.

gotta love the ps3 lol

@ Brent
I got annoyed at first with that mcdonalds ad myself. I'm not defending in game ads, but they are giving a gree Austin Powers download out to everybody, plus having some kind of competition so I can see the justification of having that mcdonalds ad. Still I don't want to see ads in the marketplace.

"15. I mean, come on, do you get Budweiser ads in your movie bought on DVD?" -ThornedVenom

Unfortunately, yes. They just call it "product placement". But it's every bit as annoying as in a game.