Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is set within the Quake universe in the year 2065. You can either play as the human GDF or alien Strogg in one of five character classes.

The shooter is also in development for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, but there’s still no release date announced for the console versions.

Tell me, do you really care if Quake Wars is coming out or not?

Quake Wars isn’t visually pleasing, its audio is terrible, and it will have in-game ads. Did I mention that its futuristic concept is rather generic?

I still need an awful lot of convincing to get this game because I can just stick with Quake 4, which by the way is also meh.

Post from: EveryJoe

Quake Wars is coming this October

The research tested and determined the most significant factors which influence how gamers notice ads in games, including the type and depth of the ad placement, the type of the game, ad size, ad placement relative to the game camera, screen clutter, brand relevance to the audience, and other variables.

Key findings included the following:

• 75% of gamers engage with at least one ad per minute across most, but not all, game types; 81% of gamers engage at least every other minute.
• Less-cluttered ads are three times as effective at getting attention compared to ads that are either cluttered or within cluttered environments.
• While both contribute positively to ad engagement, placement of the ad in the primary camera plane (eye-level) is more important than large size ads.
• Not all ads are created equal. Dynamic billboards, around-game interstitials, sponsorships, and interactive product placements all offer different levels of user engagement and pervasiveness in the game.

The data obtained from the study forms the basis for a new view on gaming measurement, which will allow gaming media plans to be constructed in a way that is both comparable and additive to other media plans.

While it’s nice to know what ads work, mindlessly translating these results in game design might prove disastrous. The main benefit given by in-game ads to gamers is the immersion. When implemented correctly, game worlds would definitely be more “realistic” because of the ads’ presence.

However, you can’t just put ads in games without impunity. Can you imagine a McDonald’s sign on the backside of your mount? In the boundaries of first-person shooters, you can’t always put billboards at eye-level because that won’t be believable.

In addition, the graphics today has become so advanced that it’s imperative to make environments cluttered (Half-Life 2 anyone?). It makes the world seem more lived-in and authentic. This may make ads less potent (at least according to the study), but I simply can’t accept having a bare environment just to make ads more effective.

Developers should know where gamers stand on this one.

Post from: EveryJoe

Study says in-game ads are effective

Neil Postlethwaite, managing director at Splash Damage, explained that the developers want to keep supporting ETQW and not just “walk away” after releasing the game. Postlethwaite thinks in-game advertising would help maintain the persistent stat servers and the community site, in addition to the updates and improvements that they planned.

It all sounds great, but where will the ads be placed?

According to the Splash Damage executive, the ads won’t be intrusive and you won’t have to interact with them. The ads are planned to be part of the normal environment, and might actually add to the game’s immersion. Container trucks, for example, would have ads on its sides. Postlethwaite assures us that if the ad isn’t appropriate or it’s distracting, it won’t go in. No personal data that can be used to identify you will be stored. They said you’ll be tracked on how long you look at the ads, nothing more.

The problem with this is that the developer decides which ad is distracting, not the community.

Splash Damage could handle this aspect well, or they could ignore distracting ads and argue that it’s not—all for the sake of revenue.

It’s odd though that Counter-Strike: Source, one of the most popular multiplayer games, doesn’t use in-game ads, and Valve (and Turtle Rock Studios) has continued to support the game for the longest time. So far, Splash Damage has also been mum on the effect of in-game ads on the game’s retail price.

All these things considered, would you tolerate in-game advertising?

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Post from: EveryJoe

Quake Wars will have in-game advertising