Has this been tried yet? I think there''s a host of people who, for many reasons, can''t/won''t pony up a monthly fee for MMORPGs. I''d like to be able to offer a two-tiered plan for my MMORPG: support via a monthly fee or support via adds. Do you think there''d be any acceptance at all for this idea? If a MMORPG were to offer this as an option I''d be all over it, so hopefully I''m not alone. I''m talking about non-intrusive adds in the GUI, and perhaps a full page splash during loading. These will definately NOT affect game play.

Studies have shown that those kinds of adds are ignored by users. As a ressult, they generate very little revenue. Some websites quote banner ad rates at $.50 per 1000 impressions.

It depends on how big your player base is, there are games that do this, that I have come across mainly games that show these adverts are ok in the game for example nascar racing, they have adverts all over the place because it fits in. But if you have a fantasy game showing off a graphic cards product or a fast food place, then it wont do that well. But if you are able to get this type of adverts it will pay nearly all of the development costs and hardware. (well it should pay very well)

But if you can find adverts that match your theme then you have to talk to the company and hope they will go for it.

You can definatelly put any advertisement into any game.
McDonalds could be a name of a Wizard. Burger King could be a king of a city Burger, etc.
Red Bull? Just create an area with Bull npc protecting red liquid, and if you get in and drink some of it, you get powerful.

So its easy to stick advertisement into a game.

Will companies bite, and pay up? I am not a busnessman, so can''t answer that.
Good luck though.

You could pretty much estimate this right now. Chances are, you would only be able to gain money using the current banner add programs available. Although making real game characters that promote companies is a novel idea, I don''t think that you would receive much compensation for this as the marketing value is very vague. So basically you would have to come up with a way for users to be able to click on rotating banners and have them open up webpages in the middle of gameplay in order to make a wopping 5 - 20 cents per click. Obviously this "could" add up; unfortunately most users don''t want to be bothered by ads while they are playing.
I think you would find that you''d make more money charging $.50 per month or just asking for donations.

One thing that I could see working would be to make a free client with really annoying ads and a pay client that is ad free. Once users get hooked on the game, they might pay. Gamespy does something like that, I remember using it awhile back and the ad mechanism was extremely annoying.

quote: Original post by abeylin
You can definatelly put any advertisement into any game.
McDonalds could be a name of a Wizard. Burger King could be a king of a city Burger, etc.
Red Bull? Just create an area with Bull npc protecting red liquid, and if you get in and drink some of it, you get powerful.

So its easy to stick advertisement into a game.

Yep, it''s easy all right. But it cheapens your game and that dirty feeling of being a corporate whore won''t wash off no matter how hard you try.

The Sims Online did this well. They made McDonalds in most cities, made the food really good and that was their advertising. Don''t do a full page add during loading because it will put people off. If your in a cyber-city then maybe have huge adds on the sides of buildings that flash and sell Cokes in item shops etc...

You must also consider the negative side effects of advertising in an MMO. Companies like to control the medium that their advertising is released into. MMOs offer a much higher degree of interactivity with any part of the advertising. Take the Sims Online for instance. The following article helps to understand the levels people will go to in an MMO if they do not like the product being advertised.

http://www.shift.com/content/web/425/1.html

Before one runs off building a great ad service to implant into their MMOs one must also consider how the receivers of those ads might react and if their reaction can turn the ad campaign negative against its sponsor.

Lastly, ads very rarely get sold if the place to put them is not implemented yet. Intel, EA, and McDonalds were pioneers of this advertising and to date there hasn''t been much additional activity. Good luck selling ad companies on something they have never done before. Hope you have an IP license that clearly demonstrates how many eyes their ads are going to be put in front of.

Kressilac

Well, I won''t be integrating adds into the content, that''s for sure. I''m not sure how a McDonalds would look in a fantasy RPG, and I have no desire to find out! :-)

I asked the question because I was thinking of a two-tiered payment plan for my future mmorpg: pay a (small) monthly fee and never see an add, or play for free but view a few adds. As I mentioned in my initial post, I sure wouldn''t mind playing a mmorpg with a banner add or two if it meant I could play for free, but at the same time I''m having difficulty believing that I could ever recoup the same amount of money from advertising to the free players as I could just getting the monthly fee.

From a business standpoint it doesn''t make much sense to let your users buy out of ads unless the buyout is greater than the revenue that might have been generated from them viewing ads. You see, ads are all about impressions, eyes, ... Given a population X, as some number y buy out of viewing ads, the potential number of eyes becomes X-y. The more that buy out, the less valuable your viewership becomes to ad companies. Its putting two revenue streams directly at odds with one another.

In the end its easier to focus your expenses at the maintenance of one revenue stream instead of trying to focus expenses at two revenue streams. Even if you do it both ways, you''re painting yourself into a corner. One day, you''ll want to reduce expenses somehow and you''ll be forced to ask which revenue stream is more valuable because you can''t equally reduce exenses for each stream. At that point you will have made an implied decision on which direction your company will go and in turn may have wasted expense money chasing a revenue stream that in the end wasn''t as valuable to you anyway.

Kressilac