VeeshanVault

The big deal is the amount of money this opens up as a revenue stream for companies like SOE. If you don't think they're getting cash from Pizza Hut for each referral... Well, I know you understand that. The fact that this is the first step, and that the goal is to get to the point where you can automatically purchase things from specific companies the MMOG vendor has partnered with (Advertising Money) is brand new to the MMOG market. It's an additional revenue stream that can be used to make games even better.

Plane of fear - brought to you by McDonalds!

See, but that's the other beauty of what they're doing. They don't have a vendor within the game who has a Pizza hut outfit on and will take your order... just a simple little command that pulls up a website outside of the game and generates them cash. Sure it's been done before. Sure it's somewhat pathetic for people that need to use it... But it's also fucking genius because of the simplicity required to generate money.

I see the genius in it, I just don't like the direction...

I bet they will squeeze in advertisments during zone loads soon.


LOADING, please wait....buy a Pepsi

Anarchy Online already has billboards with Alienware commercials on them...

I can see where it will be a necessary evil down the road. It's like Television advertising. If advertising allows a MMOG vendor to produce a significantly better product than a competitor then I'm all for it. If there's advertising and the product is shitty, I'll vote with my wallet.

But they (SOE) have paying customers.. That should be enough. In addition to the base product. It's not like Televison advertising which is there because you don't have to pay for the content you're watching. Unless you have cable, then you're paying for that and getting stuck with advertising. But you get the idea.

Something like /pizza I don't see the big deal about, because it's really not noticeable in the game. It's just a command that launches your browser to the order page. But if they put pizza hut in the bazaar or whatever that would be real tacky and I really wouldn't want to support something like that when I am paying a subscription.

I think the golden pick idea is pretty hilarious, albeit cool. (Too bad free pizzas didn't drop off mobs in the Deep back in luclin... pizza farm groups for the win), but I fail to see the practicality of actually using /pizza. I understand Sony is after money, and obviously this will generate more.

However, their advertisement slogan is "Hunger interrupting your game? Just type /pizza," or whatever. I would assume most people that play a game often enough to have any desire to use /pizza would keep the phone at or near their computer. I could continue playing the game while ordering a pizza on the phone (did it all the time in EQ1) just fine, but /pizza would minimize the EQ window. That's far more of an interruption to the game, if you ask me.

AO is free now though right? They have to have some way to pay for the bandwidth.

Marb

Drinsic Darkwood wrote:However, their advertisement slogan is "Hunger interrupting your game? Just type /pizza," or whatever. I would assume most people that play a game often enough to have any desire to use /pizza would keep the phone at or near their computer. I could continue playing the game while ordering a pizza on the phone (did it all the time in EQ1) just fine, but /pizza would minimize the EQ window. That's far more of an interruption to the game, if you ask me.

Noone ever said people playing EQ2 were smart!

HURHURHUR LOOK MIIR NOW I'M TROLLING TEH GENERALZ FORUMZ TOO!

This isn't new for Sony. Anyone remember seeing this when installing Shadows of Luclin?

http://www.falcon-nw.com/images/ad/luclin.jpg

They have had advertisements for Pentium processors on many boxes of games and the loading screens for a long time. I have also seen ads for Kingston memory and video card companies in games of late. This is just another company thinking outside the box to get advertisement.