Loading... Advertarded

Welcome to the 1,128th Edition of Loading...

Loading... is the premier daily MMORPG news and commentary newsletter, only from Ten Ton Hammer.

Microsoft has a brave new plan for in-game advertising: advertars, players compensated to become a "walking sales pitch" that might somehow compensate other players to take a survey, wear branded merchandise, or have stylized emotes that push a product. Does this idea have any sort of redemptive side, or is Microsoft just being Microsoft? Our thoughts in today's Loading... Advertarded.

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The Pulse

You vote with what you view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the result is the Ten Ton Pulse (What is The Pulse?).

Here's today's top 5 Pulse results:

World of Warcraft Champions Online (UP 2) EverQuest 2 Age of Conan (down 1) EVE Online (UP 1)

Biggest Movers this month :

Aion (down 4 to #9) Dungeons & Dragons Online (UP 2 to #6) Vanguard: Saga of Heroes (UP 2 to #8) Recent MMO Releases 6/25 - WAR "Land of the Dead" 6/30 - City of Heroes Issue 15: Anniversary 6/30 - Lord of the Rings Online Book 8 7/7 - Darkfall Player Housing Expansion 7/13 - Darkfall NA launch 7/21- FFXI "Moogle Kupo d'Etat" Addon (release date)

Important Dates

7/13 - Mortal Online Preorders On Sale 7/23 - 7/26 - San Diego Comic Con '09 7/31 - 8/3 - Aion Beta Weekend 8/21 - 8/22 - BlizzCon '09 Upcoming Releases 8/25 - CrimeCraft (release date) 9/1 - Champions Online (release date) 9/9 - Fallen Earth (release date) 9/22 - Aion (release date) Early 2010 - APB

Loading... Daily

So before I get slammed on the title I chose for today's Loading..., let me just say that I grew up volunteering with the mentally handicapped and disabled through my father's former workplace, and have a seriously soft place in my heart for them. Ideas can be "retarded" - as in stubbornly resisting good sense - but retarded isn't a good or especially fair way to describe people, especially those that can't help how they are. Enough said, I hope.

The thing about "free-to-play" games (a misnomer if there ever was one) is that, even in the good ones, you get what you pay for. Now, I'm not necessarily against the concept, broadly speaking. Purchasing items and content à la carte with hard-earned cash may or may not be the wisest course for an MMO whose raison d'etre is reducing or eliminating cultural, geographic, financial, etc. boundaries to get folks together to play a game. Whether MT is ethical or not depends much on how it's implemented - paying for an awesome button is still cheating, whether the devs say it ain't so or otherwise. As far as advertising in a subscription-free game (and conversely paying a subscription to avoid overt advertising), I help run a network that allows viewers to pay less than $2 a month to avoid seeing ads altogether.

So my problem isn't advertising or microtransactions in a free-to-play game, it's advertisers who simply don't get it. The latest example is Microsoft's "advertars" idea, which seeks to turn players into walking billboards in return for real or virtual compensation.

I usually take a "wait and see how it will be implemented" approach towards these kinds of ideas, but this one triggers a gut reaction in me. As a kid I did my best to avoid wearing branded and logoed clothing; I did most of my clothes shopping at an army/navy store, believe it or not, since that was one place I could buy plain, decent clothes (normal clothes, mind you, my parents wouldn't let me go to school dressed in fatigues like the Pennsylvania Provisional Anklebiter Army), free of a liberal coating of Op, Billabong, Nike, or Adidas logos. It was a particularity of mine my parents could live with; we didn't really have the money to turn me into a walking advertisement anyway. Ironic that you have to pay more to be an advertisement? I think so.

The idea of "advertars" sticks in my craw, if you will, because Microsoft still doesn't get it. They hire bright people, they pay well, they build Microsoft-campus bridges over highways with taxpayer money, but they seem to have a mental block towards MMORPGs. You saw it with Vanguard, Asheron's Call 2, Mythica, True Fantasy Online, and on the first go 'round with Marvel Universe Online. No one can fault a company that thinks as much with its money-making head as much as with its gaming soul, but it's like Microsoft doesn't have a gaming soul, period. The money people are in on the ground floor saying "Buy! Sell! Publish! Cancel! Advertars! " with little to no sense of what makes a game fun. Or perhaps they've never had any gaming fun in their insular little Washington-state green communities. So let me put it another way: what makes a game or game feature marketable in the first place.

Whether or not you become an advertar, or opt to take the brief survey for compensation, there's nothing redemptive about advertars in the social context of an MMORPG. First off, the examples cited in the Siliconera article sound like they would target games made for tweens and teens, i.e. FreeRealms, Wizard101, FusionFall. At least I hope so. In an adult-focused MMO, who would want to let The Abercrombie Model, in his Levi greaves and Nike sabatons, into their pick-up group? No one in today's climate wants to fraternize with a conspicuously selfish type of player. Whatever your feelings about targeting kids with ads - I'm not thrilled with it, personally, and I'm sort of glad I grew up watching commercial-free, antenna-drawn PBS - having a bunch of paid marketing pushers in a game sounds a little more sinister than a simple billboard advertisement.

If Microsoft were able to work out a clever way to increase group stats by having one or several advertars in your group (which they won't, because it cleverly covers a shortfall in their plan, and Microsoft plans don't have shortfalls, jawohl?), that just makes things all the more devious and unsavory for that increasingly extinct species - the pure gamer. But that, at least, would gain acceptance and approval with time. As described in the article , advertar distinctions might as well be the modern equivalent of a red "A" for the typical MMO gamer.

But I have another fear: that this is just part of a growing wave of what I call feedback-oriented half-assed marketing, or to put it in a more provincial manner: throwing bad ideas against the wall to see what sticks. Why pay the hollow men, the marketeers and product managers, if their just guessing and/or seem to have no real personal identification with their ideas? But the real downside of this approach is that if you throw out a stinker, like this one (in my opinion), your brand takes a hit. And gamers, in particular, have a long, long memory.

That's my take on the Advertars situation, what's yours? Have your say in the Loading... forum or, as always, feel free to email me.

Shayalyn's Epic Thread of the Day

From our Tavern of the Ten Ton Hammer forum

Potential

Close, but no cigar.

Anacche asked an intriguing question of our community: which
game looked most promising to you pre-release and failed to live up to
its potential (or came very close, but missed due to lack of polish or
other factors)? He also asks which game has made the best effort to
make a comeback. As you might expect, plenty of our members want to weigh in on this topic. 

==============================
Awesome Quotes from the Epic Thread

"EQ2,
Vanguard, AoC, AO and more have all made up for their release mistakes,
but I don't think any of them made a comeback. I'd have to say
EVE; it may not really be a comeback, but as far as I am aware, it is
the only MMO that had a small launch and has just blossomed into a
massive game over time. 300,000 subs, when they sold less than 50,000
at launch, to me screams of doing it right and building on the game
rather than relying entirely on launch day figures."

- bobfish
==============================

Have you spotted an Epic Thread on our forums? Tell us!

7 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 78 in July! 843 in 2009!

New MMOG Articles At Ten Ton Hammer Today [Thanks Phil Comeau for links and Real World News]

Features:

EVE Online - Sins of a Solar Spymaster 21: How to Survive a Failure Cascade
While a detailed theory of how alliances in EVE disintegrate may provide some academic amusement, it doesn't offer any practical guidance. If handled with naiveté, alliance death wreaks untold personal destruction. You have to learn how to recognize when your alliance is in trouble, and then know what to do about it. The Mittani will tell you how.

Guides:

World of Warcraft - PvP Priest Guide
PvP is a serious battlefield in World of Warcraft, as Alliance and Horde constantly battle with each other to win. Yadiera has updated the Priest PvP Guide with more information about the specs, rewards and basics about each battleground. As well as extra tips to surviving or standing out in a battleground depending on the spec you choose to PvP with as a Priest. Aion Asmodae Beginner's Guide to Ishalgen
New players to Aion that have chosen to play the Asmodae race have a lush, if not a tad dark, story and quest series ahead of them. Ten Ton Hammer's Asmodae Newbie Guide is built for just those players. Ethec shares the Asmodae experience and outlines the quests, stories, events and areas that players face in the introductory levels. World of Warcraft - Tier 9 Hunter Gear
PTR Patch 3.2.0 Call of the Crusade is up and running and sometime in the near future will be unleashed into the World of Warcraft. Recently Blizzard gave us a glimpse at the much anticipated Tier 9 gear that will be released with this patch. Take a walk with Mem this week as he takes a detailed look at the Horde Hunter T9. World of Warcraft - The Ultimate Guide To Ulduar Bosses: XT-002 Deconstructor
Next up in our trek through World of Warcraft's Ulduar is XT-002 Deconstructor. Another complete guide with all the tips, tricks, strats and shiny purple information you need to assault this oversized tinker toy with confidence. We have even included a section on how to get those ever so important achievements. Read up on all about how to Deconstruct the Deconstructor!

Screenshots:

Dreamland Online - Four New Screenshots
IGG has announced a new MMORPG to its lineup titled Dreamland Online. The new MMORPG will be a 3D side-scrolling game developed and operated by IGG. To give the public a look at Dreamland Online, IGG has sent us four new screenshots from the Chinese Alpha test phase. Dungeons and Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited Screenshots
Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited (DDO) will launch on August 4th and provide players with the opportunity to play DDO for free. This week Turbine sent us several new screenshots from the coming DDO update. The new images show the areas of Deleras Tomb and the Vault of Night and some of the creatures players will encounter when they enter these areas.

Giveaways:

The 'Empty the Vault' Giveaway Ten Ton Hammer EVE Online Summer Giveaway

Hottest Content:

Demystifying Micro-Transactions in Champions Online EVE Online - Sins of a Solar Spymaster 21: How to Survive a Failure Cascade World of Warcraft - The Ultimate Guide To Ulduar Bosses: XT-002 Deconstructor World of Warcraft: Dual Talent Specialization - How Has it Changed the Game? Champions Online: Ten PvP Tips from the Devs Aion Asmodae Beginner's Guide to Ishalgen Dungeons & Dragons Online - Ten Facts You Should Know Before Playing Champions Online @ Ten Ton Hammer Goes Live! World of Warcraft - Surviving BlizzCon Lord of the Rings Online - Vol. 2 Book 7: Leaves of Lórien Epic Guide

Real World News

Woman charged with assault for pulling out ex-boyfriend's nipple ring

Friends close to her think she was upset over new ink-work he had done on his arms, so this is just a simple 'tit for tat' situation. Serial masturbator seized by Willy's in central Sweden

Representatives of the Willy's grocery store chain said, "He's clearly a whack job, but perhaps he just knows how hard it is to beat our prices!"

Seen news you think I can mangle into a vaguely amusing snippet of text? Send it to me.

Thanks for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer network!

-Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle and the Ten Ton Hammer team