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The eve of in-game advertising


In-game advertising is a touchy subject to most players, but it's becoming an inevitable reality. With the increasingly-high costs of game production, developers need to seek other means of revenue besides the trusty subscription fee from players. This is where the in-game ads come in. It's a way for game companies to harmlessly offset production cost inflation.

Wait, did we say harmlessly?

The truth of the matter is, the majority of players are skeptical on the effectiveness and necessity of in-game ads. They're distracting and need to be tailored for a specific target-market in order to be even halfway believable. For instance, you can't have a Coke ad in World of Warcraft. Actually, any billboard ad would just not work in a fantasy setting. So for this reason, are we going to see an influx (even more) of sci-fi MMOs created for the sole purpose of including in-game advertising?