Dynamic ads....omfg. If they could atleast stay with static. Maybe we can win 100% CPU using flash ads ingame too?

And whenever someone pwns the adserver, then all the gamers can enjoy possible exploitcode via the "ads".

I can sense a funny world ahead on a very bumpy road.

What is everybody complaining about?

It's not as if the game companies are dragging us, kicking and screaming, to
play their games. If they are going to put ads in games, they still have to make sure we will want to play those games.

Now we know why video cards are getting more and more powerful.
All the better to render those high poly count ads that are on the way....

Can’t escape capitalism…even when we play games to try and escape everyday life…this sux.

Planet <not earth>. The year is 2142, cyborgs are taking over the world. The shattered caracasses of hyperscrapers lie horizontally amongst the rubble.

BUY A SOFA NOW, DON'T PAY UNTIL 2007!

CHILDREN ARE STARVING IN AFRICA, DONATE NOW!

VOTE BUSH!

Your eyes pass these abstract words, plastered on the billboard. Perhaps your mind is playing tricks on you....

Sighing, your concentration sharpens enough to wonder why this billboard is pristine and perfectly maintained whilst structures around it are in smouldering ruins. Could this be a trap? The hairs on the back of your neck prickle and you bring the IR scope of your plasma rifle closer to your eye.

Perhaps the heiroglyphs on the billboard are a code, instructions for planetary domination that you must decipher at all costs. The enemy is using this against you, It's the one rational explanation for the preservation of this object.

With an odd, jerking movement - unnatural in the smooth 60 frames a second of your eyepieces HUD-enhanced view of the world, a detpack appears magically in your hand. There's a "whoosh" noise as your rifle is dematerialised into your infinity belt storage device, where you keep your wrench, handguns and 8 heavy weapons and ammo crates.

Setting the timer for 90 seconds you place it at the base of the billboard and run behind cover. There's an almighty explosion as 30microgrammes of dark matter reacts with the antimatter fuse and obliterates everything in a deci-click radius.

Job done, you brush the dust off your stator shields and sprint away from the rubble before the enemy can pinpoint your location. Something catches your eye in the dissipating dustcloud though, the billboard, unharmed, floating mid-air in the middle of a crater bigger than a harvesting pool. Enemy technology is immune to dark matter reactive bombs! Nothing the alliance has can touch it, surely our nation will fall. Determined not to lose sight of your objective - the Royal Flag of Team OMGWTFBBQ - you run on towards the glowing haze of the enemy compound in the distance.

Lesser men may have given up in desperation, but you come away from this experienced ready for the next hurdle the enemy puts in your path. (Oh, and also, you think that maybe a new sofa would look good back at the barracks rec. room. Odd that. Very odd.....)

The battlefield series suffer from a "great game, terrible program" syndrome. Some of the former is from third party (free) effort too, such a shame.

Its lose-lose, either you pass up a great game or have to live with the terrible program.

Mostly due to the kind of people that make super awesome decisions like these. (btw, please call me when we can filter the gene pool for this)

I'm fine with this if:

a) it lowers the cost of games or games services or even makes online gaming free in scenarios where you'd normally pay.
b) it doesn't do google-like indexing of my hard drive or activities to target ads at me. I liked it better when everybody just blindly assumed I wanted wireless cameras, weight-loss pills and viagra rather than actually finding out that I really do (j/k). At least those subjects are easy enough to block out in my own mind.
c) they don't force me to watch the ads in cinematics, loading screens or on-HUD "pop-ups"
d) game developers continue to make funny, creative alternate-universe advertisements, everyone appreciates the little things (babelfish, turkey-punch, duke nukem strippers). I'm afraid that will go away when every surface in the game is worth money to a marketing firm. Does this mean we'll start seeing billion polygon maps just so there are more surfaces to put ads on? Don't underestimate the dreamy world of marketing people where opportunity is just a matter of what falls within a very short threshold of tact. Don't let marketing people influence your technical work...

I am happy enough to get an online game for much cheaper or free and can just circumvent the ads with a mixture of firewall rules, a little data-file mucking or at worst a memory-resident patch that will almost certainly be out a month before the game hits the shelves.

Whatever they can do under the assumption that we're helpless idiots strapped into our computer chairs with eyes glued to the screen is just another test for us to prove we're not. I've worn out many keyboards smashing my escape key during every company logo that ever crosses my screen in an entertainment context.

Let the marketing hordes flow, let their ad agencies throw fistfulls of cash at my eyelids and watch as their creative juices spew out of their skulls testing out their precious new demographic. And when the cash doesn't come back in out of sheer ire for long load times and laggy products, they can all go bankrupt and fall deep into the spiraling hole of unemployment! Point and laugh at the glossy-eyed scumbag with dollar signs in his eyes when he sees the tragedy of a waste-of-space tiled brick graphic of a wall in some 3d game. There's cash in that wall that could be in his pocket! God forbid that purity remain!

Vote with your wallet, just don't buy these games. If you don't buy BF2142, you aren't supporting their desire to have in game ads.

"in-game ads might help lower game prices"

Microsoft?

"Some ads will be updated dynamically over the Internet..."

A new source for spam lists.

one exec to the other: "hey bill, i've got this fantastic idea: let's get those desperate gamers to actually pay for advertising!". "how the hell is that going to work, frank?" "simple, we just make it 'part of the game'! those clueless gamers will totally think it fits in and have absolutely no idea how much money we're making behind the scenes!"

i guess time will tell.

This is for online gaming only right?

I would hate to be in the middle of smacking around a boss just to have "and now a word from our sponsor" show up in the middle of the fight.

now if you make a very popular mod , for say , bf 2142 , well call it -
glacial combat - would the mod makers get a cut of add $'s ?
bf 1942 died and was only kept alive by desert combat - so in a similar situation it would seem equitable to allow the mod makers to share in revenue they are creating. -
I would support it if that was the case -

Well, I hope the pirated cracked versions have no advertising. LOL!

I just hope they consider dropping the prices for games, if they do begin to insert ads.

I dont mind the idea of having Product Placement.. or static ads that make sense to the game: like a Billboard in a racing game.

However.. this is getting insane.
The marketing folk are trying to ruin the internet.

This is the same reason why I hate and will never use STEAM.
They OWN YOU.

I dont EVER let my games connect to the net.. unless its a game that I play online.. which is 1 game (StarCraft)... and I dont ever play that anymore.

Next they will have game pauses to make sure you viewed the ad.

Whats next......a break in the action for " a word from our sponsor"?
Its truly pathetic that advertising is allowed to permeate and infiltrate its way into damn near every enjoyable thing we do or see.

BF2142 plot = a blanant rip-off of Earth 2140 RTS. :P

In-game ads in a FPS = t3h sucks.

"a world hit by sudden glaciation" - ice to an Eskimo maybe?

Sudden Glaciation?

Lots of adverts for various spirits then, to have on the rocks.

No fridge adverts.

No 'visit norway!' adverts.

'Hot Coke - for those chilly nights!'

'Guinness Extra Hot'

BUY COKE

BUY COKE

BUY COKE

BUY COKE

Great, just what I want to see in my games.