2.10 advert discussion, NOT a lawsuit thread.

[SaturnReturn]

I'm getting adverts for some film - looks like the replacement for Harry Potter as a movie franchise. The worst news is, this is in purely offline modes, and I haven't even signed in this session since I turned the PS3 on. They started the other day. I may have made the mistake of being online when starting the game, I'm not too sure. I assumed at the time that I had as I got ads when online, but seeing as I'm now getting them while I'm totally offline, I'm not so sure. When considered with the other recent news, this is a real kick in the nuts.

[brummpahh]

reinstall. don't buy "so nie" again, if possible.
in german language "s*n*" means:
"this way...doesn't work"
4real

[TorquedSoul]

Funny that this thread should pop up again in the midst of Studio Liverpool's demise.

To me ... the in game advertising was a way to make some games which have a small but loyal (and active online) fan base more profitable. I accept advertising as a part of the new game model ... so long as it doesn't create massive wait times it shouldn't be a problem. But some money has to procured to pay for online servers, it doesn't just materialize out of thin air. And a game like wipeout, that has a relatively small fan base, should expect advertising to subsidize the online environment.

I'm not saying that fan base rebelling against online advertising killed SL ... but it certainly didn't help.

[IH8YOU]

I would have paid 3 times the price for Wipeout HD - and was prepared to. I think a lot of people were as well. That super cheap price didn't help things. The zero marketing / advertising of the game itself didn't help, either.

Finally - I understand running servers and maintaining networks costs $ - instead of patching the game to support ads with a sudden surprise - Sony should have offered an option to those of us who detest ads to pay an annual server / network fee.

Sh!t, for 20 dollars - I'd buy the game new every year and not bat an eyelash at the prospect. I think I said this before - way back when SL was still breathing....

Sigh... sadly I'm only a consumer - what would I know about what I want? - Just ask Sony - they know EXACTLY what I want.

[TorquedSoul]

Subscription based gaming on consoles isn't far off either. No need to pay MS or Sony ... you will pay the game manufacturer directly just like many already do for MMO's on PCs.

Sony should definitely start looking into this type of arrangement for games that have difficulty being profitable under the current model.

[Koleax]

I'd rather have no Wipeout than one with annoying repetitive television-style ads that appear in load screens. Really, there is a way to do advertising right and that's nearly the worst they could have done. Good riddance to that.

$19.95... unbelievable. How much money do you guys want to guess they lost simply because they set the price too low? I would not be surprised if it was more than $100,000, and that's on the original WHD release alone.

Goodness knows how much they lost on Fury. With so many new game modes, I feel like I've only scratched the surface and will be playing this for a long time to come.

I'm a young person who majored in economics and I'm interested in these sorts of calculations. If anyone from Studio Liverpool would like to educate my curious and possibly naive mind confidentially, to see what sort of reasoning went into that pricing decision, I'd love that, but god I know you left a lot of money on the table.

[boxman22]

Funny that this thread should pop up again in the midst of Studio Liverpool's demise.

To me ... the in game advertising was a way to make some games which have a small but loyal (and active online) fan base more profitable. I accept advertising as a part of the new game model ... so long as it doesn't create massive wait times it shouldn't be a problem. But some money has to procured to pay for online servers, it doesn't just materialize out of thin air. And a game like wipeout, that has a relatively small fan base, should expect advertising to subsidize the online environment.

I'm not saying that fan base rebelling against online advertising killed SL ... but it certainly didn't help.

My problem with the ads was not the loading times. Here we had 3 ads being played over and over again for months. Not only that, but the sound volume was higher than rest of the game as well, which meant that i had to adjust down the volume on my headphones.

Also i would have accepted it more if it was sold with these ads. I didnt expect they would suddenly ad in game ads to a ad free game that i paid for. I would however accept it more if i knew it would lead to future releases or expansions.

[TorquedSoul]

regarding the pricing ... I think the intent was to have a kind of short term beta DLC model where every year they were introducing new tracks, modes and ships. Eventually once they sorted out the entire online experience a blu-ray version of the game would be released with all the add-ons included. I get the feeling that it got cut short. There was plenty of room for new tracks and ships. And definitely room for improvement on the online console.

Maybe Sony is ready to cut wipEout HD/fury to a disk and start preparing the next version of the game ... although with a different development team (or maybe the same development team as a different company).

[Connavar]

I now feel sad that we complained so much about in-game ads, because we lost
a lot more than that now, now I wish we could get ads back and SL still alive.

[SaturnReturn]

They're still there Connavar, and I think they may have been all along for some people. Don't feel bad about it. I can't think the revenue would have made any significant difference anyway. IMO it was probably always more about testing this out on HD than earning revenue from it.

[Koleax]

I don't think we complained enough.

I agree with SR, they were not even interested in earning revenue from us. If they were, I would think that they'd have released a premium DLC that would remove the ads for the users who didn't want them. Very easy, very simple thing to do that would have earned both goodwill and money. Yet, they did not do this.

Who knows what they really wanted with these ads? They were added haphazardly and carelessly, without focus. I don't think they were even testing it on us, because then they would have wanted information from us. They would have asked us to reply to them directly, sent us surveys and asked us to put check marks in boxes and rate our satisfaction 1-5. Nope, not even close.

AFAIK, Studio Liverpool never even had its own website with any contact information to speak of. This studio and its assets were not cared for on the business and marketing side AT ALL, seemingly. This restructuring was not unforeseen. It's an incomprehensible marvel that there were creative passionate people there who were still able to create something great.

As I expected, they have not done anything to change the fact that these ads can be blocked through the simplest means by anyone and without violating the terms of agreement. They may not care even about that.

[username]

Hey everyone!
It's been a while since I have been here!
First time this year - not good.

Anyway.
I strongly dislike the ad's; I don't know if anyone else has this problem, however on rare occasions, since the ad's have been added to the game, it will crash after about three seconds of loading.
If I reset the PS3, it seems to resolve the issue for a few hours, but it comes back again sometimes.
Because of this, its now rare I play HD.
However, the instant I hear that the ad's have been removed in an update, I will download the update, and be back for more races!

[IH8YOU]

You may want to go to the Wipeoutzone main page and read the news there before you start waiting for any future updates.

[ProblemSolver]

@Connavar: lol, no. Ads have stopped me playing the game. Not again, please!

... IMO it was probably always more about testing this out on HD than earning revenue from it.

I do think the same. They (Sony) just wanted to establish an ad infrastructure
technology-wise.

Btw; No ads since about three months over here.

[YouAreFubar]

After being off this game for a few months I forgot how annoying they were! : I dont know how many times I watched the same bloody advert, and it also stopping the loading time while it finished. If it was just once when you race first it it would be bearable, but every race just takes the mick.

[krioto]

I've completely stopped playing online

[YouAreFubar]

I dont blame you. Its certainly putting me off racing online again.

[Koleax]

There's a very simple and easy way around the ads.

[YouAreFubar]

Interesting, I forgot about that. Ill give that a go.

[Woopzilla]

I don't know if it's just my old 40GB PS3, but the ads are slowing down my load times significantly. I always seem to load last. I never see the 'waiting for blahblah' ingame so I assume everyone has to wait for me loading... It doesn't help that I get ads every 2nd race. :/

And there's definitely one film I'll never watch this year. :@