Papa6 Posted October 18, 2006 Share Posted October 18, 2006 this amounts to too much commercialism. think about this. peoples favorite titles are being crammed with advertising that's meant to generate revenue in some way. the sad side of the coin is, that gamers are the sad victims of such crap. I spend my quid on games not advertisements. the subtle ones were done by the likes of UBISOFT by placing ad posters on various places of games up coming or recently out. Lockdown had ads for GRAW on some of the garage hallway walls. geez next thing we'll see are games that make the levels look like tokyo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Papa6 Posted October 18, 2006 Share Posted October 18, 2006 (edited) Geez can you imagine guys? what if Rocky were to make a BF2142 map, and distribute it to find that this ad crap places ad posters at various places over his map. Blimey!, that's a way to ruin the work of modders etc. sorry bout the dbl post, seems two threads about this ad crap but here's a quote from an article about the ad stuff MediaZones seem to define what adverts should be used in the current 'zone'. In this case the zone seems to be the entire level of the game, but in larger games such as MMORPGS, these zones could refer to particular areas of a level or map. So these ads will be generated all over maps that aren't MMORPGS games. geez.. Edited October 18, 2006 by Papa6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RAbbi_74 Posted October 18, 2006 Share Posted October 18, 2006 As has been stated above, corporate advertising in video games isn't new. GRAW pulled it off fairly tastefully, I think. Not sure about Euro and AUS versions, but in the US we get billboard ads for Axe hygiene products and Dodge pickup trucks. While I'm a Ford fan, I do at least prefer the Axe stuff and would take the Dodge over a Chevy/GMC (Read: Opel, Vauxhall, or Holden, as appropriate) any day. Almost off-topic... The ads themselves wouldn't bother me so much, even if they did change each time I played a certain map. So long as they are integrated tastefully and in keeping with the type of map I'm playing. F/I, on the BF2 map (can't remember the name) in Alaska or Pennsylvania, there's no point in having billboards all over the place. They're remote locations where such would not be appropriate. But in the Operation Road Rage (I think) map, there should be PLENTY of them. The collection of even so much as my IP address, though, is going too far. WAY too far. Sure it's only SUPPOSED to be used for demographic purposes, in order to get the idea of what ads folks in my area are more likely to focus on, so that some company can better market its products to me and my neighbors. But that info has to be cataloged somewhere. If some 12 y/o can hack his way into MasterCard, Bank of America, or NORAD, then he can certainly harvest our IP addresses from some server somewhere. Add to that the data on which ads we crazy southerners spend more time looking at, and you've got all the makings of new scams, attacks, and hacks. Oh My! May EA rot in Hell for this. If the game sells more than five copies, they'll declare it a success and have thereby set a precedent for more games and more companies to participate in such shady marketing practices. I dunno about the rest of you free people, but we Americans have lost ENOUGH of our privacy. ENOUGH!!!!! I'm uncomfortably close to going vigilante anarchist maniac on some of these marketing companies..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrowmanUK Posted October 19, 2006 Share Posted October 19, 2006 (edited) EA have made an official reply to the ingame ads Posting on behalf of the Dev Team -------------------------------- Greetings, We would like to provide more information on in-game advertising in Battlefield 2142. To try and help everyone better understand it, here is how it works. The in- game advertisement is respectful of players' privacy: it never accesses files not directly related to the game, and it does not capture personal data such as cookies, account login detail, gameplay behaviour or surfing history. As it is an integrated part of Battlefield 2142 and not a separate program, it only runs when the game is running. Because BF2142 delivers ads by region, the IP address of the player is used to determine the region of the player and helps serve ads by region and language; for instance, a player in Paris will be presented with ads in French. Note that this IP address is not stored on the advertisement server and is not repurposed for other uses. A unique ID number is anonymously assigned the first time the player joins a Battlefield 2142 online game. It is stored locally on the PC but is not linked to any personal details. The in-game advertisement gathers what we call “impression data�, such as location of the billboard in the game or duration of advertisement impression. It helps see how many people have seen an ad – but not who has seen it. We are also conscious that the advertisement shouldn’t distract the player from the overall gaming experience, so all ads fit in the unique environment of each level in the game. The content of the ads is also controlled to ensure that no offensive content is displayed in Battlefield 2142. We all hope that this explanation will address recent concerns on the advertisement in Battlefield 2142. See you on the Battlefield. Your Dice Live Team This was posted on the EA forums here http://forums.easports.com/mboards/thread....IF4PCmaMVAAAKDw What I dont understand is that the ads will "fit in the unique environment of each level in the game", how the hell do they know whats going to be advertised in 2142? Its 136 years from now so any advert to fit in with the game should be a bit futuristic and not stuff we use everyday today? Or am I reading too much into this? Edited October 19, 2006 by CrowmanUK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocky Posted October 19, 2006 Author Share Posted October 19, 2006 Thanks for that info Crowman. What is really getting my goat is not the ads, but the way that gamers are on the verge of hysteria about it, or rather the misinformation about it. I've even been to non gaming boards today where people are posting inaccuarte information perpetuating the falsehood that EA are tracking your browsing history! I looked into it and the pages of google results lead back to one point, a post by a gamer in the shacknews forums that says this.,.. When you open the box, a big slip of paper falls out first, preceeding any discs or manuals. The slip of paper says, essentially, that 2142 includes monitoring software which runs while your computer is online, and records "anonymous" information like your IP address, surfing habits (probably via cookie scans), and other "computing habits" in order to report this information back to ad companies and ad servers, which generates in-game ads. I bolded the BS parts. Google it, that inaccurate and misleading ASSUMPTION of a post is all over the web, and on the basis of that rubbish people are all up in arms and saying "I am never buying an EA game again!", because they believe what some 28 year old gamer posted in a forum! The best bet is people are saying "Shacknews said", because it is on the shack forums, which is lending wieght to the nonsense. Really, talk about paranoid, this is getting out of control. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rpghard Posted October 19, 2006 Share Posted October 19, 2006 I got the game yesterday and play like 12 hours ...the Titan mode is so fun but its hard to find a good server...most of them sucks...too ######in laggy on the Titan mode...more than 32 players its like having parkinson when you try to run...in the Titan its the same lag ######.The conquest mode run much smoother...32 players or less more than that its parkinson chicken run. I don't know what they do in beta testing...they said they fixed like more than 3000 bugs! Hey you EA teams you still have a lot of testing to do until you can run a 64 players server without lag. With the little amount of tester we have here when we tested GRAW ...I think GRIN has made a better job than you EA teams...until you give me the appetite to the game....I have no choice to wait for your patchessssssssssss. Be selective for your servers...and scan spyware before join and after leaving server...those are a lot responsable for lagging the internet connection and your compute...try Spyware Doctor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Papa6 Posted October 20, 2006 Share Posted October 20, 2006 Thanks for that info Crowman. What is really getting my goat is not the ads, but the way that gamers are on the verge of hysteria about it, or rather the misinformation about it. I've even been to non gaming boards today where people are posting inaccuarte information perpetuating the falsehood that EA are tracking your browsing history! I looked into it and the pages of google results lead back to one point, a post by a gamer in the shacknews forums that says this.,.. When you open the box, a big slip of paper falls out first, preceeding any discs or manuals. The slip of paper says, essentially, that 2142 includes monitoring software which runs while your computer is online, and records "anonymous" information like your IP address, surfing habits (probably via cookie scans), and other "computing habits" in order to report this information back to ad companies and ad servers, which generates in-game ads. I bolded the BS parts. Google it, that inaccurate and misleading ASSUMPTION of a post is all over the web, and on the basis of that rubbish people are all up in arms and saying "I am never buying an EA game again!", because they believe what some 28 year old gamer posted in a forum! The best bet is people are saying "Shacknews said", because it is on the shack forums, which is lending wieght to the nonsense. Really, talk about paranoid, this is getting out of control. that's good and well with the inaccuracy of what people are complainging about. but the ads thing is the ads thing. I think people have elaborated on the ads thing as the ads issues is the REAL pill of the whole matter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrowmanUK Posted October 20, 2006 Share Posted October 20, 2006 It just gets better, after the latest patch you may have to uninstall a microsoft security patch to get it to run http://dubiousquality.blogspot.com/2006/10...ting-worse.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocky Posted October 20, 2006 Author Share Posted October 20, 2006 It just gets better, after the latest patch you may have to uninstall a microsoft security patch to get it to run http://dubiousquality.blogspot.com/2006/10...ting-worse.html Yeh I read that too and it rang a bell, so I looked around and right enough, that's the same security update some folks had to remove in order for GRAW to run! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrowmanUK Posted October 20, 2006 Share Posted October 20, 2006 Weird that then eh? You'd have thought if it was a problem between the program and the operating system everyone would have to disable it, but it doesnt seem to be that way, it still doesnt inspire consumer confidence when you have to uninstall a security breach to get the game to work, I think I'd be just as upset if I had to turn off my firewall/antivirus to get a game to run Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocky Posted October 20, 2006 Author Share Posted October 20, 2006 Weird that then eh? You'd have thought if it was a problem between the program and the operating system everyone would have to disable it, but it doesnt seem to be that way, it still doesnt inspire consumer confidence when you have to uninstall a security breach to get the game to work, I think I'd be just as upset if I had to turn off my firewall/antivirus to get a game to run Exactly, you should NEVER uninstall a security update. And wasn't it EA that suggested people turn off their firewall for BF2 at some point? I seem to recall a ruckass over that too a while back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rpghard Posted October 23, 2006 Share Posted October 23, 2006 It just gets better, after the latest patch you may have to uninstall a microsoft security patch to get it to run http://dubiousquality.blogspot.com/2006/10...ting-worse.html Yeh I read that too and it rang a bell, so I looked around and right enough, that's the same security update some folks had to remove in order for GRAW to run! Tks a lot Rocky...I was searching why GRAW wasn't open anymore...and I remember this post...I uninstal the security and GRAW works again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocky Posted October 23, 2006 Author Share Posted October 23, 2006 It just gets better, after the latest patch you may have to uninstall a microsoft security patch to get it to run http://dubiousquality.blogspot.com/2006/10...ting-worse.html Yeh I read that too and it rang a bell, so I looked around and right enough, that's the same security update some folks had to remove in order for GRAW to run! Tks a lot Rocky...I was searching why GRAW wasn't open anymore...and I remember this post...I uninstal the security and GRAW works again. @Rpghard, I'd like to add this issue to the site FAQ, could you confirm the exact issue you had (ie at what point did GRAW stop loading), and that removing that security update fixed it? Many thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Papa6 Posted October 23, 2006 Share Posted October 23, 2006 You see? This is the kind of crap that ruins network/PC security. The security fixes are there for a reason. This is blatant scourge and EA will lose ALOT of customers now. This is prime proof of what many said during GRAW. Developers/Publishers have NO regard for the customers anymore. ever more insistent on selling craptacular titles that ###### people off. I've read many a' forums where folks have decided to shy away from BF2142 just from the adware issue alone. maybe this is the gaming industries way of trying to force people to transfer to console gaming... this isn't a conspiracy theory but just a fore thought Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rpghard Posted October 24, 2006 Share Posted October 24, 2006 It just gets better, after the latest patch you may have to uninstall a microsoft security patch to get it to run http://dubiousquality.blogspot.com/2006/10...ting-worse.html Yeh I read that too and it rang a bell, so I looked around and right enough, that's the same security update some folks had to remove in order for GRAW to run! Tks a lot Rocky...I was searching why GRAW wasn't open anymore...and I remember this post...I uninstal the security and GRAW works again. @Rpghard, I'd like to add this issue to the site FAQ, could you confirm the exact issue you had (ie at what point did GRAW stop loading), and that removing that security update fixed it? Many thanks! EXACTLY is that I wasn't able to open the game anymore until my next window update...I had to cancel window update and uninstall security kb917422 secxurity update I think...I was clickin on the Icon on desktop and nothing happen...I tough it was my DVD player...I reinstall the game twice and nothing change untill I uninstall the update...microsoft must be advise of these...the problem only appear with GRAW...BF2142 had nothing to do with it...my Firewall is always off Tks you just save my ghost life... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stalker_Zero Posted October 25, 2006 Share Posted October 25, 2006 (edited) I was on totalbf2142.com trying to discuss this very topic. The admins there were very drone/EA kissbutt types and promptly closed any related threads on the spyware subject.....including mine. The name of my thread was.....I forget name exactly but I suggested that I was seriously thinking of giving my copy of the game away unopened along with an unopened special upgrade package with a unique custom gun unlock to some totalbf2142.com member. Well, I'm going to give it til the end of the week till we all find out a bit more. If it goes the way I think its gonna go I think I will give my copy to a lucky ghostrecon.net member instead. I wonder who though? Edited October 25, 2006 by Stalker_Zero Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 25, 2006 Share Posted October 25, 2006 Yeah, the spyware thing bothers me, the IP address bothers me, but what I think the real issue is, is advertisers coming into our games. Ok, so they've been in games before, but not like what we're starting to see. I'm affraid that if regular joe gamers out there accept this stuff, it will lead to advertising companies having more say in the making of games than us. We already saw how UBI wanted more "hero" characters in GRAW instead of what we really wanted. Can you imagine IGA or McDonald's looking over a developer's shoulder telling him how to make the game? (i WOULD love to put a slug into Ronald McDonald's head though:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foxtrot360 Posted October 25, 2006 Share Posted October 25, 2006 (edited) I knew it wasnt long before it happened. I think I read rumors about this before release. Too bad this wont stop Battlefield fans. Anyway, if it werent a Battlefield game, im in the boat with some of you, I dont care about tastefully placed Ads (billboards), like in Splinter Cell Chaos Theory, theres an AXE billboard, but it fits the scene, and is actually pretty clever, seeing as it serves a purpose (which i wont spoil for you who havent played it.) But since theres all the extra things like tracking (and whatever along with that), in BF2142 (Which i dont play, but look at future EA games) its a problem for those of us who want a clean PC at all times, and hate malware. See, you pay fifty dollars for counterstrike with vehicles and you get screwed over. Edited October 25, 2006 by Foxtrot23 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrowmanUK Posted October 25, 2006 Share Posted October 25, 2006 but what I think the real issue is, is advertisers coming into our games. You just hit the nail on the head mate, on the telly we get adverts but we can go and make a cup of tea, if a game has static adverts in it then nobody really looks at them anyway so no harm done, what this is doing in effect is bringing adverts selected for us by "somebody" and transmitted into our games, not much chance of making a cuppa while these type of adverts are being thrown at us and lets be honest nobody really looks at the damn things anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stalker_Zero Posted October 25, 2006 Share Posted October 25, 2006 But thing is its not just stuff coming into our computers its stuff going OUT FROM out computers. This is crazy. At first it was thought that it would be just stuff running in game only that is coming into our computers....the adverts. But now we're learning that its really software running outside of the game files and snooping at our surfing habits? What the hell is that?? I mean.....would ja take a look at this insanity??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrowmanUK Posted October 25, 2006 Share Posted October 25, 2006 That looks fantastic although I'm slightly worried about the lack of advertising space on the soldiers, maybe they should carry banners like these guys advertising the PS3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stalker_Zero Posted October 25, 2006 Share Posted October 25, 2006 That looks fantastic although I'm slightly worried about the lack of advertising space on the soldiers, maybe they should carry banners like these guys advertising the PS3 Don't give them any ideas!! Pretty soon everybody in game will be wearing jump suits full of banners from sponsors like we're race car drivers or something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocky Posted October 25, 2006 Author Share Posted October 25, 2006 But now we're learning that its really software running outside of the game files and snooping at our surfing habits? What the hell is that?? That is misinformation, I don't think it matters now how many times people post the truth, there are so many people believing just what you posted that it will go on and on and on .... There is NO snooping of surfing habits in BF according to the dev team and publisher. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stalker_Zero Posted October 25, 2006 Share Posted October 25, 2006 But now we're learning that its really software running outside of the game files and snooping at our surfing habits? What the hell is that?? That is misinformation, I don't think it matters now how many times people post the truth, there are so many people believing just what you posted that it will go on and on and on .... There is NO snooping of surfing habits in BF according to the dev team and publisher. But what about what it says in that EULA on the slip of paper in the package? It is true though, that I don't understand legalese but it would seem that it means that you are agreeing to install spying software that will log your computer surfing habits outside of the game. I mean.......doesn't it??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocky Posted October 25, 2006 Author Share Posted October 25, 2006 But now we're learning that its really software running outside of the game files and snooping at our surfing habits? What the hell is that?? That is misinformation, I don't think it matters now how many times people post the truth, there are so many people believing just what you posted that it will go on and on and on .... There is NO snooping of surfing habits in BF according to the dev team and publisher. But what about what it says in that EULA on the slip of paper in the package? What about it, it says nothing about spying on your surfing habits. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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