In game advertising

[figurines]

The idea is that on the sides of boxes, walls, whatever, there are little advertisements. This would be to raise money for the game and hopefully attract, in the long run, more people to play it...or perhaps it would just turn the game into a stupid corporate thing.

In any case I would love to hear your ideas on the subject!

[Bambino]

I would find it annoying. Buy a t-shirt from the BZStore

[Grace F]

There is a little advertisement under the "Message of the day" section seen as soon as you connect. It attracts players (hopefully) to check out what is on sale. Map makers I'm sure are more than welcome to advertise BZFlag on the maps they make.

[figurines]

I was thinking that if the actual company took a percentage of the proceeds that the map makers made from the advertising than it would work out well for all parties involved. But I agree it could be very annoying, but also could help the game.

Buying a T-Shirt is a way for the players to support the game outside of playing, but this way it would mean that the more players playing the higher advertising rates could be charged...to support the game all we would have to do would be to play.

Perhaps there could be a limit on the number of advertisements put onto a map?

[Bambino]

Most players want to play the game, not see a picture of Billy Mays yelling about Oxy Clean.
BZFlag would need people to go to companies and tell them about bzflag and then hope they pay money for an ad that *might* be put up on a popular map.

I will tell you right now, this will not happen, and it won't work.

BILLY MAYS HERE WITH ANOTHER FANTASTIC PRODUCT

[joevano]

Server owners are free to do whatever they want on their servers. The problem is that the servers are not connected in any way shape or form to the project. We (the project) hold no sway over the servers in the way that they are run in any way shape or form. Planet-Mofo does "sell" their billboard space already, but the money is for Planet-Mofo as it is their server and they need to cover their costs. So Figurine, your idea is flawed because the project has no control over the servers. The only control we have is over the use of our services (list server, authentication, etc). As long as they follow the few rules we have for the use of those services anyone can use them with no influence from us.

[Spazzy McGee]

The game also does not have a big enough 'footfall' to be considered a reasonable advertising space. There are not enough players for it to be attractive to advertisers.

I've looked into systems for putting adverts into maps during working on the Planet MoFo billboards - for a start, the way maps are coded for game as we know it now does not lend itself well to advertising. The whole server needs to be restarted to update any texture images, and for new ones to be downloaded, which is not practical from a server owner's point of view.

The system we have run at Planet MoFo - a nominal donation gets you a space on the rotation of billboards, which rotates about 16 different billboards. You get to put whatever you want up there (or leave us to make a billboard for you). The money made from this doesn't come close to covering the monthly cost of the server.

[Quantum Tank]

I think you're forgetting that this is an open-source game. There is no "corporation" whatsoever, just developers working on it for free on their own time. Theoretically a server owner could sell advertisements if they want to (although I seriously doubt any serious buyer would bother advertising on a place that gets at most a thousand or so players a day), but the bzflag project couldn't get any money from it unless the server owners decided to donate some.

[adameros]

Some games already have advertising in them. Be it crosses (religious marketing) or the map maker putting their name as part of the map.

I would say, as long as the advertising fit the feel of the game, like bill boards in maps that look like cities, it would probably be fine. But if the ads distract from the game, I think I would be less likely to play that map.

[Bazooka Buster]

I doubt the crosses on Planet Mofo really mean more then just a centerpiece to the rebellious old map.

Anyway, my opinion is that advertising isn't completely negative, and frankly, funding is appreciated. Advertising could exist, but under certain reasonable circumstances. Whoever would enforce these guidelines, be it server owners, the developers (Don't yell at me, Joevano. Keep reading), or the opinions of players, that's not up to me. We've agreed that they must be well placed, appropriate, and not too distracting. Like a big ad in the middle of a firefight. Let's look at some possibilities for Billie Mays advertising new and improved tank engines:

A: A built in system for automatically showing ads in either the map it's self or in the game menus. That is, IF BZFlag got popular enough for major corporations to want to advertise. Whenever that is. In the future. OR in a galaxy far, far away. You get the picture. It would be hard to program in, but just think about actually supporting most of your server upkeep. Map makers could simply add in an itty bitty line of code and voila: No server restarts, hassle, ect. Just instant ads (and a few glitches at first) Or, even more conveniently, small ads could be displayed at the bottom of game menus. Preferably only images or small GIF animations.

B: Map makers have the liberty to make their own advertisements via plain textures, but if not well thought out, they may be negative to players. They would have to find a smaller corporation/website that wanted to advertise, and add it into the file, fix any graphical errors, and restart servers. Then the advertiser would need to see if it was placed, and removing or changing ads would be a hassle all over again.

Feel free to yell now. Or just criticize, whichever you like. RIP Billie.

[blast]

Another thing that people are forgetting is that if the advertisements were built into the game (either server or client), someone could modify the source code to remove the ads, and I'd probably be one that would do it. So I don't see this as ever happening.

[Bazooka Buster]

Just like modifying the client for cheating, you'd be able to block ads as well. And, most likely, it'd be just as against the rules. Otherwise, there would be no point in having the ads if they could be blocked and it was allowed. But remember: allmost any form of ad can be ignored. Like Ad Block Plus for Firefox, switching the channel if there's a TV ad, or flipping the page and not reading an ad in a magazine. Just this time it's against the rules, buddy.

I think ads in the menus should be expirimented with. Just little image ads, for the benifit of the developers. And maybe later, after being approved by some council, map makers could be liscenced to place a built in code for ads. That way we have an opinion against putting a billboard that blocks the view of a few kills. Feel free to suggest anything else. Or just completely dismiss the subject once again...

[Strakowski]

Just like modifying the client for cheating, you'd be able to block ads as well. And, most likely, it'd be just as against the rules.

Of course, you can't exactly prohibit people from modifying any part of the source code; that's why it's called open source after all. I've a second version of bzflag on my machine, but with republican/democrat logos for red and blue bullets. It's really hard to tell them apart, but it sure looks funny.

[Quantum Tank]

Strakowski, what you're talking about isn't modifying the client, just changing the image files the client uses for the bullets (I've seen some pretty funny ones with people's heads, look at this thread: http://my.bzflag.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=12586).

[Strakowski]

Strakowski, what you're talking about isn't modifying the client, just changing the image files the client uses for the bullets.

Oh, wow. Right you are, you can modify them post-compilation. I was changing the images before compiling the source. I'm going to take a short forum hiatus before I make any more technical mistakes. But, nevertheless, I think ads would really not be much of a source of income, and probably not worth the trouble anyway. Whatever the devs think is best.

[blast]

Let's just say that there will never be advertisements that are built into the game and leave it at that.

[Bazooka Buster]

Well, I'd rather say I spent a good 10 minutes typing those posts each. So, you know, I must be right.

I suppose BZFlag isn't destined to become a big hit, but I personally wouldn't mind a Google ad in the forums or on the website. Whatever ya want.

Let's leave it at that, cus' I'll just post a reply anyway.