City of Heroes Going Non-Ad-Free
By 
Hib in
City of Heroes, City of Villians, advertising, features on
April 8th, 2008
In-game ads are nothing new in MMORPGs. Funcom’s Anarchy Online used the concept of in-game ads to allow people the ability to play the basic game for free, and possibly keep their MMO alive. AO isn’t the only place in-game ads have appeared, although in most cases it’s a bit difficult to work real-world advertisements into games unless you believe that Conan stayed at the Motel 6 to restore his HP after a hard battle (”We shall leave the candle on for thee”).
NCSoft’s City of Heroes/Villains franchise doesn’t have that difficulty…it’s one of the few MMORPGs to use a “present-day” setting, where the world you inhabit is a recognizable cityscape complete with billboards and window signage. To be honest, the change won’t be that drastic during gameplay:
To me, it was only a matter of time before those signs were transformed into a revenue source by NCSoft, and last week they announced their intentions to do just that…with a twist.
I want to make it very clear that we are not “forcing” in-game ads upon our players. Thus, the word “optional” is of key importance. None of our players have to change their game experience in any way if that’s what they prefer. All that you need to do is opt-out via the Options menu in the game.
Okay, “optional” sounds good. But what’s the benefit to players if they opt-in for the ads?
Why should you not opt-out? All ad revenue dollars go directly to the further development of the game, which means more great content than ever before!
That’s right…the only result of opting-in for the in-game ads is that NCSoft gets more money in their development budget.
Seriously.
While this isn’t a bad thing, I can’t recall another company placing opt-in ads inside their game and continuing to charge a monthly subscription fee. (There may have been, but I can’t think of an example…if you know of one, tell me in the comments below.)
Will this work? To some extent, it’s practically guaranteed to. There will be those subscribers that think this is a great idea, and there will be those who find that real-world ads in CoX actually adds to their immersion in the game world.
However, the bigger question (to me, at least) is…if NCSoft is successful with this, will that pave the way for other “pay to play with ads included” efforts from other companies?
You can bet your last piece of invention salvage that other companies will be watching this very closely.
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April 15th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
The thing about the CoH billboards though is that they’re barely noticeable. Most games that use ads instead of subscriptions have ads on loading screens or otherwise clearly viewable. As a result, I doubt NCSoft is going to get paid much by advertisers, and thus it makes sense for it to be supplemental to development funding rather than a replacement for subscription income.
I’ve recently started playing CoH again (sick of WoW, new games delayed) and have no desire to see real life ads in my comic game, but I think in general it will work to the betterment of the game. At this point in the game’s lifecycle I think if NCSoft announced a premium optional subscription rate of $20 to fund increased development of costume pieces and other content for premium subscribers, you’d get a LOT of players jumping all over that. Tons of people paid $10 for the wedding costumes! $10!!
April 15th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Heh…good points, both about the in-game billboard placement and the “premium” sub fee option.
Don’t say it too loudly, though, or NCSoft will raise it to $20 AND keep the ads.