Cord-Cutting Leads To Gaming Studios Exploring In-Game Ads To Unlock Gaming Perks
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Advertising in the digital age is always something of a tricky subject. On the one hand, we have made the point for years that advertising is content and content is advertising. The point there is that the more useful and entertaining or engaging advertising tends to be, the more the public looks at it as just more content to consume, while really good content also serves as an advertisement of sorts for the content provider. Many folks simply believe that the public hates advertising full-stop, but that's really not true. Were it true, one of the hallmark experiences of the Super Bowl wouldn't be watching the ads. Instead, ads have to be engaging, fun, or useful. Unfortunately, the vast majority of advertising is otherwise, leading to the public tending to look for ways to not have to experience advertising generally.The worst solution proposed in all of this is to find new and nefarious ways to force the public to view ads. The second worst solution is to coerce them into doing so. And the worst place to do any of this, it seems to me, is in the video game space, where the public has already often times dropped hundreds of dollars on gaming rigs and the games themselves. But that, it seems, is exactly what company PlayerWON is looking to roll out.A first-of-its-kind in-game advertising platform called playerWON launches this week, allowing big-name marketers that are used to running splashy TV ads the ability to target younger demographics with similar types of spots that will run in video games.-The platform, which is owned and operated by Simulmedia, a TV ad tech company, will let users determine whether they want to watch a 15 or 30-second video ad in exchange for being able to unlock exclusive gaming perks.-Simulmedia has struck deals with some of the world's biggest gaming studios, including Electronic Arts (EA) and Tencent's Hi-Rez Studios, its EVP, Gaming and OTT Dave Madden told Axios. If you're anything like me, your initial reaction to all of this is likely to result in you having convulsions over just how repulsive this all is. But we should take a step back and acknowledge something: this could be done well. The idea of injecting optional advertising into gaming, especially free-to-play games, isn't an inherently awful idea.No, the real problem is that virtually nobody in the gaming public has, or should have, any faith that this will be done well. What does doing it well mean? Well, for starters: - The "perks" involved had damned well better be nice-to-haves and/or cosmetic and not offer some kind of boost to being able to compete in or play the game itself. Otherwise, you've broken the balance and experience of the game.
- The ads had better stay short and not interrupt the gaming experience to the point of television, where gamers just leave the room while it plays.
- The ads, as noted in the opening of this post, must be engaging, useful content of some kind.
Missing on any of those three will cause an even larger revolt among the gaming public than will almost certainly already occur. If you need an example of how to absolutely not attempt any of this, 2K Sports has you covered.Now, while this is largely being spurred on by younger members of the public also being cord-cutters, making them less likely to be reached by traditional advertising, Morgan Stanley seems to think that in-game ad programs like this could be a $2 billion industry. Though, importantly, that projection is based on nearly half of gamers opting into the ads.I'm sorry, but there's no fucking way that's going to happen, even if this is done perfectly. Not if it's opt-in. What is more likely is that this will only be opt-in for a while and then someone, or several someones, are going to try to first make it opt-out and eventually non-optional. And then you're going to really see the consequences of advertising programs being done terribly, because nobody will buy those games.
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posted at: 12:00am on 10-Jul-2021
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Biden Executive Order Disrupts Hot DC Trend Of Pretending 'Big Telecom' Doesn't Exist
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We've been submerged in kind of a bizarre asymmetrical tech policy paradigm over the last few years, in which "big tech" is viewed as the absolute root of all evil requiring all manner of hand-wringing and antitrust/regulatory reform. At the same time, policy leaders have simply forgotten that heavily monopolized internet-adjacent sectors like "big telecom" even exist, giving them cover to gut regulatory oversight, consumer protections, and media consolidation rules. Telecom (AT&T) and media (Rupert Murdoch) giants have successfully exploited legitimate public anger at big tech to encourage this kind of lopsided policy thinking.This week this policy myopia shifted back to baseline a bit with Biden's new executive order focused on shoring up competition issues. According to the EO fact sheet, the order pushes more than 72 different initiatives across a dozen federal agencies, including the FCC and telecom. Mike covered the not telco portions, which will be covered in this post. Most notable (for telecom, anyway) is that the order nudges the FCC to restore net neutrality rules:We've noted more than a few times how the Trump/Pai net neutrality repeal didn't just kill "net neutrality rules." It gutted much of the FCC's consumer protection authority, limiting its ability to police fairly consistent telecom sector billing fraud and other bad behavior. It also attempted to ban states from filling that consumer protection void. It was effectively a giant wishlist cooked up by telecom monopolies like AT&T, based entirely on bullshit justifications, and propped up by fabricated public support. Despite this, the whole thing was dressed up as "serious policy" by press and policy wonks who should have known better.In addition to the restoration of net neutrality, the Biden EO also takes several other steps to shore up telecom issues. Among them is urging the FCC to stop telecom giants from creating block-by-block broadband monopolies via exclusive landlord arrangements. The FCC passed rules prohibiting this back in 2007, but they're so filled with loopholes that telecom giants have been allowed to tap dance around them for years now (Susan Crawford wrote an essential primer on this problem for Wired a few years back).A not insubstantial portion of the EO involves urging government agencies to simply do their jobs. Like the antitrust enforcers at the DOJ and FCC, who under both administrations are often little more than mindless rubber stamps for problematic job- and competition-eroding megadeals (see: the entirety of US telecom history since 1990). Simply leveraging more scrutiny to the often illusory benefits of endless megadeals would go a long way in shoring up both regulation and this whole "antitrust reform" so popular with the kids these days.Other aspects of the EO related to telecom are more specific, like requiring that the FCC restore plans (also scuttled during the Ajit Pai era) requiring a sort of nutrition label for broadband, making ISPs disclose hidden fees, throttling, caps, or other restrictions on your broadband line (aka transparency). The order also urges the FCC to collect more data on broadband pricing, something it historically (at telecom lobbyist behest) hasn't been keen on doing for what should be obvious reasons.Most of these proposals are common sense, while others restore a lot of the FCC consumer protection authority and policies telecom giants stripped away in a parade of fraud and dodgy bullshit during the Ajit Pai era. But many of them require a fully staffed FCC and permanent agency boss to actually implement, something the Biden administration has been in no rush to provide, much to the annoyance of consumer groups. There's a lot of ground to cover between what's in the executive order and actual implementation, and it's going to require an FCC with some real backbone to accomplish most of it.Still, much to AT&T and Comcast's chagrin, the Biden EO makes it clear that the problems created by big telecom haven't been entirely forgotten, however much these regional monopolies would prefer policy conversations to remain myopically fixated on big tech and big tech alone.
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posted at: 12:00am on 10-Jul-2021
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