Dev Blog

A Word About In-Game Ads

Hi, I'm Neil Postlethwaite, Splash Damage's Managing Director and one of the Producers on Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars. I'd like to talk to you today about the in-game advertising we have in ETQW.

For the last four years, we've put all of our effort into making Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars. So, we're not planning to ship this game and walk away. We want to keep supporting ETQW in as many ways as possible. We'll be maintaining the persistent stats servers and the community site, and continuing to support ETQW with updates and improvements.

To help cover this level of on-going support without passing the costs on to the gamer, ETQW will feature appropriate advertisements in select locations of our levels. The ads aren't intrusive and you won't have to interact with them; they'll just be part of the normal environment. In fact, there are some places it's quite odd not to have an advertisement - the sides of container trucks, for example. Great care is being taken to ensure that all our ads are appropriate for the game world and we have absolute approval rights in this area. If it's not appropriate or it's distracting, it won't go in.

The company providing the ad system does not and will not store any personal information or data that otherwise can be used to identify you. All they track is if and how long you look at the advertisements.

For those of you participating in the upcoming beta, you will get a chance to see them for yourself very soon. And of course we will be releasing a demo prior to the retail launch of the game so everyone can check them out first.

Choosing to place ads in Enemy Territory was not a decision we made lightly. However, in doing so we hope to be able to provide a higher level of on-going support to the Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars community than would have been possible otherwise.

Although I dislike ads, if you plan to keep supporting (not just patches, but maps and content at times) then it's all good. I'm much more calmed after I read this. SD couldn't make them crappy and anti-immersive.

thank you for enlightening us with more information . and i truely hope it is worth it.

Insight is worth more than a thousand speculations. Thank you for giving the community a definite clarification of SD's position on ads and ongoing support.

Hope it pays off. As in we get good support, new maps for free etc? )))

I really hope you guys keep your word as far as "future support" goes.

Ads shouldn't be let in lightly, if they are successful inside the game.. Well lets say we'll see a lot more games running ads just because.

As long as it isn't like ghost rider or some crap that takes up an entire building like in BF2142. I'm really lookin foward to etqw.

It would be hilarious to see a container truck filled with Viagra

will it be possible to pay some extra cash and then be free of the ads?

Quote:
Originally Posted by demetri View Post
will it be possible to pay some extra cash and then be free of the ads?
not likely, the revenue generated by you alone from the advertisers is probably going to be more than any person would be willing to pay.

I'm sure if the ads become annoying someone will write a program to block them.

It's great to know these ads will benefit ET:QW with continuous support and development...that by far convinces me to have in-game ads. Thanks SD.

Quote:
Originally Posted by demetri View Post
will it be possible to pay some extra cash and then be free of the ads?
I think that the money gained from the ads would be much more than paying extra cash.

Plus, I want a cheaper game, as does everyone.
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