It's so sad that ads got such a bad reputation as being intrusive, annoying, fraud, etc. While when used correctly, ads are very useful and sometimes fun.
Especially in this case, the future will talk more about the engagement, conversion, impressions, clicks, etc related to in-game ads, and not how to creatively integrate the ads in the game in a fun way
Every consumer, and every human being in society faces the "exploration-exploitation" dilemma [0] weekly or daily.
They've discovered a set of things they like and dislike, either through family, friends, circumstances, or marketing ploys in the past. Finding new things they like isn't easy. You need external influence. Without these you feel life is boring, repetitive, predictable, lacks texture or excitement.
As most honest people will tell (one recent example I've stumbled upon could be independent game developers) - you could have a great product, but sadly most people will not know about it or will be "too busy to try it", and will prefer sticking to their habits or past experiences.
How would you go about solving this issue in a reliable way, that's not prone to similar distortions and hijacking as advertising and public relations ?
Here I was thinking marketers were in it for the money but now I see clearly. They're honest people just trying to help solve a problem we all have. Without advertising human beings would sit helpless, unable to discover the world around them.
Look something has to be done about the constant interruptions these aggressive advertisements cause. They're breaking the internet experience and wasting an astonishing amount of valuable human life hours. They're really stealing that time. If advertising was an option, 99.9% of people would switch it off.
I think there was very little truth in your first reply it reads like an excuse for an exploitive business model. I'm assuming you're a marketer or just like playing devil's advocate.
In any case, time has come to find technical solutions to hit back at advertising to the degree the industry can never recover.
If I liked playing devil's advocate, I wouldn't be annoyed at your answers.
To be honest I started a few years ago interacting with comments I would otherwise ignore because I thought it was harmful to keep yourself in filter bubbles, but I think it's pointless and I'm mostly having negative experiences that I don't need in my life.
To address your points: I'm not a marketer, I've got a STEM masters degree and I work as a data analyst, never worked in any marketing related job so far, no interest to do so.
You bring a decent point that often advertising isn't something people want, it's rather something they have to accept because they're paying either zero or less than the producer wants/needs for the service they're using, which I think is a fine point. We could go back to a point in time where most things were not financed by ads: either they're financially viable or they don't exist. That's a tradeoff, and companies like Netflix tried to move away from this and found some success. But it seems to me in a lot of situations most people are fine with the old radio station model where you get a few ads every now and then but don't pay anything.
If we decide to go this way and make it impossible to fund most of your company or activity through ads, then we'll have a lot less ads, but still won't reach zero ads. Think of the very old ads in the newspaper kind of thing. People need to send information about things they're selling or jobs they need, or events that might interest people. You're bound to have some advertising, you probably just mean to say you would like to have much much less than the current level.
While technically Craigslist is an advertisement any layperson can see we’re discussing the concept of advertisers and they ferocity to lie and deceive in their ads, not the very concept of ads themselves. But valiant attempt to derail the conversation.
You go to craigslist, it doesn't come up to you and interfere with your activity and waste your time and sell your attention to a third party. We all know what I'm talking about here.
Uh, do you understand that you're actually looking for advertisements in craigslist right? Just because you're looking for it doesn't mean that they're not ads.
Nobody defend yt or mobile game-likr advertisements. Ads comes in many forms, steam storefront page is another example of good (imo, ymmv) ads.
Ads are manipulation, that is not a reputation, that is a definition. There is no logical conclusion that omits a message from being classified as both an ad and manipulative. One can't come without the other. An ad is non-consensual. You don't ask for ads. The ads don't answer questions you specifically are asking, they are exploiting your demographic using keywords and phrases their research shows to be effective towards influencing your decision making to doing exactly what they want (selling you something.)
If you really think ads are not by definition intrusive, I am curious to reconsider my stance.
What a strong negative opinion, really proven my point. Ads by definition are very broad, maybe you only see ads only in the form of tv / youtube / mobile game ads that halts your activity and forcing you to consume the ads content.
Ads also comes in a form of storefront banner. By your definition, then there shouldn't be McDonald's logo on top of their shop's front door. So how can you know that building is a McDonald's?
Yes, it is generally intrusive and non consensual. But if you say nobody ask for ads, you're very wrong. If you're going to a forum to get game recommendations, you're looking to be advertised. Steam recommend section or hot deals or storefront page are all advertisement. Game trailers are advertisement. They just don't really feel as intrusive as yt ads, and an example of good ads in my book.
Especially in this case, the future will talk more about the engagement, conversion, impressions, clicks, etc related to in-game ads, and not how to creatively integrate the ads in the game in a fun way