and it can update by itself, just like RACE & Taiwan type of GTR2
it can let the maker of LFS make ,more money, than they can buy some real car & track for LFS & no need to make LFS more expensive
And that was the very reason I didn't even bother to try RACE.
As soon as something forces advertising on me, I'll drop it like a hot spud.. much the same as I always turn over to BBC1 regardless of what's on when ads come on on other channels.
Ever thought the reason there isn't many real cars / tracks in the game is that the Devs preferred to create their own content? After making a few tracks myself for rF and GTR2, creating fantasy ones ended up being a lot more appealing as I could use some initiative / imagination into what went into them rather than being another boring OTT-safety Tilke clone... no crappy race-ruining chicanes, corners where if it went wrong, it went wrong in a big way.
The day LFS gets in-game advertising is the day I personally never look at it or anything related to it again. I'm sure I wouldn't be the only one.
Keep your eyes off the various Michelin, Credit Suisse, BMW etc advertising boards then. I think it's realistic to have advertising boards around the tracks, most real world circuits do. I wouldn't, however, be happy if the advertising became any more invasive than that (appearing in in-game menus, setup screens etc).
Logo boards with static ads are fine.. it creates the realism aspect of the environment. Same as skins.
Having areas of a track linked to a 3rd party ad server pushing ads about this that and the other, recording how long I've had a particular ad in my vision, from what angle I viewed it at etc etc etc will definitely keep me away. This is what I see as "IGA" rather than static textures although if you want to be "clever", they're both ads and in-game.
The part that really confuses me with this ad / spyware is that if people (accidentally) install some ad / spyware as an "IE helper" or some other form of ad / spyware, they go out of their way to get rid of it.. why do the same people accept it when it's embedded into a game? I _really_ don't understand this mentality.
Oh, that IGA. Nuts to that! Thumbs down. As if we don't have enough goddam popups, rollovers and other assorted advertising bullshit assaulting us every time we go online! Keep it out of my games, thanks. Advertising may well be a fact of life but I choose, when I can, to avoid it. If it ends up in LFS I'll "change the channel" and play something else.
A texture on a trackside billboard or on a car is no problem with me - it's nearly always been a part of RL racing and adds a real racing atmosphere to games, even if the cars and tracks aren't based on reality.
Didn't know RACE had IGA - there's another reason for me to avoid it.
Normal bill-boards are fine and realistic. Popups are not. Perhaps sponsor decals inside of the GTRs would be nice, because they do it in real life to advertise to the cockpit cam.
That was my first thought (second thought actually, right after "what is this guy on about?") - we've got IGA markets here too. Wonder if they're the same?
Western PA here. The only local grocery store I have. Everything else is at least 40 miles away (which would be the 5 Walmarts near me, each 40 miles away).
+1 from me, would flush more money to the devs (2nd isle in hawaii lol) and would be also more realistic, anyway no need for commercials of pl*yboy or victoria s*crets in a racing game lol
kids, its not meant here as a INGAME POP UP lol. man i am scared the future when we are old and u are ... just scared lol
I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be a good idea to put new logos on the ad-boards.
After all, that's what they are doing right now and what they are supposed to do. I don't mind wether it says Intel, BMW, or AMD, Chevrolet, or whatever.
I've got a couple of "nasty_spying_app.exe" files lying around that'll report back to me what you're currently viewing on your screen.. anyone want to run them?
Thought not.. but it's ok for some 3rd party ad / spyware company to retrieve this sort of data? I'm amazed!
Changing billboards with new .dds textures is _very_ different to having ads pumped at you from somewhere else in the world by someone who thinks they know what ads you'd prefer plastered all over said billboards than you do illepall
Someone please explain to me why this is ok and why something like "im_spying_on_you.dll" would result in an uproar if I embedded something like that into a tool I released for public use... I'm dying to hear your reasons [koff]excuses[/koff]
Thankfully I don't think the LFS devs are greedy or stupid enough to add something like this to the game.. so it's really a moot discussion but am very interested to hear why it's ok to add this crap into games
I have absolutely no problem with LFS updating the billboards with new sponsors or whatever, but the second a game starts logging what I'm doing with my own computer is the second I uninstall it. Bollocks to that.
I think developers have missed the middle ground as far as in game adverts go, which is quite sad. It could've been a good way to recover some bandwidth costs, but not at the expense of becoming adware.
No one says that updating dds-files means espionage on what I'm doing. When I log on to the LFS master server it tells me there's a small update ready and wether I want to download it in windowed mode, and one click later the billboard says "AMD ownz Intel" instead of "Intel pwnz AMD". Not a big deal.
I just see no relation to spyware.
@Vain
What software companies are doing isn't just adding new adverts to games, they're scanning your system for what you have installed and what you look at online so they can target specific advertising at you.
I can't speak for any sims, but I know that Battlefield 2142 has this kind of system and I don't agree with it at all.
Now if it was like you said - connect to a server, get new ads - that wouldn't be a problem at all. That's the middle ground that the developers seem to have missed.
Even Steam (I know a lot of people hate it, but I've never had a problem with it) has surveys you can fill in which helps target advertising without compromising your personal data. But you don't have to. And that's the point - everything should be optional.
Please read my post(s) again then Vain, you're obviously missing the point.
Throwing ads at you is pointless for an ad / spyware company without any statistics. That just becomes common spamming where spammers don't care if their crap actually gets through or not, they get paid per "campaign" based on number of mails _sent_, not received.
For this to be lucrative for these scumballs, they need to make sure that you are infact seeing the ads, so they record how long a particular ad has been in your vision and the likes of from what angle you viewed it from and they record this. Exactly how they use that data I don't know (other than making more money) as I only work my nuts off to filter out this kind of crap rather than implement it, but it results in nothing more than common ad / spyware.
Vain, would you install an "IE toolbar" that reported back to some company about what sites you viewed and for how long you had viewed them for? My guess would be no.. and if you answer is no, why not? You clearly wouldn't mind this if it was embedded into a game. It's absolutely no different whatsoever except you get "conned" with IGA as you're led to believe you're getting something out of it (ie: game content) but the end of the day, you're just lining some slimeball's pocket with yet more dirty cash.
I spend at least 2-3 hours a day making sure I and my customers don't receive unwanted ads.. I damn well don't want to finish my day's work and see the same shit in something I'm doing to try and wind down that should be nothing but a fun experience. I've paid my dues to LFS.. it was a one time payment, not an investment of which I'd yield absolutely no return.
The worst part is the people that accept it. If people didn't accept it, it'd go away as it's no longer a lucrative business plan.. but alas, people just want, without thinking.
[EDIT]
Found this on a site as a quote from EA regarding a battlefield game:
I'm not sure on the statement you are trying to make now.
We both agree that we don't want spyware. Checked.
Beyond that you seem to want to say that advertisments are identical to spyware. You seem to be implying that it is impossible to have advertisment of any sort in the game without spyware, because the companies wouldn't do it if they didnt have the marketing data.
Is that correct?
If so, I disagree. The current billboards don't use spyware but are still a form of advertisment. I'm speaking about that. And I'm saying that I'm willing to accept changing billboards once in a while. So the whole deal is that I have to spend a few seconds downloading new billboards and that's the end of data exchange. Just like I did when I downloaded patch T, with the BMW and Intel ads. I already did that and I didn't mind it and I wouldn't mind doing that again.
That's the advertisment I'm speaking about.
I think you're deliberately missing the point... this has sweet FA to do with static textures with intel, michelin, BMW or whatever on them.. this is all about being hooked up dynamically to a 3rd party (not related to LFS in the slightest) ad server that changes the ads as and when they see fit _and_ record certain information about your interaction with those ads.
Having the current ads that are in LFS as .dds textures etc don't bother me in the slightest.. I doubt anyone has a problem with those.. I could change them all to nekkid women if I wanted. The important part is that they don't record how I see the ads, they don't change every time I start the game to something some little bod in Asia thought I'd want to see.. they don't dynamically earn some scumball extra cash every time I happen to pass a particular billboard.
Please see the edit above and quote from EA about how it works and then tell me you're still in agreement with that sort of advertising because that's what this thread is referring to, not some picture of a BMW logo someone painted 6 months ago and packed up with the download.
I think the problem there is that the company placing the ads wants to make sure that the people seeing them fit into their target market. Extreme example: there's no point advertising a BMW to a game full of children under 5
But what's wrong with actual communication between companies? I'm sure this must have existed before the internet was such a common thing. Allow me to demonstrate (for the sake of any potential spyware game developers who might be reading).
___________________________________________ Potential Sponsors: We're looking for a suitable market to advertise our product.
Live For Speed: Well look at our consumer base. We have age/gender/location information which was provided voluntarily on account creation. No spyware needed here, noobs.
Potential Sponsor #1: That's exactly our target audience. Please, take some logos and a sack of cash.
Live For Speed: Why thank you. Witness your logos displayed all around the tracks where everyone can see. Aren't they pretty?
Potential Sponsor #2: That market is no use to us. No cash 4 u!
Live For Speed: Too bad. Call us if you change your mind.
___________________________________________
See how easy it is? Bah, flogging a dead horse here.
illepall 