I've seen this done in the game Project Torque and I'm sure lfs could do it too.
Bassicly display real adverts throughout the race tracks, but the devs get payed to show the ads in game.
Project Torque had a huge banner on the side of a building advertising the film death race. Although this wouldn't improve the realism of lfs directly , apart from the fact that we would be getting real banners instead of made up ones, this would get the devs more monies and we all love the devs so we want them to get more monies don't we
Bassicly imagine company X wants to Market film/product/whatever Y so they pay/invest a little ammount of monies into mrs and they get their customized banner in game for a certain ammount of time.
So the banners are getting changed every few weeks.
I pay the lfs devs to put a banner up linking to my website.
They give me the resolution of the banner i can design.
I design my banner how i want.
I send it in to the devs.
They put it into lfs.
When users of lfs connect to the main server it sends them the new banners and VOILA.
Although this would get tedious for the devs as they would have to put each one in seperatly, but im sure they could just make a system where the person paying just uploads it somewhere and then lfs checks to see if there are any new adds that need to be put in and puts em in
Time consuming tbh.. it would be ok on a website because its done by a code, but in the game its a different story. You could probably ask for one on the forum.
I think this is a great idea for racing games in general.
I remember a while ago there was talk of trying to push it into a few console games that were inappropriate to the point of ridiculousness (advertising hoardings in COD? ) but a racing game is the perfect environment for this kind of thing as circuits are already filled with advertising.
i see no reason for this to be a bad thing.
we all know the fact that companys wants to post their adverts in places that it is seen, so i see NO reason that this could not be done nor a reason why not too.
also this would have to cost money (ofc) så that would give the devs money to be able to get some "real" cars into the game - ferrari's, audi's, renault's - you name it
I do not want to be "targeted" with advertising, while playing an otherwise enjoyable game. Also, I don't want my computer programmed to expend its resources, for the purpose of downloading such annoyances. Implementing such an idea, would be a magnificently effective way to extinguish my interest in LFS.
When do you look at the side of the wall and think to yourself "ooh, Mobil 1. I might switch to that oil instead of using valvoline. Hmm, thats a pretty advert" when driving at 150 MPH? I'd rather download adverts every time I enter a server than crap skins or great skins made by someone else being used by another who is too lazy to make his own. Skins should be banned!
Word.
+10000 for this idea, I saw it in Project Torque as well (don't flame me, i stopped playing when I tried it with my G25).
However, I think that the adverts should be related to either LFS or the world of Motorsports in general. So as to prevent some adverts by eBay (maybe eBay motors though :razz or any other site that has nothing to do with the game or cars. I am thinking of adverts such as real automotive companies (parts, cars), something more official about the series, car newspapers, LFS community/league websites.
This could create a base income source for devs. Now they only rely on licenses, but this might not be high enough and stress them to produce more and more stuff. They could rest a bit with this kind of income and be less worried about the subscriptions.
And everyone knows that you are better productive when you are not THAT much worried about something
Do you think these ads would influence your buying behaviour?
If they don't influence you, advertisers won't pay for them. That means no extra income for the devs. The only improvement would be extra immersion (for some racers), but that can already be achieved with the add-on linked to by LFSn00b.
If they do influence you, the advertisers make profit from the things you buy. A fraction of that money goes to the LFS devs. It would have been more efficient if you'd donated that money directly to them.
For those who compare the situation with ads in real life: the ads IRL are not targeted at the racers but at the spectators. Online racing doesn't have any spectators to speak of.
I don't see any advantage of online ads. They do carry cost, however:
- Development time (including the constant arms race between ad providers and ad blockers).
- Network bandwidth and wait times for downloaded ads.
- Irritation with racers who don't like ads.
I have no issue with IGA, as long as it's passive and not the horrible ones that track how long they're on the screen and scan your hard drive to deliver targeted adverts.
Generic age-range, gender and interest would be fine. Like if car manufacturers wanted to advertise their new car, they know that the people racing are into cars and that certain billboards in the game will be on-screen for a certain amount of time per lap.
If all it means is downloading an updated .jpg every few weeks, that's not a big deal for me.
And while online racing has no real spectators, in this case the drivers ARE the spectators. It's not as high-stress as real racing, so virtual racers can spend more time looking at their scenery than their real-life counterparts. Add to that the number of leagues and tournaments who put their footage up to view online, you can see how it might be attractive to advertisers looking for a particular market.
The general idea of advertising is that there is an advertising space (aka the advertisment .dds files in LFS). The advertiser wants to use this advertisement, in counterpart, it pays the owner of the advertising space (aka Scavier) to put whatever image he wants to fit in (if the advertising space's owner agrees to sign the deal).
You don't get a fraction of their profit, because you can't know how much benefit increase you get from a single spot. Doing this way means either one of those will be $cr3wed in the process. So for mutual agreement, you usually pay a fixed rate for using that much advertising space for a defined period of time.
As I said earlier, as as Daijmin said as well, the advertisment should be spot on the racing world. There are different kinds of ads that could be interesting for advertisers, just because of the nature of the game : Online : Different websites and communities, e-business (eBay, Amazon) Racing : Cars, Part manufacturer (racing), motorsports magazines, IRL racing series. Simulator : Car Simulation gear (Logitech, Fanatec, G-Vest, Force Dynamics, etc), Other simulations (Xplane, MFS).
This is the small circle on spot-on advertisement. Then, around it there is a larger circle in which you can include categories that are related to the one aboce, like tuning, ricing equipement, etc.
I think that if this is implemented, we should not have the Obama stuff like in Burnout Paradise, or some adverts that have noting to do with the racing world (like in Project Torque and the movies in it). However, I don't see any problem or contradiction if we have adverts that are close to what the game is.
I don't think you got my point. People have argued that ads are a source of income for the devs. That money comes from advertisers, who made more money because they sold more stuff. The extra sales are from people who saw the ads. That's us, the LFS racers.
To cut it short, the racers spend extra money buying stuff, and a fraction of that money ends up in the devs' pockets. My point is that I'd rather donate it directly to them. And it doesn't really matter what the ads are about.
Not in an insulting way or anything, but are you blind?
Zen321 just explained that money from ads ARNT made from us lfs racers paying extra to buy more things.
Instead the company just gives the lfs devs a set ammount to keep their ads up for a certain ammount of time.
The way your thinking is that if I wanted to put an add up for my special luminescent condoms then i give the lfs devs my banner, they put it up in lfs and whenever someone buys my condoms i give a certain ammount of money to the devs.
But this is not what we're talking about, instead.....
I pay the LFS devs £60 to keep my condom banner up for a full month. I give them my banner and my monies. The banner goes up. The devs have made an extra £60.
That's the method that developers SHOULD use, and the one I have no problem with. I'd accept things appearing in LFS like new cars being advertised or energy drinks or whatever, just like you'd see at a real track. It's fairly easy to work it out to - you can guess your majority audience. A FPS game is going to be 90% males, aged probably 18-30. A puzzle game might be more evenly split across the board of age and gender. Cutesy games are likely to be younger kids and maybe younger teenage girls. Common sense could really work it out.
But these days targeted ads are what really bug me. The software scans your drive for info on everything you have installed; the games you play, the applications you use, the websites you visit, and uploads that to the ad server. Then that server streams adverts of thigns similar to that specifically to your computer. It's horrible and IMO a complete invasion of privacy. If a random piece of software you downloaded did that it would be called spyware. When EA (BF2142, I'm looking at you) or whoever does it, that's alright.
Migz' suggestion I'd go with. But I won't play anything with targeted ads in.
Oh right, well just to make sure everyone is thinking the same.
The ads im talking about arnt software or anything like that, they just simply replace the banners and boards we have in game with ones with ads on them. And they will be lfs related
Right. And let's assume that you have some business sense (i.e. not a philantropist, or a total LFS fan; in either case, you'd just donate the money). Then you will ask yourself if those 60 quid were well-spent. You'd calculate how many people saw your ad, estimate the conversion rate -- how many views do you need for 1 extra condom sold -- and do the math.
If you get little extra sales, it's wasted money. Continue, and you'll be out of business soon. You should withdraw the ad and try your luck elsewhere. (Or you could press Scavier for targeted ads...)
Thus, any advertiser with brains will ensure that the ads result in extra sales. Sales from stuff sold to the people who saw the ads. Which means that Scavier's £60 were drawn from the pockets of the LFS racers.
That's it. No kickback fees, no commission. Just the way that advertising works. Are you blind?
and we all love the devs so we want them to get more monies don't we 
) but a racing game is the perfect environment for this kind of thing as circuits are already filled with advertising.
