Be Excellent To Each Other

Is this acceptable? Sony have made a deal with Bill Hicks' favourite people, advertisers, and have patched 3 of their PSN games.

Say you bought wipeout, after the demo (if there was one) and was happy with the experience, what right do Sony have to patch your game to include adverts after the fact. My purchasing decision is based on the fact that the game didn't include adverts, surely that is bait and switch?

The Internet's reactions seems to be to bothered only by the fact that the adverts (shown whilst the levels are loading) increase the loading times by about 10 seconds and not the sudden presence of adverts themselves.

The adverts are still played off line too.

I was getting very tempted by a PS3 by this rumour of a price cut (@ £199 I'ld have picked one up this xmas), and i'm throwing the towel in.

This hobbie, the people who run it, and the vocal internet majority just depress me.

The Dash is getting (more) ads too.

Talking of increasing loading times, back when I posted regularly on the Penny Arcade boards I would get involved in massive arguments about product placement and advertising in games (& only a couple of people would ever agree with you - thanks Lewie!) they all laughed at me when I suggested their 'harmless' loading screen ads would put pressure on games to lengthen loading times.

I love being right

I'm guessing that they have the right that they will have explicitly stated as part of the PSN Ts&Cs that you'll have agreed to - they aren't stupid.

Does suck though, hard.

Reasons to buy PS3 falling... falling... RISING!.... falling...

Wait, so these aren't adverts in the game world, like in Burnie P? They're proper adverts that you have to watch before playing.
Fuck off if that's the case.

No, I think they're just on billboards and stuff.

It's both, I think. In-game ads and an advert that was supposed to be displayed during the loading time without changing the loading time at all, except it doubled the loading time so Sony pulled it.

The Wipeout ones are in the form of a video box on the loading screen. Not really intrusive at all, but a "bug" caused it to slow the load time by 10 seconds, which they're fixing. I still think adding advertising after a game has been bought and paid for is fucking despicable, though.

I do wonder if Gillette mind that because of "their" vans in Burnie P being annoying cunts (the bastards are forever turning across my path) I'll never be buying their razors.

Red Bull was everywhere in 2097, back before it was super popular. And you spent forever on the loading screens in that game.



Foolish boy! Federer, Woods and the other one will be around shortly to pelt you with balls.

There's adverts on the PES09 or Fifa 09 (can't remember which one) on the loading screen, for a kia or something.

I dont mind loading screens, it gives you time to have a swig of beer inbetween playing and levels and stuff.

Hasn't Sony announced they are (at least temporarily) pulling the adverts because of the increased loading times.

Way to go Sony...AGAIN.

Oh agreed, most definitely.

But at the same time EULAs that make claims like that (or ever I think) have never been held up in a court of law, and I'm not sure they would.

But the loading time isn't the issue, the adverts appearing during the loading screen are the issue!

Full motion adverts! I'm not sure if they have sound... but fucking hell.

These would. Shrink-wrap EULAs ("by opening this software you agree to X and Y") have never been tested and are potentially dodgy. Click-through ones ("when we sell you this, you agree to X and Y") are different.

If you wanted to try something under the Sales of Goods Act, you'd have to prove Sony had somehow diminished the product you've bought. I'm not sure if you could argue the presence of an extra ad (it always had in-game ads, I think) would count. A doubled loading time would count -- but they've fixed that by pulling the ad; that was a bug and unintentional. The bottom line is, in practical terms, the game is the same.

Thin end of the wedge, though, innit?

Edit -- you could, of course, refuse the game update if you are not playing the game online.

But that was apparent at purchase wasn't it (at least if you cared enough to find out)? This was sneaked in later. It is code sitting on my machine, that they let me think I can 'buy' - but they have full access to do what they like with, and will do so.

That's not a zero sum game though. The same mechanisms bring us free DLC, hassle-free bug patches, and in general rid of a load of grubby bollocks we all hate PC gaming for.

Edit -- and stop online cheats.

That makes sense.

The advert would diminish the product MASSIVELY in my eyes. Enough to stop me buying the platform in fact.

And thin end to the extreme. Say goodbye to games with no loading time. Code worse - get paid more!

Exactly, but it is weird. Bionic Commando: Rearmed has had an update to make it easier and I really really don't want it (normal was the perfect difficulty for me, and now it's nerfed, and I'm not good enough to step up to hard) so I've the choice between spoiling the single player or not getting to play the challenge rooms anymore. They've spoilt my purchase.

Burnout Paradise on the other hand gave me bikes for free. Woo!

And Wipeout has given me ads.

We need to use new terms. We don't own these games. We rent them.

(And bug patches? Thats just selling me buggy sbit and fixing it down the line).

I'm not buying THREEPISSYNANS to watch adverts. I'm not doing it.

All my posts are now going to include adverts.

I wonder how far you'd have to drag Shane Ritchie behind your car until he became a flat scrap of skin..

You won't have to buy it. Advertising supported services are free, as everyone knows.

Just checked the ads are full motion and come with sound.
None of the games reviews can mention it cos it was added after the fact.
The ads occur offline too.

No PS3 for me again then.

I'm scared to think where Sony can go next in their attempts to put me off every time I start wavering. Maybe a firmware update that means you can't turn on the PS3 without putting your knob through the hole in the disk tray and closing it.

Think of poor Zio. He got rid of his 360 and kept the PISSYNAN! HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

LOL CONSOLE FAIL

I like the way a lot of people do it on the iPhone - ad-supported app for free, 59p for an ad-free one.

What Sony should have done, instead of updating Wipeout with ads and charging £7.99 for the expansion.

Charged for the expansion, but made it £12.99 without ads, £7.99 with and left the non-expanded game alone. If they'd done that people would have thought they were getting a bargain for the exact same thing that now looks like a complete rip-off.

I know I should be really bothered by this and I do think it's out of order however I simply don't care enough that I'd make some sort of stand over it. If there were loads of games I wanted to play on the PS3 I know I'd still get one, but fortunately there aren't and so I won't.

DUH, SLOT IN DISC MECHANISM!

oh fuck Sony again, man.

I'm not paying 200 quid to listen to adverts.

Christ. Just visuals, I could probably put up with. Adverts with sound can eat a handful of shit. No matter how good something is, I generally won't stand for having my speakers hijacked.

TV and services like Spotify, where I haven't bought anything or paid a penny, I can deal with adverts.

Most of the PC games I have plays Intel and nVidia "THE WAY IT'S MEANT TO BE PLAYED" ads when I start them.

I agree with the Rev. I further note that Sony are past masters at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory (consider that if it does get a big price cut in a fortnight, the PS3 might finally become a sensible purchase).

They're usually skippable, from my past experience.

Possibly. They are actually so short, I may never have bothered trying. I'm generally settling into my chair or drinking some tea or something.

I try to skip anything I don't want to see. But those splash screens don't annoy me so much because I've never really seen them as trying to directly get me to buy something. If they'd been screens for specific nVidia/Intel products, I'd get a lot more annoyed — especially so if they were kept up to date over the internet, were longer, and unskippable. Perhaps a little hypocritical, there.

PES certainly does. I'd have thought that running ads in a full-priced game which is just an update from a previous one (rather than developing a brand new game from scratch) has bugger all to do with covering costs too and more to do with making a bit of extra cash.

ANY WAY, Wipeout is shit and boring. I bought HD hoping I was missing something with the PS1, N64 and PSP versions. I wasn't. It's all dull and clinical, and I'm shit at it.

And that N64 version cost me £50, which was a lot of money for a paperboy.

edit: Actually, it's possible I got it second hand, but I probably traded Goldeneye in for it or something, so it's still shit.

Shoulda bought that.

They've added it to two other games at the same time too though. It looks like it will be standard for all Sony made PSN games. YEAY!

Also, as a paperboy what the feck were you getting a N64 for? You should have had an Amiga 1200 and spent your time crying about Digitiser saying it was dead.

I had an Amiga 500, but that was long before I was 13 and allowed to get a paper round! N64 was hip by then I actually saved up for a Dreamcast with my £12 a week paper round, and by the time I got one, it was pretty much fucking defunct.

Lies, the Dreamcast is still not defunct.

Not in my eyes Lewie, you're right! I've still got it set up I worked hard for that damn thing!

Oh yeah, I was just playing Phantasy Star Online the other day. Oh no, wait a minute, I wasn't.

Only joking, do you still play Dreamcast games then Lewie? I only completed Metroplolis Street Racer last year, and I have yet to get through Shenmue I and II. Games seem so much more worth while when they have a meaningless score attached though.

Mines at uni atm, but I bust it out every now and again. Less so now that I have Ikaruga and Rez on the 360.

Me and my work colleague are sneaking off to play Rival Schools on his chipped Dreamcast on Friday. Should be fun

On FM 2009 they added adverts to the hoardings around the ground in the 3 and 2D match engines, which I felt was fine as they've developed the 3D engine and usually all you get is updated data in the new version with one or two tweaked features. In reality it defaults to the same three ads all the way round, every game, every ground, and occasionally there will be one they've been paid to haev on there, but it's usually the whole circumference of the pitch, same one repeated over and over.

Mix it up a bit, lads.

I think a lot of us probably play games as an alternative to watching TV because we hate ads so much we'll literally not watch channels with ads on. That's why I pay a shitload for games. This could get messy.

I wonder how these two games might have gone down in these days of people being anti junk food?