How does it go from intelligently placed ads that fit in with the game world to "hearing them every time I turn around"?
There's clearly a middle ground... you see billboards every single day and probably don't think twice, because you've learned to ignore them. And yet companies still pay good money for them. Why would it be any different for a game? You'd learn to ignore them and they'd bring in money. At least you propose a realistic argument though. What I hate is people who claim that advertisements would kill the immersiveness... as if mankind somehow decided to stop advertising in the future.
But the whole point isn't to save money for the people who would already pay, it's to get the new people who don't want to pay that much for a game. It's a tradeoff that's impossible to quantify, but I'm just surprised we haven't seen it already (or have we in games I just don't know about?)
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