In Game Advertising

City of Heroes has decided to start selling ad space in game, and I for one, don't mind.

There is almost always uproar when this sort of thing happens, but I'm finding it hard to get riled, particularly if it keeps subscription costs down, and in this case, can be switched off. The picture here shows one of the best uses of it, a movie ad, outside an in-game cinema, some of the other boards look added but overall, ads seem to be on in-game billboards not plastered on the sides of buildings or flashed up on every loading screen.

There was initial controversy when Battlefield 2142 announced there would be in game advertising, although this was in part due to a myth that your browsing habits would be analysed and advertising targeted to you. To be honest Battlefields ads aren't too bad either.

I really don't know where the opposition comes from. Yes, I've seen games where buildings are more or less replaced by blocks of advertising, and that is poor, but this is just replacing in game fake billboards, for Vanguard or Crey, with a poster plugging a Vin Diesel film. And as always, if this keeps subscription costs down, I'm all for it.

Naturally, not every game can take ads, I somehow don't think a bar in World Of Warcraft would look particularly good with a Babylon AD poster in it. But so far the whole thing seems sane and normal.

Now, Issue 13, Architect.

The mission designer sounds interesting, more on my part to see how they've managed to avoid making them XP farms. However the part that really appeals is the Day job, where you gain points depending on where you leave your character when you log off, so Logging off near a hospital means you're doing hospital work and will give health benefits which is tantalisingly close to being able to engineer a secret identity. I like it.