Why in-game advertisements should be limited to multiplayer

There's reason to distrust in-game advertisement. For one, it does not noticeably reduce the cost of a game on the consumer end, which is the way the advertising model works in most other mediums. But the larger point is that game developers have never seemed capable of the subliminal restraint necessary to infuse a fictional, artistic world with real-life shilling. The analogical result can be like cracking open Pale Fire and read for a couple of pages only to have John Shade burst in mid-stanza and moistly shout "BAWLS! DRINK IT! TO THE EXTREME!" in your face.

Over at Fidgit, the illustrious Tom Chick has some thoughts on Ubisoft's in-game advertising for Far Cry 2, which features fictionalized ads in single player and real advertisements in multiplayer. Chick's curmudgeoning is entertaining to read in and of itself, but the most thoughtful analysis actually comes from a commenter, Mark Greyam, who notes:

When you play Far Cry 2 single player, you're some jerk with plot-convenient malaria, exploring dry, windswept savannah, trying not to get shot to pieces as you attempt to play both sides against each other, and run over zebras.

When you play Far Cry 2 multiplayer, you're UberL33tSniperXXX69w00t, running around trying to headshot people as they scream about chocolate milk and inform you of the various ways in which they violated your mother last night. And boy, did she like it.

The fourth wall doesn't really exist in multiplayer games, so when the game decides to break it down and then thoroughly stamp all over the pieces until it's a fine wall-paste by advertisting a game that exists in the, you know, real world, it's not really as jarring.

An excellent point, and I think it's the solution to the long-term problem of monetizing games through advertisements. Multiplayer is already usually a corruption of a game designer's vision for his world, in that it places the most important element of the game experience in the hands of humans, a large percentage of which are very likely smacktards. Introducing ads into the multiplayer experience can help fund ongoing development and keep servers intact while remaining, if not congruous, then at least equally incongruous as a world populated entirely by homicidal, bunny-hopping fourteen year olds.

There's multiplayer titles in-game advertisements can't work in, of course. For example, Valve's Left 4 Dead or Team Fortress 2 manage to imbue the unpredictable human element with the spirit of the game world even in multiplayer, largely by making sure that each player is only in control of the actions — not the character — of his avatar. In games like these, in-game ads would always shatter the fourth wall wide open. But those sorts of games are rare indeed, and I think we can trust the developers actually gifted enough to make multiplayer games of that level of artistic caliber not to then spray them with advertising smegma.

Far Cry 2's in-game advertising [Fidgit]