Advertisements in PoE

Was reading a thread over in the patch notes forum and something caught my eye.

Advertisements in the game.

I'm not talking about beer ads, or car ads, or anything like that. I'm talking GGG advertising their "premium" items like pets, spell effects, stash tabs, and so on. There seems to be a minimal amount of self-advertising in the game right now which is fine by me. However, there were more than a few people who felt that ANY advertisement detracted from their gameplay experience and that got me thinking.

Should GGG advertise their premium features more and should there be a way to disable said advertisements?

Now, I'm not advocating EA levels of ads here (I'm looking at you, Madden and FIFA) where there is an abundance of not-so-subtle advertisments pretty much everywhere. Granted, I realize that PoE is a F2P game, and it's an awesome game for being free even if the Desync Boss rears his ugly head more than we would like, but PoE is basically a AAA title pushed out by an indie developer / publisher and there is no fee to access the pure unadulterated awesomeness within. I'll admit that I'm not sure what GGG's philosophy towards ads in the game is, but I'm just creating conversation and looking for input from either school of thought.

On to the next part which is being able to disable ads.

It's understood that the best way to support GGG is through buying Supporter packs (when they were available) or purchasing premium points. But let's say that ads were implemented further and you felt like GGG gave you a gaming experience worth throwing some cash down on. Would you like to have an option to disable those ads if you "donated" some money? If so, where is that line drawn?

$5, $10, $25, more?

Of course, that makes it look like you're required to spend some cash to get rid of the ads, but if they were unobtrusive ads, say a chat message that cycled every 10 minutes or a little window similar to the Steam "Update News" window, would they bother you enough to spend some money to make them go away or would you just continue playing and ignore those ads?

Again, just looking for some friendly conversation.

No.

i don't have an opinion on the ad thing either way, but i do agree that they need money, a strong consistent flow. With the launch the player base - and associated server/bandwidth costs - scale up, and they have to be sustained indefinitely, on a free-to-play model. TBH i fear for them a little. The vision/integrity thing (f2p, no p2w etc) worked on a smaller scale, but i can't imagine the pressure they face to keep this sustained long term.

It is kind of an interesting subject.

Personally, as someone who has supported GGG, it doesnt change my view on the ads in game. I cant stand them. Should GGG do it, meh, w/e. Its up to them really, and its not going to send me packing, however, again, personally, i find them annoying.

Ads might actually hurt sales if it makes players feel like GGG is trying to "cash in" rather than the players choosing to freely donate.

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Shagsbeard wrote:

No.

I think an hourly, one-line ad that mentions the daily sale would actually be welcome. Or perhaps every two hours. Non-obtrusive, and I'd find it informative (some days I forget to check what the daily sale is). They did this for the premium tab sale and I would have missed that one otherwise.

I'd actually welcome a message every hour or two that shows the daily sale. Or on Log-in.

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Uginator wrote:

I'd actually welcome a message every hour or two that shows the daily sale. Or on Log-in.

That last part already happens.