Will Star Craft 2 include in game ads?

The highly-anticipated release of the popular computer game Star Craft 2 was somehow marred with a misunderstanding on whether the new version will now include in-game ads.

The introduction of a commercial product skillfully integrated to become part of a computer game or an in-game ad is not exactly a welcome development for many of us players. They may even have a creepily negative effect on youngsters.

It was thus, the reason why a number of us Star Craft lovers wanted a clarification over what Blizzard CEO Robert “Bobby” Kotick meant when he uttered comments that seems to mean that Star Craft 2 will come with in-game ads.

Blizzplanet.com quoted Kotick as saying over the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference that the “StarCraft business model for the future, with in-game advertising and sponsorship, [which have] really not been something that has moved the dial for anybody in the videogame industry, but that we think presents tremendous opportunity for the future.”

“[Blizzard] has been thinking about how Star Craft, because it is a short-session experience, can actually be the model for in-game advertising and sponsorship and tournament play and ladder play for the future.”

Company representatives immediately rushed to clarify that Kotick may have been referring to another computer game.

“We have no plans to have in-game advertising in Star Craft II. We believe Bobby was actually referring to Battle.net, which has always included ad,” their official website at Blizzard reads.

In-game ads examples include those interwoven product advertisements that ranges from mere billboard signs that hug the computer game’s background arenas to having the actual computer player-hero drink from an elixir bottle labeled with some softdrink brand just to revive his health.

Pros and cons of in-game ads

Adopting in-game ads over our much-loved Star Craft computer game has a number of pros and cons.

Many of us players are not exactly hot over how the next Star Craft game with its three races – Terran, Zerg and Protoss – would now be endorsing commercial products.

Yes, it would mean the multiplayer Starcraft 2 would always be free. Revenues from these in-game ads would bankroll the server performance and maintenance of this computer game without us player’s shelling out a penny from our very own small pockets.

Also, commercial product sponsorships during eSport tournaments would exponentially grow considering how the first Star Craft was a real hit worldwide. Huge commercial companies will surely be in every one of its eSport conference!

But having in-game ads with Star Craft 2 might just mean having my Protoss ship carrying a commercial tag or two while battling over a Zerg camp set over the battleground ruins that are lined with product franchises to even having my Terran soldiers drink from packets of some liquor brand just to boost their health rate or battle performance.

It is not just an abomination of the whole Star Craft concept-story and distracting to us computer game players, but also and more importantly, is that these products are given rich opportunities to stealthily sneak deep into the player’s subconscious brain and mess with the player’s rational associative thinking.

A computer game player could easily, at this subconscious level, start associating a no-good product he used in the game and that with his campaign victories. Such constant reinforcement might affect children and pre-program their minds to now feel ultra-good with what is supposed to be a no-good product and deeply crave for them despite their ill-effects.

In the end, it will be up to the Activision Blizzard company to decide the fate of our much-loved Star Craft 2.

But for now, it is well to look deeper into the effects of these in-game ads and properly caution players of its effects, especially our young ones.