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AP’BS’: VOIP Ads

Thursday Jun 24,2010 06:42 PM
By Keen
In Uncategorized

You get VOIP ads unless you pay to remove them.

The APB coverage here at Keen and Graev’s has been non-existent. I got a “Key to the City” but apparently missed the playtime allotted. Neither of us have been looking forward to the game for various reasons ranging from EA to bad memories of CrimeCraft to the simple design of the game. There hasn’t even been any interesting news about the game to really comment on and I’m bored to tears of explaining why I think instanced lobbies are not a MMO. Finally found something to comment on though!

When I was investigating the “My Account” section of APB’s website to learn more about it, it felt to me like the game is meant to be one of those arcade machines you need to keep feeding quarters into. Even if it ends up costing about the same price to play 365 days a year as a $14.99/m game there’s a not-so-subtle “wanna buy a watch?” look to the whole way they’re getting you to play. This is all an aside anyway but I wanted to go on the record for saying “meh”.

Seeing the link to the VOIP ads though really hit home how overboard they’re going with their pricing model.

The official details followed what quickly became a storm of horrific speculation about what this could mean for gameplay.

“You will receive a short audio ad once every 3 hours. HOWEVER ads will only be heard when first entering a social district.” Basically, you enter a new district (Lobby) and you get an ad played over your headphones. When you change districts (apparently social, not combat) after the 3 hour timer has expired you get another ad. What kind of ad? Don’t know yet. I think that’s the best part of the whole thing since we don’t know if it will be a commercial for Big Macs and having it your way or how to get relief from that burning itch down there.

The APB Defense Force is going to raid my comments section screaming at me that RTW needs some way to pay for their servers or that you can just turn your volume down if you don’t like it. That’s all true. I think this way is really bad marketing though and it highlights my suspicions about this being a fail boat preparing to set sail. There are better ways to charge a buck than to force people to hear VOIP ads unless they pay a premium. This just alienates people regardless how minimally invasive these ads are in the game. APB is being defended as a “pay to play game” and I’ll even give them a nod that their point system and buying days of gametime is indeed pay to play. If it’s pay to play though, there isn’t a need to jerk people around like this. If your game can stand on its own then charge people what it is worth and be done with it.

If I can find a way to try the game on a trial account then I’ll let you guys know what I think about the actual gameplay. I really can’t see myself paying any money though when there are this many red flags before launch.

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