In Game Advertising

Dear All,

There have been some questions about In Game Advertising in FM09. This is in reference to the match engine graphics which has advertising on the hoardings around the pitch - there is no other dynamic advertising within FM09.

As mentioned elsewhere - I'm in the process of working out who can come and provide responses to questions asked on IGA - and will initiate another thread for them. I'm sorry, but I'm not an expert on it so can't address more technical stuff.

In simple terms - what I've been told is this;

- IGA collects no "personal" data to my knowledge.

- The IGA simply serves advertising into the advertising hoardings.

- The technology may use your IP to serve you "local" advertising.

- At present, nothing is being served so the advertising is default - Warchild, SI and SEGA.

I know no more - but have asked for help from IGA themselves and Murray is familiarising himself with it - so lets leave it there, or in this thread, please...

If you have questions, please post them and we'll do our best to get them addressed over the next few days.

Cheers

Matt

Thanks for this Matt, clears things up a bit for us.

Nice, thanks for clearing that up.

Dear All,

There have been some questions about In Game Advertising in FM09. This is in reference to the match engine graphics which has advertising on the hoardings around the pitch - there is no other dynamic advertising within FM09.

As mentioned elsewhere - I'm in the process of working out who can come and provide responses to questions asked on IGA - and will initiate another thread for them. I'm sorry, but I'm not an expert on it so can't address more technical stuff.

In simple terms - what I've been told is this;

- IGA collects no "personal" data to my knowledge.

- The IGA simply serves advertising into the advertising hoardings.

- The technology may use your IP to serve you "local" advertising.

- At present, nothing is being served so the advertising is default - Warchild, SI and SEGA.

I know no more - but have asked for help from IGA themselves and Murray is familiarising himself with it - so lets leave it there, or in this thread, please...

If you have questions, please post them and we'll do our best to get them addressed over the next few days.

Cheers

Matt

Fm prides itself on being realistic and one that it can honestly say it has achieved as the leader of management games.

However, how realistic is having adverts for something local in my own area that I live to be displayed in a Korean or Asian game around the pitch?

I'm also worried how this will evolve over time and future versions.

I'm not buying FM with advertising in the game at all!

Will be interesting to see what is actually involved. It is a shame SI and SEGA have gone down this route. I can understand from a money perspective it is good for SI and SEGA, and that perhaps it will help fund other areas of the game (I hope, and not just SEGA's fat wallets). I am disappointed that they have gone this route about it by not only storing our information, but also making the advertising hordings physical links that will pop up a new web broswer. I find this the most disappointing thing of all. They have spoilt that part of the game in my view. I am all for adverts, but keep them at the start of the game like with the licenses. There is definately no need for them to be links to websites, and can think of no other games that have such blatent adverts in. After all the success SI have had with FM, you have to ask the question why they have added this? It can only be greed as far as I can see? It surely cannot bring in that much in terms of revenue?

If it makes a bit of money and don't affect my game then Im all for it, it may even improve realism

If it makes a bit of money and don't affect my game then Im all for it, it may even improve realism

The only thing that will be a pain is if you are playing in full screen mode (I normally do when i'm just play FM and not messing with anything else) and you accidentally click one of them and it opens up a browser, happened a couple of times with me in the demo.

Will be interesting to see what is actually involved. It is a shame SI and SEGA have gone down this route. I can understand from a money perspective it is good for SI and SEGA, and that perhaps it will help fund other areas of the game (I hope, and not just SEGA's fat wallets). I am disappointed that they have gone this route about it by not only storing our information, but also making the advertising hordings physical links that will pop up a new web broswer. I find this the most disappointing thing of all. They have spoilt that part of the game in my view. I am all for adverts, but keep them at the start of the game like with the licenses. There is definately no need for them to be links to websites, and can think of no other games that have such blatent adverts in. After all the success SI have had with FM, you have to ask the question why they have added this? It can only be greed as far as I can see? It surely cannot bring in that much in terms of revenue?

The revenue potential is massive. I mean, it's huge. If sold the right way and implemented correctly then the potential to make money is almost limitless. If it were me I would sell someone like SKY exclusive rights to certain parts of the game, advertising boards, hyperlinked news stories which takes users to the site, I'd probably implement....well, I could go on. The point is that IGA is here to stay no matter how many people moan about it.

This is something I posted in the first thread that was made about the IGA in FM09. At least to me it seems to describe what happens and what information is collected.

From the EULA of FM09:

If you install and play this game you will receive advertising messages that appear within and in context with the game environments to enhance the realism of the game. To provide this functionality, technology developed by IGA Worldwide Inc., has been integrated into the game. This technology will automatically deliver location-based advertising and log and transmit certain information about your interaction with the advertising. If you do not wish to receive contextual advertising messages, do not play this game while connected to the Internet. IGA’s privacy policy can be found at http://www.igaworldwide.com/privacy-policy.cfm

From the privacy policy of the IGA company:

Information collected through Computer Games

IGA technology delivers content and information to and from certain Internet-connected computer games that use our services. In order to select the content that is displayed during the game, IGA uses the IP address of the game players computer. IGA does not use IP addresses to ascertain any game player's identity. The IP address is used to determine the player's country or city, the game being played, the size and length of time that content is displayed within a game, and the length of a game session. This data is used to calculate the fees that are charged to third party content providers and advertisers.

Aggregated statistical information such as the percentage of users playing in a particular area or the average length of a game session, may be shared with these third parties. IP addresses are retained only until the end of a game session.

Does all this mean that adverts will be downloaded to our computer "in the background" so to speak? Provided we are connected to the internet. Or are they "in" the game from the start?

The only thing that will be a pain is if you are playing in full screen mode (I normally do when i'm just play FM and not messing with anything else) and you accidentally click one of them and it opens up a browser, happened a couple of times with me in the demo.

I suppose that would be a problem, but surely your aim isn't that bad

I play windowed so it is not all that bad for me

Does all this mean that adverts will be downloaded to our computer "in the background" so to speak? Provided we are connected to the internet. Or are they "in" the game from the start?

Since the adverts are handled by a 3rd party company, then I can't see how SI would have been able to put the adverts into the game from the start. So, yes I can only assume that they will be downloaded while you play.

I was pretty annoyed when i heard about iga but if its only the hoardings around the pitch and no personal data, apart from location, is collected then it won't be to bad. sounds annoying that it opens up a browser if you click on it as well.

IF I decide to buy FM09, which is looking increasingly unlikely, then I shall only be doing so once it is known which port IGA broadcasts over and when I know that I can block it with my router and firewall.

Just thinking my Anti virus and anti spy/adware normally blocks anything trying to access my computer through the internet without me asking for it..

Would this be the case here? and also as long as they not collecting any personal data of mine i really dont care about this... But if thats not the case then its a different story.. (thiking what to do)

IF I decide to buy FM09, which is looking increasingly unlikely, then I shall only be doing so once it is known which port IGA broadcasts over and when I know that I can block it with my router and firewall.

Port 80 like regular http traffic - almost guaranteed.

Just thinking my Anti virus and anti spy/adware normally blocks anything trying to access my computer through the internet without me asking for it..

Would this be the case here?

Your game will most likely contact the IGA servers and ask for new adverts. So since your computer is the one establishing the connection it will not be automatically blocked.

IF I decide to buy FM09, which is looking increasingly unlikely, then I shall only be doing so once it is known which port IGA broadcasts over and when I know that I can block it with my router and firewall.

If you've got a firewall - and I'll assume that you've not got it wode open to 'allow everything - then once you've registered online you won't need FM09 to access t'internet. So I'd say that after you run for the first time, when the FM09 (or IGA) executable tries to send out then block that packet permanently.

Then you won't need to shut port 80, the game should run and all is well in the world.

Will need to figure out how to block that specific set of servers then. Definitely will mean waiting for some information to come out.

Fm prides itself on being realistic and one that it can honestly say it has achieved as the leader of management games.

However, how realistic is having adverts for something local in my own area that I live to be displayed in a Korean or Asian game around the pitch?

I'm also worried how this will evolve over time and future versions.

I'm not buying FM with advertising in the game at all!

I probably won't be picking it up on release tomorrow afternoon, but dear lord - that is simply one of the most shocking justifications I think I've ever read.

Who in their right mind is going to try and sell an advertising contract that will fail to focus on their target demographic?

So if I play in France I should want to have Canal+ thrown in my face? Sure it would be more realistic, but business is business and what your proposing is so farfetched it's worrying that you fail to empathise with Sega's position.

The adverts are neat, tidy and fail to remove anything from the overall quality of the game.

There's a file in the Sigames/Fm2009/data folder called "ads.fmf". If you don't want adverts in your game just delete it.

What a joke. I love in game advertising, I think it makes the games more realistic, especially in football games as they are present in real life. However I do not approve of clicking on a board in the 3d mode and it TAKING me to the web-site. Leave that out next time...

The only thing that will be a pain is if you are playing in full screen mode (I normally do when i'm just play FM and not messing with anything else) and you accidentally click one of them and it opens up a browser, happened a couple of times with me in the demo.

Can't you just disable hyperlinks?

I would hope that if this technology proves a lucrative source of income for SI that we, the consumers, will see the benefit when it comes to RRP for FM10. Paying £30 for a retail PC game? no problem. Paying exactly the same amount for a retail PC game chock full of adverts (which are becoming increasingly impossible to avoid: the speaking clock of all things is sponsored by Disney at the moment, and ITN are trialling technology from the US to, and I'm not making this up, show static text adverts in suitable plain background areas like the sky OF THE NEWS) with the publishers raking in large sums for our inconvenience - not on. Sadly none of the publishers that have used dynamic advertising hoardings in game have yet to pass on the monetary benefits their end to the consumer by dropping prices even a penny. I'm crossing my fingers that SI are better than that.

gripe over

thanks for a response

(no, honestly)

Whats the problem, i like it..... lol

Don't see a problem with it to be honest, provided it's unobtrusive and the files that download are of a suitably small size so as not to affect my normal use of the internet.

If something like this helps keep the cost of the game down then it seems OK to me.

It doesn't keep the cost down. It is more expensive than ever before.

It doesn't keep the cost down.

well obviously not YET, they haven't made a penny off it while the ads are just for SI products and a charity they support. That's why I mentioned FM10 - i'd imagine their plans are for that to be a steady income stream by this time next year. I really hope they won't have the cheek to set the 'suggested retail price' at £39.99 again in those circumstances.

Hi guys,

I'm trying to get somebody to post up who knows 'all' about this tomorrow for you.

If you shop around the game can be had for as little as £23.99 (or cheaper I've seen)

In all honesty though, we put this in to liven the game up and obviously make money - if we knew how upset you guys were going to be - we would have definitely gone down the 'poll' route. Oh well hindsight is a wonderful thing

I don't really care about IGA, but as someone mentioned above, it will be a bit strange if you live in Italy and you are playing in the turkish league and all the ads are in italian or from italian products.

(...)

In all honesty though, we put this in to liven the game up and obviously make money - if we knew how upset you guys were going to be - we would have definitely gone down the 'poll' route. Oh well hindsight is a wonderful thing

It's refreshing to see such honesty in a forum!

About the IGA complaints, I've come to believe that most people will moan at any little change they find in the game (remember the highlight speed sliders?)

On the one hand, people want thousands of new features, on the other, they want the game to remain exactly as they are used to seeing it.

Heres a thought why don't they get companies to pay a small price for in game friendly tournaments over the summer to be sponsored by them? it would be realistic and you would be able to chose whether to take your team to them or not.

I can't believe you guys have gone with this especially with all the trouble BT and Virgin are having with Phorm.

If everything goes quietly and nobody complains to much, how long before an update starts looking for more than just an IP to specifically target ads to the user?

If you've got a firewall - and I'll assume that you've not got it wode open to 'allow everything - then once you've registered online you won't need FM09 to access t'internet. So I'd say that after you run for the first time, when the FM09 (or IGA) executable tries to send out then block that packet permanently.

Then you won't need to shut port 80, the game should run and all is well in the world.

I need FM09 to have access to the internet for my network games. Are there any other ways to get rid of this because frankly if I'm paying the full price for a game I don't expect to have adverts in it constantly.

If you don't like it just don't be on the internet when playing. Its not doing anything harmful to the game. As long as it doesn't slow it down!

I can't believe you guys have gone with this especially with all the trouble BT and Virgin are having with Phorm.

If everything goes quietly and nobody complains to much, how long before an update starts looking for more than just an IP to specifically target ads to the user?

Not going to happen. Any even vaguely personal information would need an opt-in.

I don't have to have IGA, my games pc is purely a games pc, so it's not on the internet.

I don't mind advertisements that are already on there, but foricing people to have IGA downloaded onto their machines, not cool. And if you didn't think there would be a backlash you are not very in touch with the 'audience' (couldn't think of a better word)

Hi guys,

I'm trying to get somebody to post up who knows 'all' about this tomorrow for you.

If you shop around the game can be had for as little as £23.99 (or cheaper I've seen)

In all honesty though, we put this in to liven the game up and obviously make money - if we knew how upset you guys were going to be - we would have definitely gone down the 'poll' route. Oh well hindsight is a wonderful thing

A concern for me (and one of the reasons why i'm holding off a couple of months before I decide whether this is worth a purchase) is that the 2D game display is that much smaller and less clear running in a (large) window as I like to do. obviously one of the causes of this are the prominent advertising hoardings, which we can't disable (because otherwise advertisers aren't going to sign up with you ) - so implementing this feature in the way you have actually has a negative effect on my enjoyment of the game and my ability to play it the way I normally like to, quite separate from any moral concerns people may have. PLEASE consider knock-on effects like this in future

In all honesty though, we put this in to liven the game up and obviously make money - if we knew how upset you guys were going to be - we would have definitely gone down the 'poll' route. Oh well hindsight is a wonderful thing

I have to say that in my opinion that excuse is very weak. I do think those who implemented the feature were fully aware that the consumer would be upset by this. I don't see the need for developers to chuck in this garbage. We are paying for a product, we don't want advertising. That is why websites have paid versions, so we see no advertising. IGA isn't going to irk me to death, but to say that you were ignorant to the consumer sentiment on this matter is very discouraging to say the least.

Not going to happen. Any even vaguely personal information would need an opt-in.

Or opt out as Phorm is.

@PGB_SPURS_FM0, not saying it's going to happen but if enough money if made from this what's to stop forced repeat internet activation, some software already does this.

As Tim Berners-Lee said "It's mine - you can't have it. If you want to use it for something, then you have to negotiate with me. I have to agree, I have to understand what I'm getting in return."

Even Matt's statment was a bit ambiguous "IGA collects no "personal" data to my knowledge" does it or doesn't it.

sorry double post

Havent bought the game yet and to be fair this wont make me think twice about doing so as I can simply block fm09.exe from accessing the internet, I will be purchasing it maybe in one patches time.

However I must say this is not something I'm happy about, pretty angry infact. If people on these forums like it/don't mind seeing the ads fair play to them but personally this sort of thing (internet privacy, phorm, overexposure to advertising full stop) is something I feel very strongly about, I would happily pay an extra fiver or so to have a copy not subsidised (in theory) by ad revenue, Im sick of having this crap shoved down my throat in every other aspect of my everyday life without having people trying to sell me things when I play football manager.

Sorry if that seems like a rant, I love the series am a long time loyal customer and think SI are a wonderful company with regards to how they deal with their customers, i just feel there should be a button to disable this in preferences at the very least, I shouldnt have to resort to restricting the programs behaviour, this would seem like a fair compromise if that means lost revenue tough.

Incidently it will be interesting to see what sort of companies use this service, with so many young players it would be a fantastic way to circumvent legislation on showing certain ads (i.e. fast food) to certain audiences on tv.

Hi guys,

I'm trying to get somebody to post up who knows 'all' about this tomorrow for you.

If you shop around the game can be had for as little as £23.99 (or cheaper I've seen)

In all honesty though, we put this in to liven the game up and obviously make money - if we knew how upset you guys were going to be - we would have definitely gone down the 'poll' route. Oh well hindsight is a wonderful thing

Thanks for the response.

If you truly believe that you would have done things differently, it may be an idea for the next patch to include an option to disable in-game advertising or at the very least to limit it to "product placement" where clicking would do nothing but the companies still get their brand name thrown in our faces (which I would personally prefer - I don't mind product placement so long as it doesn't interfere with the game itself).

If it's for realism, it's not exactly realistic as if I was to touch my TV where an advertisement board appeared during a game, I wouldn't expect it to jump to a commercial - nor would I expect that to happen if I was physically on the pitch.

Or opt out as Phorm is.

Legally Phorm has to be opt-in. I don't know if they changed it, but if the trials are still opt-out they will be in danger of getting into serious trouble with the information commissioner - they've already come within a hair's breadth of being prosecuted. For the same reason any update of the IGA to collect any sort of info apart from that already described is extremely unlikely and would have to be opt-in.

I was starting to worry about this in-game advertising and broadcasting of data. However the current situation with the servers has reassured me that the data will probably never even be received, let alone anything substantial happening with it after that

However can someone from SEGA or elsewhere advise how to turn off the hoarding 'hyperlinks' please as it's bloody annoying when you click a hoarding and it opens the browser!

I was starting to worry about this in-game advertising and broadcasting of data. However the current situation with the servers has reassured me that the data will probably never even be received, let alone anything substantial happening with it after that

However can someone from SEGA or elsewhere advise how to turn off the hoarding 'hyperlinks' please as it's bloody annoying when you click a hoarding and it opens the browser!

Has anyone had any non-standard adverts yet? I haven't. I don't think they've sold any yet, and after the launch debacle I don't think they will!

Has anyone had any non-standard adverts yet? I haven't. I don't think they've sold any yet, and after the launch debacle I don't think they will!

They haven't switched on the the IGA yet mate.

I've just realised that you can't disable the IGA by disabling hyperlinks in the preferences screen.

Come on SI, if this IGA doesn't pass on a cost cut to the customer, it really should be optional.

Just block fm.exe with your firewall, then as far as it's concerned you don't have the net. All sorted.