This just in:

“Dear Anarchy Online player,

We have agreed to participate in a program to measure results of advertising
in Anarchy Online. If you would like to participate in this survey, please
visit the link appropriate for your country of residence below and answer a
few questions regarding your impression of the ads. There is also a chance
to win a certificate worth $100.00 (in local currency) for use at local game
retailers for those who choose to enter!”

And there were a bunch of links to websites on domains I’ve never even heard of. Assuming for a minute that this isn’t just an elaborate phishing scam, I still know better than to visit php pages run by a known and self-confessed Marketing Department! Next thing I know, I’ll be receiving Exclusive Offers from Carefully Selected Companies. Bad enough I have to put up with the stuff in-game – there’s no point actually inviting this crap upon myself.

However, I like to help! So pay attention, Advert Guys, I’ll only post this once.

In a word, your adverts are daft. I’m a genetically engineered sub-species of mankind, designed to be able to harness the power of swarms of nano-technological machines to carry out my will, in the fight for supremacy of an alien planet at the edge of the galaxy, in the 300th century. Seeing whacking great posters for ‘V for Vendetta’ at the starport just makes me giggle. Bemusement, is the word.

Saying that, they aren’t terribly intrusive, and with one glaring exception, I’ve been able to totally ignore them quite comfortably, being generally too busy shooting stuff and being shot at, to stop and take note. I was surprised to see them in the randomly generated instanced mission areas, which did make me feel like I was being stalked by the silly things a bit, but no biggie.

The posters are tolerable, but visiting the equipment shop was a bit of a shock. The various General Stores act as near as hubs as you’re likely to get in Anarchy Online – everyone goes through them, several times a session, gearing up, dumping loot, resupplying ammo etc. High on one wall, in the main room in each store, is a great big video billboard, and this board plays the same 15 second trailer for the Vendetta film over and over, in a continual loop, with quite intrusive audio stream built in. Naturally, a the free play client has the ‘STFU Adverts’ boxes greyed out, so the only way to cope is to turn the sound off when in a store, leave and make do with street vendors, or go mad.

Even TV adverts are only 12 minutes in every hour, but this was relentless, constant, and quite possibly a human rights abuse. I guess the idea was that the whole 'advertising in games' thing was meant to be so hip, trendy and zeitgeist-tastic that advertising execs would be falling over themselves to get a piece of that sweet gamer action, little realising that we, as a tribe, are the ones that pretty much by definition, stay at home, play computer games, and only ever buy Mountain Dew, Cheetos and new PC spares as needed.

What instead seems to have happened, is that Warner Bros just bought the lot, leaving a rather ironic situation where Vendetta propaganda far outstrips anything the paltry OmniTek Corporation could muster, and there are no other adverts at all. I’m not even sure that would be legal on TV, even if it were somehow possible or at all likely.

So I find that just by shopping for equipment in my little online game, I’m made very angry by ‘V for Vendetta’, simply because it’s trailer is like a skipping CD, flaying at my nerves. They probably call this a ‘Negative Brand Synergy’ or somesuch, and should probably be avoided if you actually want to sell any Vendettas.

Worse still, I end up identifying FunCom as the perpetrator of my annoyance, and faced with the choice of paying for a full account, or just going away so that... the... noises... stop..., I’m now considerably less likely to pick the one that means more money for FunCom.

I’m not really sure what they hope to achieve from this survey really – a lot of thoughtful and constructive feedback? More likely it’ll just be a bunch of gaming freeloaders like me all screaming ‘ZOMG advertz r the suxx0r!!1! $100 plz lol’, which being in marketing, I expect they already knew anyway. We all want something for nothing, and they know this, or wouldn’t be trying to bribe us into participation with a $100 game token.

To sum up; the adverts are suitably ignorable, but if you must do video clips, don’t do the sound with them. Moving images attract the eye, looped explosion noises and gravely-voiced monologue repulse.

And can we get some regulation in here?

More on AO itself another time…