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[weenog]

Inexpensive RAM sticks might start looking good during a catsplosion.

[Nyan Thousand]

*Sips tea gingerly* This thread entertains me in the most debase of ways.

Derail?

Derail.

What kind of ads would appear in DF if placed?  What could possibly appeal to a DF player during the average course of gameplay to make them think "You know, this product looks like something I'd like."  Acres of Arizona land for sale?  Scuba gear?  Nuclear fallout shelter installation?  Just tell me... what ads would be relevant?

Socks.

[Martin]

If I had to guess what adsense would cook up, it'd be nothing but ads for dating sites for little people - and Ron Paul ads.


But an in game ad system would be funny. With economy turned on, the humans pay your engravers to carve nothing but ads for large clothing around your fortress. Our minecarts would all have an ad on the front for health care services.

[Blizzlord]

IF adds were in DF, they would most definitely be about...

Nope. I got nothing.

[herrbdog]

NO.

I'd stop playing.

I work in advertising, and that is the reason I DO NOT watch television, DO NOT listen to (commercial) radio, DO NOT read magazines without tearing the ad pages out first, and SCRIPT BLOCK ad sites on my intarwebs.

NO.

[wierd]

[Sample ad]


Concerned about biological terrorism? Worried abut what kinds of GM crops are in your food?

Try WrongCo's new patened home bioanalyzer!  This revolutionary new offering is a breakthrough in affordable home testing technology!  Use it on meat:

(Actress #1)
"I had no idea my hamburger had so much pink slime in it!"

On vegetables:
(Actor #1)
"My zuccini had more gerbil in it than chlorophyll!"

Why, you can even use it on your children!
(Actor #2)
"I learned that my wife cheated on me with the dog!"

Remember, WrongCo, the LEADER in home testing
 Technology!

[kaenneth]

Toady and Threetoe are actually Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, having fun getting back to their classic computer programming roots.

They only take donations as a cover to keep anyone from suspecting this.

[wierd]

Ballmer is a greasy used car salesman. He couldn't code his way out of a wet paper bag in a typhoon.

I think you mean gates and allen.

[simonthedwarf]

I think Toady could make more money by placing advertisement in DF. Just some common brands, maybe some satirical life-style tied to soft drinks or reliable automobiles. This could possibly make development bigger and faster. Toady would get more money and he could buy a lot of luxurious healthcare and computer equipment enabling him to realizing his vision even faster.

Seriously, this was in a PM from somebody who had a low income and had played DF for three years, even on hardware that could easily play modern games up until this date.

To respond simply, it is unlikely that product placement would be a viable means of funding.  Not only is there the very significant customer alienation factor that must be taken into account were any such policy to be implemented, there is also the fact that DF is fundamentally a rather niche game.  The target audience that would be reached is quite low, comparatively speaking, and therefore, the desire for advertising in DF on the part of most business would be quite low.  The ability to implement it effectively is also questionable; parody, as you suggest, is quite different from product placement, and direct product placement would be quite immersion-breaking.  In other words, it'd drive off players and bring in very little money. 

Besides, there are plenty of more effective means of profit generation, should such be desired.  As far as I am aware, given the significant donation income, there has been little need on the part of the developers to expand the revenue stream further.

Isn't the specifics of the total possible receivers of the advertisement important? The ones who DO play DF may be more responsive to product placement and advertising and generate more revenue than assumed. The group may have a loyality to the cult-like DF strong enough to justify supporting it even more.

What if people who play DF are more susceptible to donate more through interest in commercial products through their introduction into the game as subtle references to real-life items for sale.

Having additional funds than the average person makes it easy to improve your health, the rich has always had a tendency to outlive the poor. Wouldn't this also partly help enabling Toady to continue DF for as long as possible? Maybe we get 2-3 more years of productive years for him out of it, and a better end-product.

[dwarfkoala]

Maybe... depends on what type of advertisement toady would have in mind. A suitably dwarfy magma/metal/superweapon/DF pro shirt advertisement I would have no problem with, but if it's something like ambercrombie or wood products, this is the most suck idea.

[DwarfMeister]

Dwarves are fond of INDUSTRY. Not COMMERCIALISM...

That means NO!!!

[simonthedwarf]

Imagine a commercial for a heat-resistant shovel only available through a specific brand? Would you not look for this if you wanted to buy a shovel? Maybe this would entertain you with ideas of what you could do if you had magma in your garden. What if a gene strain of a common edible mushroom were made into a series of oversized garnish named plump helmet?

What if there was a pc hardware manufactor that produced cutting-edge single core cpus's and special big RAM units to play DF.

Maybe you could download a new DF graphic tile set to your cellphone, or put together one's on your own using a App.

[weenog]

So what is it you were wanting to advertise, and why bring it here if you're embarrassed to bring it straight to Toady?

If you're not looking to advertise, why do you sound less like objectively informing about a good idea, and more like desperately trying to justify a bad one?

[simonthedwarf]

I don't produce a product that I would advertise on DF. My view is that this would make life better for Toady, reward us with a possible even better end-product where the most development of DF possible ever takes place. It would also in my opinion be a very small tax to pay individually for DF players, most advertisement does not garantee sales and is combined with price drops or good deals.

[Starver]

I must say this brought to mind the (in)famous "advert in the midst of the plot" suffered by Terry Pratchett due to his German publishers of the time[1]...

...
Urist McAdventurer: I am here to discuss serving you cause.
Random MadeUpName: A particular outlaw has been causing us much hardship.
Random MadeUpName: AmbushPlace is a short walk to the southeast.
Random MadeUpName: Seek this place and kill Ruffian McBrigand the Swordsman.
Random MadeUpName: But, right now, I should think you'd benefit from a bowl of Maggi Soup...

[1] Oh what a mess they made, in general...  http://www.colinsmythe.co.uk/terrypages/heynecovers.htm