It's unfortunate that the first big-name recipient of this unpleasent technology is one of their games, but they at least have several projects on the go at a time.

I actually don't know anyone that installed the patch prior to the workaround being made public, because of that readme entry.Īs much as I love Irrational (and I would hope that this was not their idea), I hope that there is a massive backlash against this. I noticed the 'Added Massive Streaming Ad Support' in the readme for the patch and big alarm bells went off everywhere, but even I was surprised to learn the extent of the monitoring (the game actually logs the average angle you saw each advert at?!). If I pay £14.99 a month for a broadband service and 2GB of bandwidth, I don't want a publishing company stealing even 1KB of that bandwidth. OK, a few compressed textures is hardly going to break a monthly 2GB bandwidth limit, but its the principle. What DOES bother me is that games are using the user's OWN FUCKING BANDWIDTH to download content the user probably doesn't want. I'm not too bothered as I don't tend to buy the more commercial games anyway, but the article did raise a point that goes against Ziemanskye's (b) statement, 'it's ideal for keeping your 'real world' games kind of current.' If the adverts are american (which they almost defintely will be, coming from a US ad-streaming company), this hardly increases the real world immersion, if a new poster appears and you don't recognise the company. There was an article in PC Gamer UK recently about this increasing phenomenon, highlighting in particular the Wrigley's Airwaves product placement in the latest Splinter Cell that looked damn funny. I can't say I really care much about advertising in games, as it stands.

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