No Good Platform Goes Un-Monetized - Sony wants to bring Ads to VR

[rcmaehl]

Summary:

Sony wants to bring ads to VR. A proposed patent shows various options for displaying ads over the VR environment, including in peripheral and

 

Media:

 

Quotes

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The future of VR could be loaded with a new kind of advertisement that seems utterly obtrusive. Sony was granted a patent...on June 25 for various ways to present advertisements within...virtual reality. “One possibility as a new marketing technique associated with widespread use of HMDs would be to display additional content such as advertisements in a VR space or an AR space. Techniques for effectively presenting such additional content in a VR space or an AR space have yet to be sufficiently proposed.” Sony proposed various ways to overlay ad imagery over games, each of which were far from subtle. All of them are essentially popups that would appear in a users’ field of view. One example even shows ad imagery surrounding a user’s peripheral vision.

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The way advertisements will be displayed depends on the position of the user's head within the head-mounted display and their line of sight. The patent describes the advertisements as "additional content" for "promoting recognition of a given thing or service." One example used in the text is of the user watching a concert with a set of performers appearing at the same time. The technology claims to be able to "detect on which performer the user is focusing his or her attention and then change the advertisement in accordance with the performer of interest." It should be noted that patents are no guarantee of end results...

 

My thoughts:
This topic is a couple weeks old but I didn't see anyone catch it. Leaked footage of BeatSaber 2, featuring full body tracking:

In all seriousness, it was just a matter of time before this happens. Ideally ads will be implemented as in-game billboards or other non-intrusive methods. However, I'm aware there'll likely be a few companies or brands that try to push it who will get some very negative backlash. Regardless, you can expect the community to come up with ad blocking tech for VR just like they have for regular web browsing.

 

Sources:

IGN

Inverse

US Patent Office

[eeeee1]

Ads in VR! brought to you by the company who puts rootkits on your device to protect music.

Now they are turning your game into New York Times Square...

[Alex Atkin UK]

 

[BobVonBob]

Ah yes of course, I too want to have my peripheral vision cut off with ads.

 

This is probably just a scheme to get a cut of the pie with a licensing agreement if someone eventually decides to put ads in VR. I'd be surprised if Sony actually does any of this.

[jaslion]

This will get massive backlash when people see ads on their hud. I cannot see this going well at all and probably adblock vr will be a thing really quickly.

[TetraSky]

Not really surprised. They build their own VR machines for much cheaper than the competition and they manufacture the machine it runs on.

[Alex Atkin UK]

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

This will get massive backlash when people see ads on their hud. I cannot see this going well at all and probably adblock vr will be a thing really quickly.

How do you plan to do that on a games console?

[Bombastinator]

There was this film called idiocracy at one point...

[Shreyas1]

1 hour ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

How do you plan to do that on a games console?

Would PiHole work?

[Alex Atkin UK]

1 minute ago, Shreyas1 said:

Would PiHole work?

I doubt it.  If you feed the adverts directly from Playstation Network then you could make it so that blocking the adverts, blocks PSN from functioning at all.

The reason adblocking works elsewhere is because its more diverse with ads being fed directly from various advert networks which you CAN block.  Even then, it can break functionality sometimes.

[PlayStation 2]

imagine spending hundreds of dollars on a vr headset just to get ads in it anyways

[Shreyas1]

I guess it depends on how they implement it, If it actually makes the product cheaper, and theres a paid option to remove the ads, I see no issue

[williamcll]

I'm surprised people still play on PSVR

[Bombastinator]

9 minutes ago, Shreyas1 said:

I guess it depends on how they implement it, If it actually makes the product cheaper, and theres a paid option to remove the ads, I see no issue

I do.  Pay once I would take.  “Oh but you have to keep on paying to play something you already paid for” I wouldn’t.

[Shreyas1]

Just now, Bombastinator said:

I do.  Pay once I would take.  “Oh but you have to keep on paying to play something you already paid for” I wouldn’t.

Fair enough. A subscription model would really suck

[Salv8 (sam)]

modding community: this is where i shine! no more skyrim model replacements, my mods can now benefit everyone!

[Thaldor]

So, it's Sony next to try this.

HTC already tried and it failed a lot because community backslash, Valve hinted this and withdrew faster than anyone had time to even notice, Facebook... Well, Facebook is Facebook, I wouldn't be surprised if something ad related wasn't going in Oculus gear.

[Beskamir]

The more aggressive companies get with ads the more they incentivize blocking all ads.

[Alex Atkin UK]

4 minutes ago, Beskamir said:

The more aggressive companies get with ads the more they incentivize blocking all ads.

Absolutely.  I have resisted using adblock for years to support websites and creators, but the way YouTube is going lately I've been sorely tempted.  I don't think it would be easy or necessarily possible to block adverts from a closed system like Playstation though.

[jaslion]

45 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

So, it's Sony next to try this.

HTC already tried and it failed a lot because community backslash, Valve hinted this and withdrew faster than anyone had time to even notice, Facebook... Well, Facebook is Facebook, I wouldn't be surprised if something ad related wasn't going in Oculus gear.

My oculus gets mad at me because all facebook services get blocked. It still works just fine it's just kinda mad that it can't connect to facebook for data purposes.

[Thaldor]

33 minutes ago, jaslion said:

My oculus gets mad at me because all facebook services get blocked. It still works just fine it's just kinda mad that it can't connect to facebook for data purposes.

Kind of expected ever since Oculus became Facebook

[CTR640]

So uh, more eyecancer. Thanks but no thanks. Sony can shove it truely madly deeply in their poopyhole.

[jagdtigger]

Hell no, ads that are non-intrusively integrated(like as posters and such) is fine i guess. But the likes that shown in the video linked by @Alex Atkin UK should be a criminal offense.....

2 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Absolutely.  I have resisted using adblock for years to support websites and creators, but the way YouTube is going lately I've been sorely tempted.  I don't think it would be easy or necessarily possible to block adverts from a closed system like Playstation though.

Well i guess jailbreaking a PS4 will be just as commonplace as adblock is.....

Edited July 21, 2020 by jagdtigger

[Doobeedoo]

Hahaha yeah ok they insta no buy or use anything like that. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

5 hours ago, jaslion said:

My oculus gets mad at me because all facebook services get blocked. It still works just fine it's just kinda mad that it can't connect to facebook for data purposes.

I'm thinking more along the lines of on Playstation you might have to block PSN, so you can't play online and you can't download/update your games.  Would be a real pita as you'd constantly have to turn it on and off and online VR games are of course a thing.  Plus they could easily make those games ONLY work if connected to PSN.