I knew this would happen hahahahaha you guys have fun in this glorious golden age of digital only

JRPGfan said: other examples:

I really dislike the combination of potentially sugary energy drinks and sedentary pastimes like gaming.

Bad combo we need to see less of.

There's always a risk, the big selling of the other tiers would be ad-free tho but yeah I wouldn't trust any big corpo

Not just ad placement in games, this is the future

Xbox rolls out ad-supported game streaming test for its insider programs, as hardware supply and affordability crisis rages on

https://www.eurogamer.net/xbox-game-advertising-insider-affordability

As seen in a new blog post on the official Xbox website, the details of the test are broken down in full. Ads will play before the one-hour sessions, with the article emphasising "the core game experience is unchanged", and the ad-supported streaming service is optional. It says: "Players can choose other ways to play at any time."

Yeah it starts with just a few once an hour. However on Prime I'm now up to 2:42 ad breaks (longest I have seen so far) can't ffwd like you used to with cable and a DVR, and they're now up to 5 times during one episode. There seems to be some AI behind it as if you exit and watch a different streaming service instead, then next time you get a shorter ad break at the start and get to watch the rest of the episode without ads. So I'm alternating between Prime and Disney+ atm...

I'm not enjoying streaming anymore, and sure you can sign up for all the premium tiers and pay more combined than for cable. Back to cable and the good old DVR for whatever is left on cable :/ The content on streaming keeps getting worse as well. Atm the only thing I'm sort of enjoying is The Wheel of Time. But it's a chore to watch, blu-ray versions are not available here, import for CAD 100 for a season... I might just read all the books again instead, cheaper, more fun, physical. I just got to find them all around the house.

Anyway, game streaming is back for the future of gaming as hardware becomes unaffordable and all those data centers got to do something when the AI boom busts and/or China makes cheaper more efficient models. Ad breaks in games are coming.

The other tiers would go up in price with the ad supported tier replacing the current cheapest tier. Product placement in games will be in all tiers, but now MS is experimenting with ad breaks in game streaming for a new ad supported tier... Hopefully it stays with streaming but before you know it you have PIP ads intruding while playing your own games on your own hardware. Banner at the bottom, side by side shrinking the game view temporarily. All the tricks from TV and You Tube are coming to gaming.

And thiiiiis is where we start to see the problem, it starts as "only for free accounts" and then we start seeing it in premium accounts too, and the consumers just accept that. MS only just started testing that program and there is already at least one person saying it doesn't sound awful if it just lowers the price...

Why does that look so amateur? It literally looks like someone did it in Paint in 10 minutes.

Ad placement budget: $1 million
Ad creation budget: $1

Product placement and ads are NOT the same thing. 99% of the time, product placement is done to help offset production/development costs. You see it in movies, tv and games because the developer/production team either were approached by the product mfg to put their item in scene for a fee.... or the team needed more $$ and sold spots within their project.

Ads are deliberate promos either before, during (playback) or after a project has already been completed. To provide a revenue stream to whoever is displaying the aforementioned project. Completely separate from the project itself.

Im not a fan of ads, but then I dont always pay for ad-free services. When you are a paying customer, there is some expectation of ad-free service. Pluto is virtually an ad supported free version of paramount+. And paying for interest access does not count towards an ad-free service. What MS is promoting is non intrusive ads (does not interrupt gameplay) before a session. I can get behind that so long as they stay gaming related. 

The biggest irony is getting government funded ads served up during streaming. Cheaper tier streaming, but my tax dollars are used to annoy me with ads. "Paid for by the government on Ontario", you mean paid for by you, the one watching. So now I have to pay extra not to see the ads I pay for anyway, fucked up.

Ads are never non intrusive and they will be targeted at you and/or location based. And after all the praise for shorter loading times, why would you be ok with ads before a session... Splash screens are annoying enough (which are also ads, what do I care if it's made with Unity, Unreal engine and what other tools. Put it on the box, oh wait...)

Never a bad thing to be offered more choices.