At One Time, Sony Toyed With In-Game Commercials

The Wipeout HD ads that popped up during loading were annoying, but they’re small potatoes compared to a more antagonizing form of in-game advertising Sony was developing.

Sony Computer Entertainment applied for a patent that forcibly paused a game to display an ad and then resumed the game after the message was shown. Basically, Sony was working on in-game commercials.

Here’s an example of how the system could work.

Figure 2 illustrates slowing a game down is one of the ways players can be pulled from playing a game. Other examples listed include: a blinking light, an audio cue, and a warning message that says “game play is about to stop.” Once the game pauses players watch a commercial and a similar event (a blinking light, warning message) let’s players know the game is about to begin again.

After the ire Sony fomented with their Wipeout HD ads this plan is probably in the trash. But, what if Sony went through with this. Would a free with commercials version of LittleBigPlanet or God of War III be palatable?