Last week Facebook announced that they are to start testing adverts within VR games that run on Oculus devices with Blaston from Resolution Games and ‘a couple of other games’ to be the first to get in the in-game adverts.
That news has not gone down well with players of Blaston who have review bombed the game on Steam and the Oculus store, with some asking for refunds for the game. Resolution Games have now decided that VR adverts in their game “isn’t the best fit”.
Here is the statement they posted on Twitter
After listening to player feedback, we realize that Blaston isn’t the best fit for this type of advertising test. Therefore, we no longer plan to implement the test. We look forward to seeing you in the arena and hope you try the Crackdown Update that went live today!
To make it clear, we realize that Blaston isn’t the best fit for this type of advertising test. As an alternative, we are looking to see if it is feasible to move this small, temporary test to our free game, Bait! sometime in the future.
An example of an advert within a game
“Our primary focus at Facebook Reality Labs (FRL) is to bring more people into VR, advance the consumer experience, and make progress on our longer-term augmented reality initiatives,” explained Facebook when they announced the advertising plan. “We’re also exploring new ways for developers to generate revenue—this is a key part of ensuring we’re creating a self-sustaining platform that can support a variety of business models that unlock new types of content and audiences. It also helps us continue to make innovative AR/VR hardware more accessible to more people.”
“For now, this is a test with a few apps—once we see how this test goes and incorporate feedback from developers and the community, we’ll provide more details on when ads may become more broadly available across the Oculus Platform and in the Oculus mobile,” they add.
It seems the first test has not gone particularly well for Facebook.
Source: Twitter
Starman
The advert does look very out of place, so not surprised it got such a backlash.