Resolution Games, the dev for VR game Blaston, is receiving a review bomb for testing ads on their game. This pushes the team to reconsider the move.
Earlier this week, Facebook announced that it will break another of its acquisition promises for the Oculus. The social media giant will be testing ads for their VR platform, with Blaston as among the first test beds.
Now, Resolution Games is pulling back. The company is receiving bad PR for the move, something that they don’t want right now. Even then, the studio is still looking to have ads on the table.
Blaston received negative review bombs from angry players
Earlier this week, Facebook announced that they will be adding ads to the Oculus Quest. The company is looking to integrate them into games themselves, in a fashion that won’t be intrusive. Among the test titles will be Blaston.
Blaston is a bullet-hell shooter VR title, something that uses something akin to an arena mode. While ads make sense in the setting, a problem is that the game is paid-for. The company did not expect the bad PR, which set a chain of review bombs.
With all the negative reviews the game earned, the devs quickly walked back on their plans for ads.
“We appreciate all of the feedback and thoughts on the Oculus ad test for Blaston and other games that was announced last week,” said the company to uploadVR.
“Some good points have been made, and we realize that Blaston isn’t the best fit for this type of advertising test. Therefore, we no longer plan to implement the test in Blaston. 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.”
Resolution to add adverts to free-to-play title
Resolution Games is removing ads from Blaston, but are not putting the idea off the table. Among these, they are looking to add it to their upcoming title, Bait!. The game itself is free-to-play, which puts the studio at a sort of moral advantage.
Bait! seems to feel like a VR fishing game, a title where ads should look normal. With that said, players are not receptive to the idea of ads in their video games. None of that matters at all, considering Facebook subsidizes the cost of Oculus to create bigger market share.
If ads are the future of VR, Resolution Games is looking to do it right. Whether their fans will be receptive in the future is anyone’s guess.
Featured image courtesy of Blaston/Youtube Screenshot