Lately in the news there have been many talks about companies signing up for in-game advertising. There's also been some controversy with how advertising is affecting some games. What, exactly, is the big deal with in-game advertising and why do we need it? Is it possible that we actually don't need it? Or is just the same licensed crap we've seen so much from the 8-bit/16-bit days? That's what this week's Gaming Trends is all about.What is in-game advertising?
In-game advertising has actually been around for a while. Back then in-game ads were basically a few signs with a company name on them, and it wasn't such a big deal. But with the rise of development costs to create games for Xbox 360 and PS3 (I don't think Wii is getting any higher since it's just a slightly better Gamecube), in-game advertising is starting to appear a lot more as developers are relying on it to receive the revenue needed to make these games. According to Massive Incorporated, an in-game advertising company recently bought by Microsoft, spending on in-game advertising will rise to $1.8 billion dollars by 2010. Why is in-game advertising suddenly becoming more common? Besides the rising development costs, the main reasons are because video games are cutting into TV viewings for males ages 18-34, the key demographic for advertisements, and video games are making over $10 billion in profits, so the advertisers are basically taking advantage of a potentially great opportunity. Three of the major companies signing many in-game ad deals are IGA Worldwide, Massive Incorporated, and Double Fusion.
There are two major types of advertising: Static and Dynamic. Static are basic ads that appear in the game and doesn't ever change, and they basically never get in the way of gameplay. Dynamic ads will change from time to time either to keep up with the times (such as movie posters) or to rotate which ads get shown (such as one day you'll see a Coke machine in a room, the next day it's a Pepsi machine).
Why we need it
The more the companies have to spend, the more we have to spend. Games are already starting to go for $60, but they can almost go up to $100 if the games were to cost so much to make. So who is going to provide the money for these expensive expenditures? Advertisers. According to Massive Incorporated, their service can provide an extra $1-$2 profit per unit shipped for their titles, adding to the $5-$6 profit per unit they already make. Times that by about a million and publishers would be getting nearly $2 million in extra revenue. An extra million just by placing some movie posters and soda machines around? Sounds like a good deal to me.
And so far, from what I've seen advertisements don't have a major factor in the game (unless they're advergames). Splinter Cell has a bunch of ads, but they do really hinder the gameplay much? Not really. This is especially true for static ads. In the original Super Monkey Ball, the Dole logos appeared on the bananas and a couple other places. I'd notice them for a few seconds, and then I wouldn't pay much attention to them. As for dynamic advertising, I think the perfect place to have them is sports games. You see ads in sports all the time, so in-game ads in sports wouldn't be that much different would it? Plus changing the ads from time to time would add a bit more realism to it.
Why we don't need it
All this dynamic advertising could lead to gamers thinking that it's nothing more then spyware. Battlefield 2142 had dynamic advertising by IGA Worldwide where the billboards supposedly changed based on a gamer's internet habits, which led to the spyware accusations. EA insisted that the game does not capture your personal data and only records what ads you look at and for how long. The Australian version of the game has no dynamic advertising because it's believed to be illegal under the Australian Spyware Act. Spyware is basically the ultimate evil of software programs, and to think that we could be infected with it just by playing some online matches is really going to piss off gamers. In a side story, Angry-Gamer.net gave a 0/10 for Trackmania United because it came with a copy protection program that has been dubbed malware. Imagine if that game had been widely panned by everyone else because of malware. That could very well happen to video games if the in-game ads does turn out to be spyware.
Besides the serious threat of spyware, there are times when the advertisements can get down right stupid. Seeing ads in a boxing ring is normal. Seeing ads on billboards is normal. But what about ads that appear on a North Korean missle battery? Believe or not, apparently that is were some ads were found for Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory thanks to Massive Incorporated. When you start putting ads in places where they would never be in real life, then it becomes stupid and seems as if you really are trying to force the ads down our throat.
Advergames
There are some games that come with ads, and then are games where it's actually just one big ad. This is called advergaming, and it's been around since the Atari days. Advergames haven't been that big of deal because you usually know what you're getting yourself into anyway. The 8-bit and 16-bit eras were full of advergames, most of which were really crappy platformer titles. Cool Spot, Chester Cheetah, and Yo! Noid were just some of the mascots that plagued our systems back then. These days advergames are usually flash games you play on a company's website, but occasionally an advergame will reach the consoles.
In late 2003 an action-adventure game called Darkened Skye was released for the Gamecube, and it turned out to be a game about Skittles which were used as magic spells in the game. Even though a game about Skittles was an absurd idea, the game is said to be quite funny. Recently Burger King released three Xbox games as part of a value meal. The games were bad, but the curiosity factor alone in what these games were like was enough to drive sales to over 2 million units sold, no doubt meaning that Burger King will attempt to do this again, and several other companies just might follow suit. Be prepared to see many advergaming like this in the future.
That's in-game adversing in a nutshell. Next time, Gaming Trends tries to find out why Sonic the Hedgehog has taken a major downfall.
[credit: Wikipedia, sfgate.com, 1UP.com, cbsnews.com]
