Advergames

Anne_Nonymous writes "Here's an interesting story on the use of video games as advertising. They claim 'advergames could be a $1 billion industry by 2005'."

Comments

Willy Wonka

[kwoo]

I once downloaded an advergame for a Willy Wonka candy of some sort. It was a LodeRunner-like game where you had to run around and grab pieces of candy.

The one drawback to it was that every time you grabbed a piece of candy, a half-screen ad would pop up and the game would halt for a few seconds. I wasn't expecting much (you have to be bored to download such a thing in the first place), but I ditched it after five minutes because the halting was so darn annoying.

If they want to make an industry of this, they'll have to get it through their heads that people won't put up with that. Especially not kids, with their shorter attention spans.

Re:US Army

[gruhnj]

Americas army is not necesarily a great recruting tool. It is wonderful in terms of public exposure but I still doubt many of those in the Army would have signed up based on the game. For example, the game is all based on missions taken by infantrymen. Even infantry do not go on missions much. Much much more of the Army is spent on mindless detail or KP or barraks maintence. Not to mention lots of crap from your superiors. Also those that are playing this game probably have a higher GT score (110 or higher). Most high GT scores dont want to be 11B. This might help our IT problems, but it wont help much for 11B.

For our 11B however, we do give out alot of bonus money. $20,000 for the most Hooah airborne ranger special forces guy. Id say thats much more apealing to 11 series rather than a cool game.

PFC Gruhn
MOS 74B (Computer Tech)
U.S. Army, Fort Lewis, 1st Personnel Group
Serve and Sustain

Found Avoid the Noid

[jason99si]

I found it! Along with a treasure trove of old DOS games:

List: http://bhs.broo.k12.wv.us/files/games.htm
Direct: http://bhs.broo.k12.wv.us/pub/ibm/GAMES/ANOID.ZIP

advertainment

[gauntlet420]

Look at companies like NStorm, who offer freely downloadable Macromedia games that are 100% advertainment (i.e. Elf Bowling 2 for CDNOW, Elf Bowling 3 for TechTV).

Instead of having the end user pay for the game, the advertiser ponies up and their name is attached to what can be a fiendishly addictive little pastime. The end user gets something for essentially nothing, and may or may not notice the corporate name attached to the game.

I would expect that the population will have to be slowly weaned into seeing advertising in 'commercial' games, much like how TV producers and filmmakers have been slowly weaning product placements into their products. Too much at once would promote a backlash.

Striking a balance between the advertising content and the 'game' content will prove tricky as well. It seems to me that video games that have been 100% advertiser-based have been niche titles at best, and certainly not at the top of anyone's best game list. Games like 7UP Cool Spot, the old Chuck Wagon game for the 2600 VCS, McKids ... all forgettable titles that were relatively uninspiring and far from groundbreaking.

Crazy Taxi

[MikeFM]

Crazy Taxi is full of advertisements but it actually helps game play. A Pizza Hut building is easier to spot than Joe's Pizza Place would be. As long as advertising doesn't hurt the game I really don't care if they include it. The same rules as with movies, tv, and magazines really.

Example of advertising that was to much: Inspector Gadget the movie. The movie was already pretty bad and the advertising just broke the camels back.