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Videogames And Car Marketing Intersect
Thanks to the Detroit News for their article discussing how videogames have become a great selling tool for automobiles. The piece discusses the willingness of car manufacturers to see their models used in games, with a few exceptions: "Sony Computer Entertainment America spokesman Ryan Bowling says Ferrari, Porsche and Lamborghini demanded exorbitant licensing fees - but that's why they aren't in Gran Turismo." It also mentions the thorny issue of car damage, with Alex St. John of WildTangent, developer of a Chrysler 'advergaming' title, noting: "In the past, advertisers could never imagine a commercial where you dent a car... But half the fun of a game is driving recklessly." A Chrysler spokesperson explains this change of heart for their new game, saying "...corporate attorneys determined that gaming is enough of a 'fantasy' to make it permissible to damage vehicles."
A certain small percentage of people are on the edge of buying a car at any given point, so the comercials are aimed primarily at them, but at all the rest of us in a long term campaign of indoctrination.
As for whether marketing even works at all, there have been some cases where very well done or very lucky marketing campaigns have had a significant impact. (For example, to reference a recent slashdot thread, the DeBeers attempt to convince americans to buy diamonds for engagement rings and other romantic jewelry.) However i believe that in most cases the evidence shows that marketing is effective, but only if it's not facing any counter marketning. Which makes it a Prisoners' Dilema type problem. If neither Coke nor Pepsi advertised they could both save a lot of money and probably not affect their market share much. However if one of them decided to stop advertising and the other didn't, the one without advertising would see a loss of sales, so both companies are "forced" to spend millions (billions?) on advertising.
This may extend to different kinds of marketing as well. If Chrysler has it's product features in a fun game they may see a rise in sales from people who were thinking about buying a car, played the game, and were slightly influenced. (It doesn't have to be a _big_ influence, there are a lot of people out there buying cars, and for some percentage of them a small amount of influence can tip the decision.) However if and when other manufacturers start using games as marketing that edge may very well disapear. At that point all of them will be commited to producing these advertising games without actually gaining any real advantage from them, but will be unable to stop as long as their competitors continue.
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It's all about putting something associated with your brand in front of eyeballs. Retailers are even paying to put their 'ads' in the virtual landscape of these sort of video games.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
I worked on a recent racing game (that used hotted up average cars rather than Porche or Ferraris probably due to the high licencing costs). The car manufacturers wanted more money if the cars were going to have damage so they decided to cut that feature.
They also become upset if their car under-performed another (even if that was the case in real life) so the cars all seemed to handle the same.
This is basically a branded interactive commercial practice, called advergaming, applied to the automobile sector. There are games out promoting all kinds of products and industries and they're pretty successful. Forrester Research predicts advertising revenues from online gaming will reach $1 billion by 2005.
YAYA, a company that creates such games has a Chrysler case study on their site that reads:
Results: The game went online Aug. 13 and in its first week attracted 40,000 players, with an average age of 45. Some 42 percent were women. What's turned the head of DaimlerChrysler marketers is the high percentage of users who expressed interest in learning more about Chrysler products. Of the 40,000 Get Up and Go users, 68 percent requested more information. They've also created games for Ford and GM with similar successes.
What I found interesting was a survey (by Harris Interactive and PERT Survey Research) that found 40 percent of the Web sites of the companies they surveyed offered games but that only 12 percent of the consumers surveyed said they wanted games.
Massive by Design
I can't think of another game that markets cars better than Gran Turismo. Come on now, I consider myself a car fanatic and I have never heard of Nissan Skyline until the game came out.
However i believe that in most cases the evidence shows that marketing is effective, but only if it's not facing any counter marketning. Which makes it a Prisoners' Dilema type problem. If neither Coke nor Pepsi advertised they could both save a lot of money and probably not affect their market share much. However if one of them decided to stop advertising and the other didn't, the one without advertising would see a loss of sales, so both companies are "forced" to spend millions (billions?) on advertising.
Or, (and I'm not sure if either of us has much solid backing for their opinion,) maybe the Pepsi/Coke "war" isn't quite such a zero-sum game, and that while they're struggling against each other for a larger slice of the pie of all softdrink drinkers, by generating media exposure and getting people to think about drinking refreshment, they're increasing the size of the pie, and more people are drinking soda than would otherwise.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
i'm still looking forward to the day some gaming company makes a games that has cars which you can actually wrap around a telephone pole, for example, and have the character driving it ejected through the windshield and fragged upon hitting pavement.
that an other realistic accident car-damage and fatalities.
if you have in-game car accidents linked to driver-character mortality, then maybe players could drive more carefully? just a thought.