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In Game Ads May Just Not Work
GigaGamez is reporting that the humorously-named Bunnyfoot research company (which specializes in behavior studies), has found that in-game ads just don't work. Some games which featured semi-stationary areas (like NBA Live) ended up with ads sticking in the minds of players. Games like Project Gotham Racing 3 ended up with the players having a 0% retention rate for ads that whizzed past. From the press release: "These results demonstrate a significantly poor level of engagement with consumers and exposed an apparent weakness within games to efficiently capture consumer attention. Despite following the model of real world sports advertising, current methods are not optimizing consumer engagement and are failing to influence the consumer in any significant way, the key driver for any marketing campaign and its validation. 'These results reflect the industry's concern relating to brand value and return on investment. Understanding consumer interaction at a deeper level of analysis allows us to measure the value of advertising investment' said Alison Walton, Head of Visual Engagement."
that the marketing geniuses would be so at odds with the players of games. Finally the data is in, you're playing a game, and you want to go around in a car, or run around and shoot people or play a sport or whatever. You don't want to think about a new pair of sneakers or getting a sandwich. You bought the game to play it, not to solicit advertising for upgrades to your lifestyle.
They don't work for the advertiser? More importantly, they don't work for the consumer. When there's evidence that in-game ads are subsidizing (or cancelling out) my game purchase costs, maybe I won't mind so much. I can't get behind this double-dipping.
What about, let's say, increasing the quality, or, if that's too hard, reduce the price by exactly the amount wasted on marketing? The price reduction would get you way under the price of competition and thus the company would have the same sales without ads. Same sales, same profits, just with the customer more happy.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
"Oh man, you're so dead. Right in my crosshairs!" "Oh shit!" "OOH! 2 Liter of Mountain Dew only $.50! BRB"
A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere.
No, screw marketing gimmicks. The way is to bring compelling games that focus on a product or brand. Like the old 7up spot games. Hell, Burger King just did it. Selling for 4 bucks a pop, their Xbox games are actually pretty decent and are selling like hotcakes.
Actually, considering how crappy Burger King breakfast is, they're probably outselling hotcakes by a wide margin.
The World's Worst Webcomic!
No-one looks at trackside adverts in Gotham, because we're too busy looking at where the road is going, what the other cars are doing and so on.
Real motorsport doesn't just have trackside adverts, but sponsorship on the cars, too. If the rear bumper of the opposition has a big Bosconian logo like in Ridge 6, I'm rather more likely to notice it when trying to get past him.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
They just didn't do it right! Pogo the monkey is just engraved into my brain!
I don't know, I'd be willing to refute the article's claims. About a month after beating the first Guitar Hero I bought an (effin SWEET) Epiphone Flying-V, which I've been playing 1-2 hours a day since then, even after the release of Guitar Hero 2. I'm not ashamed to say that the inspiration for the purchase was mostly the game (Loading screen: "You may eventually want to consider buying a real guitar"). Not that I didn't have Guitar fantasies to begin with. Maybe I'm just a toolshed.
Or even better, have companies create games to help advertise their companies, and release them cheap.
Ever heard of Sneak King?
I don't mind in-game ads, until they become too intrusive as TV ads are. As for their effect, they might, if they gel with the game and are properly placed. (IMO) Like If (hypothetically) I have to pick a bike in HalfLife or Halo and, I get to choose from some branded ones! :)
cheers
Therez light! : aHR0cDovL3hrMGRlci53b3JkcHJlc3MuY29t
If the publishers really aren't making enough money, they should just charge everyone the extra $1 per unit or whatever it takes, and let the market decide.
Would a book publisher seriously consider adding in some full page adds in the middle of a novel? Of course not, so why do they think they can get away with it games?
I'll happily pay the extra $1-2 per unit for a game that isn't offered at a lower price without ads.
Whereas I will not even consider purchasing a game with ingame ads for real world products.
And I doubt this is a matter of publishers not being able to finance their games and make a reasonable profit. This is a matter of publishers being greedy, and I hope customers will make them pay for their greed by refusing to purchase products in which they introduce this crap.
In my experience, in-game ads haven't been terribly burdensome to look at, and in many cases they blend in reasonably well so as not to detract from the overall experience (TFA mentions NBA Live, where banner ads can even add to the realism as seen on TV). On the bright side, selling advertisements subsidizes the cost of the game for the consumer at the expense of the product being advertised. For those of you feeling smugly superior because you intentionally disregard the ads, congratulations, your game was made cheaper because of them.
/. folk seem to forget this) many people actually prefer the higher priced name brand product to the lesser known generic. Whether it be spiffier packaging, clever marketing, or simply the fact that "everyone else does it," many people make purchasing decisions on more than simply price/performance or whatever similar metric you care to devise. Believe it or not, something as simple as the container a beverage comes in can unconsciously affect the taste. Try serving cheap plastic bottle vodka in a handle of Grey Goose to your friends and see if they can tell the difference. (note: great for college parties!) Bonus points for swapping the good stuff into the plastic bottle and seeing whether its the beverage they prefer, or just the packaging. (For a much better perspective, check out the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. The Wikipedia entry doesn't do it justice, but the book is a great read.)
Also, if you think about your comment for a moment, the idea that an advertisement costs the consumer twice is illogical. If the advertisements are avoided (and precious brainpower is consumed to NOT buy the product being marketed), the costs incurred by the marketing department AREN'T passed on to the consumer (who doesn't buy the product after all). If the consumer does buy the product, it's unlikely s/he spent a great deal of time avoiding the ad.
Furthermore, I'd like to point out that advertisements aren't inherently good or bad. It's entirely possible that an advertisement made a consumer aware of a product that a producer was producing. It's possible that said consumer now enjoys a greater economic utility per dollar than with whatever alternative s/he was using prior to seeing the advertisement.
Finally, (and I think we
I only mod funny =D
"Despite following the model of real world sports advertising..."
There is the problem. Sports advertising is targeted at spectators, not athletes. For the most part, games don't HAVE spectators. I don't see how advertising can work when the target is in an active, task oriented, state as oposed to a passive observer state.
Realities just a bunch of bits.
I know Subaru was shocked at how much demand there was for WRXs when they were launched. I think they decided that games like Gran Turismo were responsible for a huge amount of branding. That's the sort of advertising that works in games.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Despite following the model of real world sports advertising
Ask the players of a NBA game if they can remember what the adds around the bleachers are. That model is designed to advertise to the audience of the game, not the players.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
An example of where advertisement actually adds to the whole gameplay concept and experience is Eve Online.
:)
;)
At all jumpgates there are billboards, and they will show advertisements for in-game corporations (Such as Quafe, who makes energy drinks, strangely enough they buy cigarettes, garbage and assorted minerals...), or list one of the current top5 most wanted people. Inside stations there will be advertisement for the corporation in question all over the place, and even for other corporations as well.
This adds to the whole game, and to the whole atmosphere of play.
Another great example is the stripbar advertisement billboard that comes with certain built outposts, including the picture of a stripper
However any 'real world' advertisement in this game would just simply make no sense. And I think there are quite a lot of games where advertisement wouldn't make sense, or just be plain annoying or detracting from the game.
Another example where it does work is in Quake (2?) where the background music was written by Nine Inch Nails (NIN for short), you can get a nailgun as a weapon, and the boxes containing the nails actually have the NIN log on them, that's just brilliant, and in its way an advertisement for the band (Whom I'll visit in March
Just my 2 rambling isk.
Splut.
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.