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In-Game Advertising To Top $800 Million By 2012

Posted by Zonk on from the here-is-your-axe-would-you-like-a-coke-too dept.

GamesIndustry.biz reports on comments from analyst firm Parks Associates on the bright future for game advertisements. General advertising for games is expected to skyrocket in the next few years, reaching some $2 billion by the year 2012. Additionally in-game advertising, which ran about $55 million last year, is expected to reach $800 Million in the same year. "'Advertising in electronic games had an average monthly household expenditure of less than 50 cents in 2006, while broadcast TV was at $37, meaning advertisers are not using the gaming medium to its full potential,' said Yuanzhe Cai, Parks Associates' director of broadband and gaming. 'If executed correctly, game advertising can provide a win-win solution for advertisers, developers and publishers, console manufacturers, game portals, and gamers.'"

2 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Blizzard is missing out... by Puff+of+Logic · · Score: 4, Informative

    I will never purchase a game with ingame adverting. No one should. I'm right there with you in terms of dislike for in-game advertising. However, I'm a big Enemy Territory fan and was really excited about the new Enemy Territory game coming soon until I discovered that they intend to use in-game advertising. Now I'm stuck: do I forgo a game I was really looking forward to, or do I get it anyway and just try to ignore the ads? It's not like I have a moral objection to in-game advertising, it just annoys me.

    Two other points irritate me. The first is that the additional revenue brought in by in-game advertising doesn't seem to be offset by a decreased purchase cost or increased quality, so the gamer is really getting less value (presence of annoyance) because of this practice. The second point is that there is evidently an entire industry of people who spent their lives irritating the hell out of people for the purposes of commercial "messages" but I am unable to kick them in the nuts. If they are able to make my day less pleasant, I should be able to reciprocate!
    --
    P.P.S. I'm doing Science and I'm still alive.
  2. Advertising = end of gaming by sinij · · Score: 2, Informative

    In-game advertising is dangerous reality that all gamers need to face. Titles with advertising are not any cheaper of feature-full than titles without it, its all about increasing profits and don't let marketing promises of 'extra features' or 'extended support' confuse you. Its all about extra profit.

    In the world where in-game advertising become commonplace you will see such undesirable things as mandatory minimum loading times, mandatory internet connection (even in single player games) in order to load advertising clips, visual field pollution and distractions. Ads are attention-grabbing by definition, so don't fool yourself into thinking that it won't that bad. We will have full-screen video clips in no time.

    Advertising is really expensive to you as a viewer - it takes *your* precious time that you have to spend on leisure activities. It is not ' just little bit of your time' it's A LOT of precious little time you have reserved for relaxing and playing games. It will be just like TV - where it is all crap and choke-full with 'sponsor messages'. All games will be changed to fit ads, just like TV where all programming is geared to fit frequent advertisement interruptions.

    Real danger of in-game advertising is that game companies no longer in the business of making games, they are now in the business of selling advertisements and gamers no longer customers but product instead. As a result game studios will no longer be about making games but about showing most adds to most people.