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In-Game Ads Make Products More Appealing
Opposable Thumbs has the gist of a report indicating that in-game ads really are successful at increasing consumer interest in a product. "In a study that began in 2004 and included 600 gamers, gaming-advertisement firm Massive Inc.--a subsidiary of Microsoft--found that in-game advertising increased average brand familiarity as much as 64 percent. The study included two groups: a control group and a test group. Both played Need for Speed: Carbon, but only the test group was exposed to ads from Massive Inc. The study showed a 69 percent increase in automotive purchase consideration between the test and control groups made up of men between 18 and 24. The respondents also indicated that 'quick service restaurant' brands were 'cool' because they were advertised in games ('cool' is left undefined)."
n/t
No, I don't see any conflict of interest at all...
And by "they" I mean the corporate sponsors. Do you think they care that people don't want to see advertisemnts before their movies, or for a full 20% of any given televised program? Maybe they do care, but they care about the bottom line more, the dollars lining their pockets. The same will apply to games eventually; advtisements can and WILL reach into every single medium they deem potentially commercially viable.
Really, I'm just waiting for the first Lightspeed Briefs ad to start rolling in my dreams...
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
to $20 for a game with in-game ads as opposed to $60 for a game without in-game ads. Then, I am all for in-game ads.
If the price of the games stay at $60, then I want to know which games has the ads, so I can avoid them.
Scott Carr
You may remember that when Demolition Man came out with that Taco Bell stunt, it was booed in theaters. There's a difference between benign product placement and overt and intrusive advertisement.
When all else fails, run.
If you think those products are cool just because they were shown to you in a video game, you're a serious tool my good man. Just the kind of fool these marketting drones are trying to reach.
Do us all a favor and don't be a consumer whore, because being the mindless corporate zombie who just gobbles up whatever is put in front of them is not going to make our games any better. Thanks.
A lot of people say, "I'm ok with it if it reduces the price of the game," but I haven't heard a single game company offering this as a motivation. No one has said, "Our development costs are rising, so to offset the load of this on the consumer, we're going to start offering a version of the game with advertising that costs less." No, all of the game developer community discussion has been surrounding whether or not gamers would accept the advertising. This is only a supplemental revenue stream which will degrade gaming experience without offering anything back to us, the gamers.
I think they under-estimate the willpower of the up and coming generation to avoid advertising though. It won't be long at all until someone has an adblock-style product for gaming. Perhaps it locks games processes down to certain ports (only the ports necessary for online play). If they deliver advertising over those ports, then expect it to modify the process memory at run-time to purge advertisements. Now that is a service I would pay for.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!