Is In-Game Advertising Pointless?
Three years ago, in-game advertising was hyped by many as a major revenue source for video games in the future. Hoping to get a piece of the action, Google bought AdScape for $23 million, and Microsoft spent $200 million on Massive. However, according to mega-publisher EA, in-game advertising isn’t panning out the way it was originally thought it would.
Ben Cousens recently sat down with Edge and discussed some of the things dealing with in game advertising,
EA executive Ben Cousens sat down with Edge and discussed in-game advertising:
We actually aren’t getting much from ad revenue at all. The in-game advertising business hasn’t grown as fast as people expected it to. We thought we’d do in-game advertising and virtual goods sales, and one of those took off really fast and the other hasn’t really taken off at all. I think it’s more about specific deals where you can tie the content in. We did a deal with Dr. Pepper for Battlefield Heroes, where if you buy a bottle and scan in the code you get an exclusive outfit.That kind of deep integration will work, I think, but I’m not convinced that we’ll have billboards in games and things like that. Maybe those days are over.
This should explain the lack of in-game billboards in recent EA games, which some gamers were actually complaining about. The things like the redemption codes do work, they did do the same thing with Mass Effect 2 when it was released on the Xbox 360/PC and it actually offered some pretty good in-game items for Commander Shepard to use.
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6 Responses to “Is In-Game Advertising Pointless?”
I would love to see a Dr. Pepper billboard in Mass Effect, a World War 2 game, and Dante Inferno. /s
In-game ad will work in Sports, driving, and family mini-games.
I think what publishers lost was the fact that the person buying the game and the person playing the game were not likely the same person. And to put in-game sales tied to ads is a loser. What they needed to do is to work with game developers with in-game scenery that lends to advertisers placing “billboard” style ads inside the game. Take the in-world billboards and then find companies that would be willing to purchase ad space on an in-game virtual billboard… They should not have expected it to bring in game saving cash unless the game was survival style game with no vehicles based inside a cityscape…etc or a shopping mall full of zombies…
In Rockstar’s Midnight Club LA, I remember seeing a Best Buy. I’m not very sure but if my mind is correct I think I even saw a Gamestop. Yes they were pointless but there is no need to complain. In fact I think it just makes the game feel ‘realer’.
I think the worst recent in-game advertising was on XBL
“ALAN WAKE, BROUGHT TO YOU BY VERIZON!”
“CHECK OUT THESE NEW VIDEOS OF ALAN WAKE, BROUGHT TO YOU BY VERIZON!”
And then you play the damn game and there’s a goddamn Verizon commercial… Not even sports games are that shameless with the advertising (and it actually fits in those).
I do kind of like the way Mass Effect (among other EA titles) did the advertising thing with Dr. Pepper, kinda like the Kratos Slurpee cups… I’ll be damned if it’s a tactic that doesn’t boost sales, my friend wouldn’t let me throw out Doritos bags for months because of some Halo: Reach giveaway.
I first noticed it playing burnout paradise. there was burger king billboards. midnight club la had not one but several best buys actually. I don’t mind it at all unless I’m forced to watch or listen to an ad without the option to skip it.
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