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In-Game Ads Make Products More Appealing

Posted by Zonk on Mon Aug 13, 2007 06:03 PM
from the not-to-everybody dept.
Businesses Entertainment Games
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)."
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[+] Study Indicates In-Game Ads Actually Work 78 comments
The Next Generation site is running a piece discussing new findings about in-game advertising. The results of collaboration between an ad firm and a research company show that ads in games are actually having an effect on players. Double Fusion's involvement in the study throws the results into question. Take these statistics with a grain of salt: "75% of gamers engage with at least one ad per minute across most, but not all, game types; 81% of gamers engage at least every other minute. Less-cluttered ads are three times as effective at garnering gamer notice than ads that are either cluttered or within cluttered environments. While both contribute positively to ad engagement, placement of the ad in the primary camera plane (eye-level) is more important than large size ads. Not all ads are created equal - dynamic billboards, around-game interstitials, sponsorships, and interactive product placements all offer different levels of user engagement and pervasiveness in the game" Eidos certainly thinks so; Kotaku notes that they've signed up with the same company featured in this study.
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  • ...to advertisers. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 13 2007, @06:09PM (#20218365)
    n/t

    • No thanks. Keep your spam to yourself. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Whammy666 (589169) on Monday August 13 2007, @06:26PM (#20218569) Homepage
      There is no way in hell I'm purchasing a game that spams me, especially considering that games are close to $60 in price. When I play a game, I want to be immersed in the game itself and not some billboard-infested advertising zone.
      • Even if the game takes place in Times Square?
        • That's a very special case. But if I'm playing a game set in WW2 germany or some medieval village, the last thing I want to see are ads for mountain dew and iPhones. It's equivalent to going to the movies and being subjected to advertising crawlers across the bottom of the screen during the movie. Screw that.
          • Thats not a very special case. Thats every arena in a sports game (a huge slice of all video games.) Thats the garage and track in every racing game. Thats the vending machines, the store fronts, the billboards in most FPSes set in recent history or the future. The very fact that the vast majority of gameshave at least one or two fake brands (and usually significantly more) on game assets represents an opportunity for advertising.

            Every single "game advertising" thread features the same supposed "ads for iPh
            • I already addressed this in another comment. But I'll restate it. There's a big difference between benign product placement and overt advertisement. A game set in Times Square or even a sports arena would provide an opportunity for product placement without spoiling the immersion of the game. These are special cases where the game is set in an area which normally has advertisement in the background as part of its atmosphere. However, the advertising has to be contemporary with the game setting or the illusi

              • Re:No thanks. Keep your spam to yourself. (Score:4, Insightful)

                by nahdude812 (88157) * on Tuesday August 14 2007, @05:53AM (#20222835) Homepage
                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.
                • Of course you can circumvent the advertising. Welcome to changing the channels on the televison. There are so many ways of avoiding advertising on TV, and yet, for some reason companies still do it. Are they stupid? No. Can you take steps to avoid advertising? Of course.

                  Game development costs *are* rising, and just like movies, product placement becomes more prevalent. You're ignoring a reality; of course you and I can circumvent having to consume the advertising. However, in the long run, advertising in ga
      • In all honesty? It depends. I like games with detail so product placement is fine. It's certainly less annoying then having to see the nVidia logo coming up every time I start a game.
  • They've been showing them ads for 3 years in a row? Poor sods.
    • If Clockwork Orange told us anything, that should mean they now fear and loathe ads... waitaminute... do WE get bombarded with ads constantly? I mean, I feel a bit like that towards ads.

      The system works.
  • I can understand product placement in games made by/for such corporations (i.e. Sneak King), but I really doubt in-game advertising sparks interest in the game itself (i.e. Battlefield 2142). Sure, they might promote the products advertised within, but in-game advertising, especially advertising in games that people pay for, is a major turn-off to many gamers.
    • 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...
      • Never said they did, but they ought to - considering that gamers that don't like the advertising will spread the word and sales will drop. Simple logic, but who listens to that nowadays? :P
      • Just remember, people-- you control your machine and where a domain resolves, if at all. If you don't want to get ads from Massive's in-game ad engine, consider setting up the following zone on a nameserver you use:

        $TTL 86400

        @ IN SOA localhost. hostmaster.localhost. (
        1 ; serial
        3h ; Refresh 3 hours
        1h ; Retry 1 hour
        30d ; Expire 30 days
        1d ) ; Minimum 24 hours

        @ NS localhost.

        localhost A 127.0.0.1

        madsever.net. A 127.0.0.1
        ad A 127.0.0.1
        imp A 127.0.0.1
        media A 1

    • The ads in BF2142 don't bother me that much. Mostly because Coke took care to keep them in sync with the theme of the game (with slogans akin to "defend you freedom free of sugar" or something like that... dunno, when do you really have time to actually read that billboard in the game?). EA also took care to put them in places where they don't kill your playing experience (even though they're sometimes where a sniper would quite happily blow them away to get a clear shooting path, but I guess that's intenti
      • Yeah, Dungeon Siege 3 is going to feature new mounts. I hear two of the best mounta are going to be a Mustang named Ford and a Cavalier's horse named Chevy. Interesting there are actually 3 horses named Ford in the game, there's also a Bronco and a Pinto.

  • The respondents also indicated that 'quick service restaurant' brands were 'cool' because they were advertised in games ('cool' is left undefined).
    Come see me sometime, I know what it takes to be cool [youtube.com].

  • I must confess (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Disseminated (1022915) on Monday August 13 2007, @06:18PM (#20218459) Homepage
    After falling deeply madly in love with SSX3, I thought dnL soda and the Honda Element were pretty cool things.

    Not to mention the many albums from Astralwerks artists that I've bought as a DIRECT result of that game... tho that might be a seperate issue. ;-} I got to sample and enjoy that particular product integrated in the game as the soundtrack, rather than just obtusely associated via in-game advertisement.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ludomancer (921940)
      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.

  • Oblig. Penny Arcade (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/10/19 [penny-arcade.com]

  • conflict of interest (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hc5duke (930493) on Monday August 13 2007, @06:19PM (#20218487)
    (emph mine)

    In a study that began in 2004 and included 600 gamers, gaming-advertisement firm

    No, I don't see any conflict of interest at all...

  • Major bias (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Coopjust (872796) on Monday August 13 2007, @06:25PM (#20218547)
    In a study that began in 2004 and included 600 gamers, gaming-advertisement firm Massive Inc.

    Of course the company that offers advertising solutions is going to find that in-game advertising is effective! They have a direct interest in getting more advertisers and games to advertise in.

    On the topic of in-game advertising, it can be implemented properly. I don't mind walking by a Coca Cola machine vs. a generic soda machine. And in Crackdown, there were some billboards, but they were in an urban area, so they fit in.

    However, a lot of ingame advertising is insultingly bad. That's why I didn't buy Battlefield 2142 (completely unrealistic ads), and why I dropped my subscription to Planetside for a while (it damaged any sense of belonging in the game- seeing an ad for Jeep as you get in your VTOL aircraft).

  • I don't mind... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Omeger (939765) on Monday August 13 2007, @06:26PM (#20218567) Journal
    ads in games as long as they make sense given the game's setting. If I'm playing a futuristic shooter I don't want a McDonalds ad, unless it's some kind of futuristic funny mcd's like store or maybe a destroyed billboard in a post apocolyptic setting.

    • If I'm playing a futuristic shooter I don't want a McDonalds ad
      Well, of course not. We all know that in the future it was Taco Bell who won the franchise wars.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Whammy666 (589169)
        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.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Spikeles (972972)
          You are both wrong, it was Pizza Hut!

          For some non-American releases, references to Taco Bell were changed to Pizza Hut. This includes dubbing, plus changing the logos during post-production. Taco Bell remains in the closing credits. In the Swedish release the subtitles still use Taco Bell while the sound and picture has been altered as above.

  • Because I have this terrible suspicion that the major cause of these results may have been scenes along the lines of "Hello, I'm a bored college student. Wow, you're going to pay me to play games for you? Awesome! What do you want me to say?"
  • How the hell do they define terms like "average brand familiarity," "cool," and "automotive purchase consideration," anyhow? How did they select the groups? Randomly, or were they already gamers who play these types of games to begin with? Where was the study published, and who were the prinicpal authors? Was it ever formally published, so that we can look up their methods for ourselves, or did they just ask a bunch of people to play games and fill out forms over the years? The obvious conflict of interest

    • Not to mention this can easily be misinterpreted. If you race a Phord Moustache in a game, you might want to go to Phord's site to find out more about the car, not because you're at all interested in actually buying one, but because you want to know more about the car to know how to play the game better. That might easily be seen as "automotive purchase consideration"

      In any case, I do like the concept of dynamic ads. If ads are part of the basic game graphics they're there whether you like them or no

  • In-Game Ads work for sport and driving games (Score:3, Informative)

    by Joe The Dragon (967727) on Monday August 13 2007, @06:43PM (#20218757)
    and they have been in nascar games for while.
    • Absolutely. As much as everyone hates advertising, they belong in some games. What would a sports arena be without ads everywhere? What would race cars look like without logos plastered all over them? Why should billboards in a realistic city all have fake companies?

      If used wisely, they can and do add to the realism of games.

  • If the Prices Drop... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gral (697468) <scarrNO@SPAMprogbits.com> on Monday August 13 2007, @06:53PM (#20218859) Homepage
    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.
    • Games are unlikely to go down in price with in-game advertisements since games are increasing in production costs while staying roughly the same retail price they always were. So obviously, it's worth it for developers to try and find more revenue streams from the games - be it in-game advertising, or having monthly fees, or selling downloadable content.
      • Then please mention also that game sales have been going up during the last few days since playing games turned from geek and teenager pastime to mainstream, and consoles from being in a few kids homes to becoming living room furniture.

        Games, like any content, has fixed cost per title, and virtually zero cost per unit. So while the development costs went through the roof, so did revenue. That's why it's possible to sell them at virtually the same price as 10 years ago.

        With the advent of more and more game r

    • If you want to avoid games with advertising in them, look for the smaller titles that don't have any brand recognition yet. Because, if in game advertising works, the only people that will not use them are small companies that can't attract advertisers.

  • I make a special point to avoid products by companies that mess with my entertainment. Of course this raises brand familiarity, just not quite as intended. I also avoid pgame publishers that have done this to me once.
  • Sorry, what was I saying?
  • I know these ads really bugged me. http://www.nintendolife.com/games/wii/wii_sports/s creenshots/455303ecdbb01 [nintendolife.com] And I don't even know what they're for. ;)
  • I'm a TransFan, and bought the Transformers game (if you must know, I have it on PC and PS3 - the latter bought first, the former bought for a different reason other than to play it). So there are ads in it for Helio phones, which don't exist, it seems. Maybe in the US they do, but certainly not elsewhere in the world.

    If it wasn't for the fact that I read Gizmodo and the like, I wouldn't have known that Helio was a phone carrier - I would've thought they were some sort of phone manufacturer (and like all ph
  • Stop printing these regular fluff pieces form companies that SELL IN GAME ADS telling us how In-Game ads are so great. For fucks sake, what's next? studies from apple saying apple macs are cool?
    This isn't news, its the semi-regular pro-game-ads fluff bullshit. Stop printing this crap.
  • In-game advertising could kill period games. You can't seamlessly integrate ads them into the game world (soda machines, ads on the race cars, restaurants in the city, etc.) If period games lose revenue then designers will only finance games with advertising in them. Either that, or the period games will be more expensive. Which means we get a flood of modern-day and sports games. No more Okami, Lord of the Rings, Final Fantasy, etc.
  • I find my suspension of disbelief when playing baseball games to be a bit lacking with all of the fake advertisements that replace the notable real ones (ex. the Citgo sign at Fenway Park). This is a special case, but it is something that bugs me.
    • For Great Justice! As if I don't get enough Spam in my email, I can now get Spam in my games. That's marketing for ya. If advertisers can't feed it down out TV sets and email accounts, they're going to get us in our games.
    • You don't really have the same kind of situation with Coke, or McDonalds, or Mopar autoparts outside of a vocal minority who usually have perfectly valid reasons to dislike the brand or product, and usually outside of the scope of the quality of the product. AOL makes an extremely easy case of mass advertising a service people wouldn't use, even if it was offered for free. There are thousands of products and companies that do not fall under this category of popular culture hatred. I think most people take a

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