hi all, long time lurker first time poster :D

anyone here ever thought about selling the ad space in your games? or possibly creating ad space in your game?

for example, if you created a racing game that targets the teen market, and a company markets a product that also targets teens, perhaps you can convince them to pay you a small fee to put an ad of their product as part of the game (like a billboard on the race track).

Of course I don't mean you should bombard your players with ads, but maybe expose them to the ad in subtle ways (if a player walk into a bar a can of budweiser is there instead of generic beer).

any thoughts?

I know there have been people who've made some money doing "branded games" - small free games featuring a product or company as advertising - but I don't know how you set up that kind of deal. :)

I've always liked the idea of advertising in games. I remember when Pole Position had those cool billboards on the side and I remember reading about how ads were allowed in some Japanese games but not in the North American release; like the orange crush billboards in Waverace 64. Of course, more has been done than billborads, but that's all that comes to mind at the moment. I also like mock up ads of things from a game as if they were real, like those non-prescription drug commercials in Resident Evil 3, so it doesn't even matter if the brands or advertising are real. I think advertising is cool as long as it has some believeable relation to the game without interupting it or overpowering the experience. It ads to the atmosphere.

In the game I'm developing now, I wish some of the things in it could be brand name items, but I'm quite aware that I can't do that because of trademark violations. I have some actual products in mind that are directly related to my game though. If the game is successful, I may approach some companies and ask if they want to advertise in the game. Until then, it's fun to make up names and graphics for some of the game items as if they were real products.

Before you get excited about using ads to fund your game:

1. Unless your game is going to serve up tens of thousands (and preferrably hundreds of thousands or even millions) of views/impressions/whatevers to a highly desireable demographic in way that can be extensively tracked and verified, you don't have a viable venue for mass market advertising.

2. Doesn't anyone remember the whole bursting of the Internet bubble thing? Empires were built on advertising...and crashed when advertisers realized that it just wasn't worth the expense. It was only a couple years ago. C'mon... ;)

If you can come up with a highly targeted audience of players and, more importantly, generate significant sales for the advertiser, then *maybe* you could make some money with advertising.

Even those paragons of lucky indie-ness, Popcap Games, had to shift to licensing and shareware marketing because even serving up the obscene number of ads they did, the revenue just wasn't there.

-David

If you can come up with a highly targeted audience of players and, more importantly, generate significant sales for the advertiser, then *maybe* you could make some money with advertising.


Of course, if you had significant enough sales to attract advertisements, you wouldn't really need the advertisements at that point. :)

Well for me, I'll be waiting until I'm selling thousands of games on a regular basis before I get excited about advertising. That's the only time a company would be interested anyways. I have my own funding. Who in their right mind would think that they could use ads to fund a game that's not complete... or even successful?

Funny, as soon as I saw the subject I thought of this link in my bookmarks from a little while back(i.e. 1 1/2 years ago). Click here (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techreviews/games/2002/1/30/spotlight.htm) for the whole piece, but here's a clip if you aren't in the mood:

"Product placements in computer software go back to the late 1980s, when Sega was putting Marlboro banners in its arcade auto racing games. By 1997, employing the same philosophy, the movie industry had been using for years, software companies like Sony were actively inviting companies to pay for their logos to appear in games, noting that a computer game allows an advertiser to repeatedly flash a brand name in front of teens and young adults. The going rate: a one-time payment of about $20,000."

It goes on to say that the tables are now turned, with game studios sometimes paying to have real life products placed into their games in an effort to increase realism.

I do know that Kingdoms Of War (http://abandonedcastle.com/) has banner ads in their game interface, not sure how well its working since the banners are not targeted towards the audience.

I know there was a company that was going to include some advertising in games that used it's technology. The idea was that games with this advertising software would connect to the internet every now and then and download new ads. This way the publisher could (in theory) have a steady stream of advertising revenue from the game.

I think in-game ads are a double-edged sword: on one hand, you have the benefit of revenues from advertisers and perhaps increased realism, but on the other hand, many in your target audience may be turned off by it. I think successful in-game advertising would probably have to be like the product placements in movies: subtle and virtually unnoticeable. If you're blatantly and obviously advertising in your game, your game will be labelled adware and may be shunned by a significant portion of most markets. With that said, I think there's big money out there if you're a big retail publisher. According to this article (http://www.springwise.com/newbusinessideas/2003/03/brand_everywhere.html), EA has raked in $2 million from in-game advertising in The Sims Online, and Sprite paid Activision $100K for putting their logo in "Street Hoops".

What about, say, a racing game where you put real-world brands on the cars or as billboards along the road? For a fee ofcourse. ;)

Or maybe a baseball game with ad panels along the field wall at the base of the bleachers?

I don't think that sort of product/brand placement is distasteful. If anything, I'd think it adds to the experience.

Originally posted by Punchey
[B]What about, say, a racing game where you put real-world brands on the cars or as billboards along the road? For a fee ofcourse. ;)


you'll usually find that it works the other way around! ie you license the car... in nearly all cases I can imagine, it suits the developer more than the car manufacturer in including the car into the game.

Yeah, licensing a car, yes. But I'm talking about putting, say, a Mobile Oil logo on the car (like you see in Nascar). Or a Mac Donalds billboard at the side of the road. Or a Nokia sign on the wall at the ballpark. Stuff like that.

I think what type of a game it is has a lot to do with opportunity of place ads and how effective they are.

I don't think there's too many oppoturnity to advertise in a game like Medal of Honor, if you force an ad into the game it would just be seem as bad taste.

but a game like max payne with its various locations gives it more opporturnity to place ads and given some of the locations (city streets, subway station, bars) can be an effective ad tool.

LOL!!! Okay, now you've got me thinking of playling MOH and all of a sudden the game pauses and says something like, "This bloody frag brought to you by Tide Laundry Detergent! Get those pesky blood and gore stains out with Tide!" Or you come upon a pool of blood, and you see a sign just above it with a burley looking lumber-jack type that has the caption, "Brawny - the quicker picker-upper!"

Thats Bounty... I'm pretty sure... You know, I don't think I've seen any jingles in games. Perhaps I had, but none come to mind... I don't see why not, they serve commercials well. Sure, they may be corny, and in some cases, annoying... But that little line,"The quicker picker-upper! - - BOUNTY!" is very memorable.
Hmm... I suppose it wouldn't have the same effect being simply written. So if you could splash one in someplace... Creative like. Maybe in your demo's intro or something. Buuut.. If you do that, I would suggest masking it with humor... Almost anything is ignored if it's funny. Won't suit all games, of course. Just toyin' with things.

Edit - Said almost anything is ignored if funny... I should have said, humor is both memorable, and makes a great scapegoat if done well, so people ignore that you are trying to advertise to them.

I think.. Little prize packs and contests would be a very interesting thing to look into. For instance, right now Pepsi is doing it's Pepsi stuff thing. For those who aren't familiar with this, in pepsi products you collect points... Two in a cap, and something like ten for a case.

There is a booklet of things you can get with these points, mp3 players, keyrings, just stuff. So... Maybe you could strike up a deal with someone doing such a thing: I have people drinking pepsi in the game, or ... Make pepsi the health regenerative item, and let you use this game for your prizes thing you have going on right now. In return, I want ... I don't know. Differant deals would be differant things. Maybe a fraction of what the game would cost to sell directly to the end client, based on how many people use their points on your product.

The immediate visible benefits, is being able to use the product in there, should you get accepted and be looking for 'realism', of course.. And the exposure! Sure, you may have to give out a few hundred copies for a significant price drop, (maybe more... But things may cost a lot of points in this particular example. www.pepsistuff.ca ) ... I don't know how pepsi handles this, and I doubt they would be accempting anything now. However, they aren't the first, and won't be the last to do simular schemes.

Ahh, Bounty! Yes, you're right. So what's Brawny? I know I've heard of it in a commercial somewhere....

Your idea sounds pretty creative. Such free-form ideas excite me about all the possibilities of our industry! Let me know if you have any more such ideas. :)

Originally posted by Punchey
So what's Brawny? I know I've heard of it in a commercial somewhere....Brawny is the one with the lumberjack. There was a Simpsons episode where marge was impressed by the water-absorbing power of "Burly" paper towels (and by the lumberjack's image) in an obvious reference to Brawny.