The last time that Ad Watch discussed WildTangent, it related to the recent deal the company signed with Jagex for RuneScape. Since that time, the number of subscribers has increased to over 1 million and the number of overall users exceeded 10 million. RuneScape has also furthered its lead (in terms of web interest at least) over MMO powerhouses like World of Warcraft and EverQuest according to Google Trends, so clearly the company made a very keen move.

Recently, the company launched into a special partnership with Fox over The Seeker. This partnership was unprecedented in its level of integration into the WildTangent network. Primary among this was the integration into the popular AdventureQuest title, which has resulted in great exposure for the children's fantasy movie while adding gameplay value at the same time.

We had the opportunity to speak with Dave Madden, EVP of Sales Management for WildTangent, about this multi-pronged ad campaign.

AdventureQuest: Only minor redundancy in the title
Before we get into the nitty-gritty of the advertising deal, however, we'll inform the uninitiated about AdventureQuest. The game is an online, single-player RPG that is displayed using Flash and has been around since 2002. It has millions of users worldwide, and boasted its 39 millionth character created in September 2007.

"We're Artix's premium advertising partner for AdventureQuest," explained Madden. "We've been really excited about [the game as] a franchise with tremendous advertising interest. There are over 6.5 million players a month and it's the sort of thing middle schools come home and play and talk about at school. It's free to play normally. You can purchase gold if you want, or earn gold, but you can play for free as long as you want. I think it's a model that is working well with Asia and the predictions are that's going to become the common model here in the U.S. as well, and we recognized they had a good model for the game. From our perspective it is a sponsored gaming session, [and to that effect] we have 90 advertisers that give out coins to people for free."

Typically, most games don't lend themselves to having in-game advertisements, simply because the ads would contrast too heavily with the game environment. This is doubly true when dealing with fantasy games with a pre-modern setting. That's why the integration of material from The Seeker into AdventureQuest is so unique, because it fits the game so well.

"With this deal with Fox for The Seeker, we're actually adding value to the gamer," ventured Madden. "'The Dark is Rising' promotion gives people power via items and power by letting them open a special chest three times a day and allows gamers to fight the main antagonist from the movie, The Rider. They actually scripted in that character and the six symbols you can find from The Seeker. Because it's in Flash, they were able to integrate it quickly into the game and over 100 thousand gamers have chosen to see the trailer for gold or the special symbols. This has led to a greater than 9.18% click through rate and over 1,188,700 total trailer views. Internet ad click through rates are usually less than .5%, so it's obviously a home run for the studio. It's also a home run for Artix, since they get to enhance the gamers' experience."

RuneScape's still hot property
While the AdventureQuest integration is obviously the spearhead of this partnership with WildTangent for The Seeker, it's far from being the only part. 20th Century Fox is sponsoring all games in the Kids Channel on the WildTangent console to further the game's exposure. Moreover, the studio purchased the entire ad inventory of Runescape for 24 straight hours, exposing the movie to millions of users worldwide

"Runescape has been a really hot property for us," states Madden. "It has 200,000 concurrent users at any one time, and marketers will often do a take over for their product or movie. [Because of the level of exposure] we're talking a big, big budget campaign. This is a very big audience to own for a day or two."

The way Madden sees it, this sort of partnership with Fox will only lead to bigger and better things in the future as WildTangent continues to grow. "We made a quiet announcement last week about an Enthusiast Channel," he mentioned. "We're promoting our lineup as not just a casual thing, and we ship on millions of PCs every year. We bring out AAA stuff and the advertisers want to reach these online gamers."

World's Largest In-Game Ad Network?
The real power that WildTangent brings to the table with its network is a series of free games generally played by a younger demographic. Advertisers desperately want to reach this audience, so it's of large value to them. On the other hand, the audience itself is receptive to some of the bonuses that advertisers are willing to give for free, so every party ends up winning in the end.

"We can turn around to all of our partners and let 97% of a game be paid for by advertisers that are dying to reach gamers," explained Madden. "So we're looking to reduce the cost for the gamers and this sort of value exchange has been fantastic. We feel that our model will become the de facto model of ads in MMOs and we feel like it's the user participation in things like The Seeker that really demonstrates value to the advertisers."

"We actually get all our ads through Double Click. We made it as easy to buy ads for our networks as any other regular web ad, making it as easy as a website. That's significant in helping us be the biggest in-game advertising network in the world. What's helped us get to that point is how we can demonstrate the value. The great thing about the web that's helped it become a $10 billion industry is that it's accountable. In-game ads will never be as big as they can be unless it's the same way. Frankly, the best platform for [in-game ads] is online PC, where statistics can be easily collected. When Fox knows that over a million kids viewed the trailer to The Seeker, that's a big thing," he concluded.