In-Game Ads Go Casual

Last year, we mentioned that the largest overarching theme of the past year in the advertising sector was that of in-game ads. This was especially noted in the core gaming industry, with companies like IGA, Massive and Double Fusion reaping the benefits of placed advertisements in games. Many major game publishers and several significant brands signed up for this new form of advertising and it seemed well on its way to be taking off.

Now, 2007 didn't see anything especially different in regards to in-game ads for core games, but it did see a new trend emerge: in-game ads in the casual market. While core games with advertising tend to display them in the form of billboards in the background or specific product placements, these ads for casual game tend to be "pre-roll" wherein they flash up for several second before the game. This allows the casual games (on PCs and often on cell phones) to be offered for free, and casual gamers have responded very positively to this service that they would otherwise be very unlikely to pay for.

The year started off with Google buying AdScape, an in-game advertising company oriented towards the casual gaming industry. We then profiled Admoda, an up-and-coming company in the mobile in-game advertising field. Soon afterwards, Real reported success with their Eyeblaster technology, a real sign of how much potential the casual in-game advertising realm has. Very soon after that, MSN announced an Adshare program giving certain casual developers access to in-game advertising revenue, a new way to offer incentives to the casual developers over at MSN. We also chatted with UBO about adding advertising to the MMO sports realm and how much potential that has for the future market. By the time we were talking to Hovr about in-game advertisements, it was very clear how important this casual/mobile revolution for in-game advertising had become.

Amobee continued this trend, noting that they would offer in-game ads relevant to the particular users. We later covered the interesting merger of content from The Seeker in the casual RPG AdventureQuest by WildTangent as a new way of reaching young users. Mochi announced MochiAds as a new way to monetize casual Flash games. Finally, we profiled Moola, a company which pays you for watching the ads.

It seemed like we couldn't turn around without seeing some new and burgeoning company in the in-game space, particularly those orientated towards casual games. We expect this trend to only strengthen in the coming years.

Advertising 2.0

One of the many promises in the vague term "Web 2.0" is that of user interactivity. Often, this implies the ability for users to interact with each other, but sometimes it is more than that. When users are actually able to serve notice to the creators and directly interact with the companies they invested in, then we have something special.

It is appropriate then with "Web 2.0" that it has led to a shift in the way some ads and advertising campaigns are built. For instance, EA used the MySpace community to help discover new songs in the Burnout Bandslam competition. One of the most promising additions to PS3's Home is that of in-game clothing, furniture and other detritus all supported by in-game ads (with the possibility of user driven content along the way). Nexon listened to user feedback for their recent series of MapleStory TV ads and even ran a competition for users to create a similar ad of their own. Perhaps the best example of user interactivity and its success in an advertising campaign was demonstrated by Charlie Oscar Delta, which gave the hardcore fans a chance to voice their opinion on matters of game balance, talk to the developers, blog, get first access to Call of Duty 4 materials, and do any number of revolutionary things.

With the Internet making the world smaller everyday, it's a wonder that engaging the users directly isn't implemented more often. It may have only been a budding trend in 2007, but we expect this exceptional idea to blossom going forward.

Game Advertising Budgets Go Through the Roof

It was hard to imagine gaming as a mainstream entertainment medium just 15 years ago. Back then, consoles were still regarded as the realm for children and teenagers, particularly males, and it showed in the limited scope of the ads. Now, however, gaming is an acknowledged multi-billion dollar industry and the advertising campaigns and the ads themselves reflect that.

2K Games delivered a series of notable ad campaigns for their franchises. Rappers praised the "Resurrection of Football" in All-Pro Football 2K8, 2K captured the essence of BioShock perfectly in the ironic clash of violent imagery and music Beyond the Sea and showed how "It's Like That" for NBA 2K8.

Sony's PS3 said goodbye to the "white room" and entered a whole new onyx world of its own in their holiday advertising campaign. Ubisoft went all out for Assassin's Creed, offering South Park buyouts, extensive designer diaries and everything in between.

Two advertising campaigns really stood out, though: Madden 08 and Halo 3. With ad budgets running in the tens of millions, EA and Microsoft wanted to promote these titles not just as games, but institutions. They knew they had their core audience in the bag, so they focused on the mainstream audience to get the word out and it worked marvelously. While it was mocked and teased by certain hardcore gamers, there's no denying the impact of having widespread knowledge of your game's release.

So there you have it, 2007's biggest game advertising trends. We expect 2008 to be just as interestingly unpredictable and can't wait for the variety of personalities we'll be talking to in the coming year.