In Game Advertising

The concept of In Game Advertising (IGA) refers to the usage of computer/playstation games for promotion of brands and products. It is similar to the product placement we have already seen in movies. According to reports, the total budget of IGA in the year 2005 was $56 mn, but is expected to grow to a figure in excess of $700 mn by the year 2010. As these numbers suggest, it might be a nice thing to venture into. It is obviously targeted at the gamers who are increasingly spending more time playing games than watching television. Also, there has been criticism of this technique calling it "pervasive and greedy", as it reaches the customers at a point when they do not want to be reached.

Static IGA
These are messages which are hard coded into the game and cannot be removed or altered. They can appear as billboards within the game, posters on the walls or even as obstacles to overcome (In Splinter Cell:Chaos theory a glowing AXE deodorant ad comes as an obstacle for the player to overcome). Especially useful in single player role playing games (in the league of Tomb raider or GTA etc.), these advertisements are assured of a prime position and sufficient time in front of the player.

Sprite in Splinter Cell

Dynamic IGA

This is a new innovation in the field of advertising within games, wherein the geographical location, date/time of the game being played and key events occurring around the world at that time decide which advertisement to place in a particular location. It is prevalent in online games wherein the cookies will send over the geographical location and the date and time to the game engine located on the internet. On one hand, this might be termed as pervasive but on the other hand it is especially beneficial to the companies making these games. "If a person is standing infront of a brick wall looking at advertisements, then we know for sure that the level was made too hard" says a game developer in THQ.Dynamic IGA in SWAT 4

Online Presence
Permanent online games (like Ragnarok, Second life, World of Warcraft etc) can persistently have advertisements in various parts of the game. These games get a major chunk of their revenues from this kind of advertising, as people registering for the game is deliberately kept cheap so as to ensure maximum popularity. They have all the properties of Dynamic IGA but a lot more flexible as the concept of the game is such that advertisements can even be placed on personal choices (like google ads).

Seether T-Shirts in Second Life

Good or Bad???
I as a person, owuld be horrified if I came to know that the kinds of games I play, the duration of me playing them etc is the kind of information which the game designers can have at their fingertips. Don't ask me why, there're some things which people like keeping close to themselves, as private!
But being a marketing enthusiast, I can appreciate the ingenuity of this new medium of advertising. No wonder, various games are looking out for sponsors to be placed in their games. World favorites like FIFA, GTA, NFS etc are selling their spots at a premium ensuring a prime spot to the companies in front of a large audience. Moreover, these companies get a chance to be seen by a huge chunk of gamers across the globe who are (increasingly) turning away from television.

All in all, In Game Advertising is here to stay, and you better get used to it!!!!

The World of Gaming – Who are the people in it? – Part 3

As promised, here I am telling you guys about the last and final segment of the people totally interested in Computer Gaming. In the previous posts, we have seen the 14 year olds and the college goers who have some very distinct defining characteristics of their own. Now we come to the segment which would be the permanent customers of any gaming company, till the moment they live (in the virtual world I mean).

The Veterans
This is the final stage of gaming and the ultimate upgrade (using the lingo so prevalent in this field) possible for any person even remotely interested in gaming. These people have, ideally, grown up playing games in one form or the other, possibly varying in genres but mostly never in the intensity. I have tried to capture a few of their characteristics in this post of mine.

Addicted
Harsh though it may sound, mostly you’ll find these veterans to be addicted to the whole concept of sitting in front of the idiot-box doing nothing but playing on it. Come to think of it, isn’t it obvious? They grew up playing games, and if they are still playing even though they have families, jobs and responsibilities, they will probably keep on playing the rest of their lives. What I don’t know is how many of them will actually buy original DVDs/CDs of games, but what I do know for sure is that there can be several uses of this information other than direct sales.

Forums
As we all know, there are several game specific/genre specific forums present on the web to facilitate interaction between likeminded souls across the world. Now what the killer thing is, that these veterans are mostly the ones who are respected the most in these kinds of forums. This respect is mostly due to their experience on the forum/game but sometimes it also exists due to their skill in the game.

Schedule
More often than not, these veterans have a fixed schedule in which they play. It could be as frequently as daily or rarely like once a week/month. This is again a logical conclusion as the rest of their day is more or less fixed as far as activities are concerned. Also, if the games played by that veteran are multi player in nature, the friends/clan mates of the veteran would also be fitting into his schedule (as it is necessary for all the members of the clan to be available at the same time to play simultaneously).

Cash Cash!!!
Believe it or not, these are probably the only set of people the gaming companies will ever find, other than professional players, who are always loaded with cash. This is again a very obvious thing to state, but none the less important for anyone planning to target this segment. All the other segments are mostly living off their parents who might or might not be giving them enough cash to buy the games of their choice. These independent gamers, aka veterans, are perfect targets as they can buy any game which manages to catch their fancy.

The World of Gaming – Who are the people in it? – Part 2

Well, we have explored the dynamics of the young 14 year old geniuses segment in the previous post, and now it’s time for us to move on to older segments.

Youth – College goers or whatever!!
This is a slightly older segment when compared to the previous one we talked about. Right from fresh out of their senior secondary schools to fresh out of their bachelor degrees (or dropping studies altogether), this segment covers the entire range of these people. Rather than exploring what drives these people towards games, let us have a look at a few of their characteristics. Their lifestyle in general, mode of playing, venue of playing, choices of computer games and the pleasure they obtain in playing are few of the things which we should have a look at. I promise, it’s going to be something we all know but never stopped to think about.

Lifestyle
Now this is not meant to scare people off gaming or anything, but these people literally breathe games day in and day out! I am not talking about the people who are off and on gamers but the ones who are properly hooked on to the online games (and that is the vast majority in my experience). A typical day in the life of those people is waking up, attending as many classes as they wish to (0-50%; never more than that), indulging in small time pass activities, and ending the day with 2-3 sessions of the game of their choice. It could be Age of Empires, Warcraft: Defence of the Ancients, Counter Strike, Need For Speed, Quake, Unreal Tournament, FIFA or any such addictive game.

Mode of playing
What do I mean by Mode of Playing in the first place? It is the state which people generally enter when they start playing computer games. It has to be seen or experienced to know what a state it is. People are oblivious to everything around them and they only have eyes for the game they are playing. I know a few of my friends who could even successfully ignore a full bomb blast happening 300 meters beside them, as long as it does not affect the game. This is useful information in the sense, that these consumers of various products become zonked out toward anything outside the computer game for a period to 6-10 hours every day (Do we see an opportunity here?).

Venue of Playing
As can be guessed, this kind of maniacal gaming is only to be observed in the hostels of all the colleges (primarily guys’ one at that). However, in certain cities like Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Indore etc. it has been observed that there are other students of this age looking at Cyber Cafes to satisfy the gaming need of theirs.

Style of playing
It has been observed that a group of 4-5 people (at least) are always seen playing together. These people call themselves a “clan” and participate in all the competitions happening as a team. This is true for most of the team games and obviously not for the many single playing games we see. This follows the observations from the previous head wherein we saw the concentration of these people in hostels or cyber cafes, both the places an ideal ground for the “getting together of a clan”.

Why do they play?
The reasons could be many, the primary one being they are bored with everything else about them. Undergrad studies do not interest them and there aren’t enough activities happening around them to keep them occupied otherwise.

This sounds to be a lame reason but is true for most of the cases. For a select few people, they were already hooked on to games and just continued in their UG. Most of these people continue playing their entire lives, while a most of the others just stop after their college life.

Concluding entry coming up soon!!

The World of Gaming – Who are the people in it? – Part 1

The world of computer gaming is a weird one; to the people inside it, it’s just a way of their life (or is it? We have to explore that), and to the people outside, they are either uninterested or envious (again a supposition which we have to establish in the future) of this entire world. There are various effects which being a member of this highly exclusive club has on people, and not all of them positive! Some of the things which we should ask ourselves is, who are the members of this community in the first place? Let me remind you that the following analysis is being done purely based on personal experience and has no data to support it whatsoever.

The 14 Year old Geniuses

Well, the title which I have given this segment is totally misleading. What it leads you to believe is that all the youngsters who play any kind of computer games are actually good at it, and I don’t want to give you that impression. These can be newbies, average or expert just like the rest of us. What would really knock your socks off would be some of the reasons which these youngsters sit in front of the idiot box and not spend time playing like the previous generation

Lack of time

Try as we might to ignore it, the children of today (10-16 year olds) have much lesser free time than what the previous generations had. They go to school from morning to late afternoon or evenings, and then proceed to the tuitions (which promise to deliver a lot more than they do) and return home only at the time of dinner. This leaves them very little time to go outside and actually play the games which they are supposed to. Instead, they get computer games (of some genre or the other) and start playing them. As soon as they become decent at it, they leave the weekend outdoor sports and instead go sit in a cyber café/gaming parlor and spend their time.

Lack of Friends

Well, we all know that there are basically two kinds of people, those who have friends and those who don’t. So the ones who don’t, generally find themselves in front of the computer at some point or the other in their childhood. Now this does not mean that the children who have friends do not play on the computer, but then it is highly likely that a lot of the kids who do not socialize in their real life are very active in their virtual life.

Becoming one of the Group

Imagine the life of a young kid in which all his friends are talking incessantly about this new game which they have started playing. Obviously, in such a situation, that kid would at least be tempted to have a look at the game if nothing else. Sometimes, even this is an adequate reason for a kid to start playing games.

A genuine interest in this field

Well, pretty self explanatory. This would be the group of kids who would be inherently interested in computer gaming and would be playing no matter what the constraints or available options are open to them. These are the trend setters who influence the other gamers around them. Even if they had the time on their hands, the skill to be doing something else, these are the kids who would still be playing computer games. As far as I can see, these should be the target segment of any game manufacturing company, should they ever decide to focus on any one particular segment in the future.