In-Game Ads To Reach $800 Mil?
Oh analysts, you're always saying the silliest things. Like the planet is dying, or there will be no PS4. You're the cute little sibling of the Four Horsemen, toddling along in their wake shrieking about marginal losses and the weakening of the North Atlantic conveyor. So freakin' adorable, you are!
And now you're telling me that game advertising will increase from $370 million last year to $2 billion by 2012? And that in-game advertising will increase from a modest $55 million to a whopping $800 million in the same time-frame? You are a ridiculous person, Mr. Analyst. But I love ya.
Yuanzhe Cai of Parks Associates thinks his analysis is super neat:
"Advertising in electronic games had an average monthly household expenditure of less than 50 cents in 2006, while broadcast TV was at $37, meaning advertisers are not using the gaming medium to its full potential..."
"If executed correctly, game advertising can provide a win-win solution for advertisers, developers and publishers, console manufacturers, game portals, and gamers."
Now, I'm not just crystal clear on how all of that hooey will benefit me, Joe Gay Gamer, but if Mr. Analyst says it's so, it must be so. Go numbers!
tiny dancer
Posted to Miscellany on 29 June 2007
· Comments (2)
Other stuff like this: analysts, game advertising, in-game advertising
Actually, Tiny, the only one who sounds silly is... you. How do you think Google made its billions in the last few years? Advertising. Not only that, but almost all the new Software-as-a-Service applications coming out for public consumption are or will be free. Why? Advertising. And it's a multi-billion dollar industry, which is why everyone is getting in on it.
The same demographic which is the likeliest to play video games is the most prized and hardest to reach for advertisers: 16-34 year old males.
It only makes sense that advertisers want a piece of the video game space. And given the expense of developing next-gen games, you better believe developers and publishers are going to leap at the chance to charge big bucks to put Coke ads in their games.
GameTap has already launched a free ad-supported service (http://blog.wired.com/games/2007/05/gametap_unleash.html) and Microsoft is getting in on the action (http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=328). Not only that, but if you've read anything about Sony's forthcoming "Home" service for the PS3, you've got to know that it'll be free... and ad-supported.
So, unsurprisingly, the analysts who make it their business to know what's going on in technology and entertainment are pretty darn close in their forecasts.
People seem to get up-in-arms about the prospect of ads in their games, but given that we see (and have learned to largely ignore) ads in EVERY other type of entertainment, so I don't see this as that different.
In some cases (sports games, especially) a few appropriately placed ads actually increase the realism of the title, and as expensive as games are becoming to make, if developers can cover some of that cost with ads instead of passing it on to me (60 bucks for a new title is already crazy) then I'm all for it. There's a point where it could become too much, but I don't think we're anywhere near it yet.