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In game ads: a few reasons why advertisers want to use games
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Mon May 05, 2008 6:43 pm Reply and quote this post
There are a few common reasons why advertisers want to use videogames to reach consumers.
Oneis the belief that videogames are a place to recover the waningaudiences of television advertising. The highly desirable, seeminglyelusive 18-34 male demographic is often, unfairly, assumed tocorrespond directly to videogame players. What better way to retrievethese "lost" consumers than to inject billboard and video advertisinginto their sci-fi shooters and fantasy role-playing games?
Wouldan orc order pizza? Does a dystopian planet from the future need apacer drink? In most videogames, advertisements become parodies ofthemselves. An alternate version of this principle swaps young men formiddle-aged women, and console games for casual puzzle games, wherebranded objects replace abstract tokens.
Another motivation isadvertisers ongoing interest in targeting children. People assumevideogames are for kids (as well as young adult males). Everyone, fromgreedy candymakers to hopeful science educators to earnest charitableorganisations, wants to reach kids early with messages to buy, tolearn, or to become aware. What better way to speak to the kiddies thanvia Mario platformer lookalikes or custom virtual worlds that extend afavorite franchise?
Unfortunately, kids advergames andeducational titles underestimate the sophistication that childrenexhibit at play. Titles like Pokemon, Animal Crossing, or Zoo Tycoonrequire patience, deep knowledge and sophisticated reasoning.
Yetanother reason revolves around visibility. No matter the intendedaudience, games get attention. These days, every musician, politician,and non-profit cause has a MySpace page, a Facebook profile and aYouTube channel. Videogames offer a sure-fire way to attract newattention in a noisy world. Major press outlets will cover a gamewithout ever playing it, so quality matters less than curiosity. Infact, an entire genre of computer-enabled games played partly inreal-world environemnts, known as Alternate Reality Games (or ARGs),have been funded almost exclusively by advertisers as a way to garnerthe kind of front-page news stories money can't buy directly.
Butthe features of videogames that make them powerful communication toolscannot be found in their demography, or their puerility, or theirpeculiarity. Rather, they are located in the very way they makemeaning. In games, players take on roles constrained by rules. In play,we become other people, in a different situation, and try out life intheir shoes. This is a powerful idea that has the potential for bothcommercial and social benefit.
For a long time now, advertisershave sold desires rather than competing for needs. They have lured usinto buying products that represent the lives we aspire to but don'tactually lead. They do this by plastering our world with images ofthese fantasy lives in the hope that we will buy untold products andservices in a vain attempt to bridge the endless chasm between lives ofmundane, suburban debt and lives of lithe, hypersexed outdoorsmanship.
Butvideogames don't just project images; they simulate experiences. Forthe first time since the quaint sponsor spots of the golden age oftelevision, we have in the videogame a medium that can actually makeclaims about the features, functions, benefits and drawbacks ofproducts and services. Or of public policies and causes, for thatmatter.
This untapped potential of games upsets the veryfoundation of advertising as we know it. Instead of surrounding us withimages that reflect lives unlived, games can allow us to try outhypothetical lives with new products, people and ideas. To realise thispotential, advertisers of both goods and viewpoints must stop blindlyinserting their billboards into games or creating feeble copies of thecornerstones of videogame pop culture. Instead, they must startsimulating the products, public policy positions, charitableinterventions and other worldly ideas in new games – games worthy ofour attention.
In a videogame marketplace overflowing withsports, fantasy and war, one need only look to The Sims, which recetlysold its 100 millionth unit, to see the untapped potential of games tobe about real lives instead of fantasy ones.

Contributed by Editorial Team, Executive Management Team
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