Good Design for In-Game Advertising

Who am I? Ian Bogost Persuasive Games Georgia Tech Advertising - Game Development - Research

Good Design for Whom?  Brands?  Advertisers?  Game Developers?  Players?  Game Publishers?  Someone else?

Good Design for Whom?  Brands  Advertisers  Game Developers  Players  Game Publishers  Someone else

Flavors of Advertising + Games  Licensing & Sponsorship  Product Placement  In-Game Ads  Advergames  Weird Edge-Case Things

Licensing & Sponsorship

Product Placement

In-Game Ads

Advergames - “Adverworlds”

Weird Edge-Case Things

How Advertisers Work  Strategic development of a campaign  “Creative” to support the campaign  Media Buys to execute the campaign

How Advertisers Work  Strategic development of a campaign  “Creative” to support the campaign  Media Buys to execute the campaign

How Advertisers Work  Budget for a multiyear media plan  Pitch that new/renewal plan  Create the “creative”  Buy the media

How Advertisers Work  Budget for a multiyear media plan  Pitch that new/renewal plan  Create the “creative”  Buy the media

Media Buying  The majority of the budget!  The profit center!  15% markup  Maximize produced “creative” across media

How Game Developers Work  Pitch a game or find funding  Make the game  Cut some kind of publisher deal  Wait for royalties / rev share

Problem  Advertisers want to  Reasonably minimize creative (cost center)  Maximize media buys (profit center)  Perception of large, desirable populations  So we get…

Problem  Games seen as a target medium for existing media buys  By and large, advertisers aren’t looking at the unique properties of the videogame medium  Publishers aren’t helping

This may seem strange…  Advertisers are voracious for new advertising  They take advantage of media in novel and sophisticated ways

Maybe not so strange…  All these examples rely on  visual representation  generic processes for imprinting surfaces  massive, cheap, anonymous distribution

We need to rethink advertising for games  Take into account  history and approaches to advertising  unique properties of videogames

Absurdly brief notes on kinds of advertising  Demonstrative  Illustrative  Associative

Demonstrative  Direct information  Communicates tangibles  Reveals the use of a product or service

Illustrative  Passive information  Can communicates tangibles and intangibles  Illustrates the existence of products and services

Associative  Indirect information  Communicates intangibles  Correlates products or services with activities and lifestyles

Currently  Lots of illustrative games

Currently  Lots of associative games

Even though  Demonstrative advertising most naturally dovetails with the properties of games:  Games create procedural representations of things  For ads, procedural representations of products and services

Not National Geographic  Demonsrative approaches that use the world-building and fictional properties of games to provide lifestyle context  Somewhere between demonstrative and associative advertising  Breeds critical evaluate the product or service on the part of the player

Examples!

Good Design for Developers  Visual representations of products and services  Ambiguous relationship with gameplay  Integrate products through anonymous media buys  Little to no customization

Good Design for Advertisers  Fixed, one-off  That enhance or found general gameplay  Craft subtle and unique programmatic integration of products into gameplay

What does this mean?  In-game advertising represents a conflict between game developers and advertisers  Advertisers don’t have literacy in the medium  Is there a precedent for this?

Product Placement in Film  Carefully, individually designed integration  One-off development  Brands, studio, and filmmakers work hand in hand

Issues  Exposure, cost, benefit much higher in film  Studios :: Publishers  Are publishers going to do this?  Will they share the financial benefit?  The in-game ad network model is simpler

Some Options  Use sponsorship / licensing as a road to funding and unique design ops  Build an in-house team for smart in-game placements in traditional commercial games  Architect in-game network placement into an appropriate design