Halo3, Coke, EB Games

In-Game Advertising to Grow

By Joshua S. Hill

Thursday, August 23, 2007

You're slowly patrolling down a sidestreet in Halo 3, ensuring to keep your step as light as possible, and your shadow all but non-existent. Your entire figure is built for stealth, and you can't risk anyone catching you. You're sneaking your way closer to your target, and up on your left, you see something that catches your eye and momentarily breaks your concentration.

"Discount purchases when you trade in your old console games at EB Games!"

Or, even worse;

"Feeling Thirsty? Grab a Coke from the fridge!"

According to a new research conducted by ABI Research, this type of advertising is not one that will be disappearing any time soon, and will apparently grow significantly over the next several years.

According to the report, directed by Michael Wolf, the market for in-game advertising will grow from the current estimate of $80 million in 2007, to a whopping $852 million by 2011.

I'm getting shivers of fear running through my spine as we speak, fearing the day that my World of Warcraft game play will be interrupted by an advertisement for my ISP.

"In many ways, console vendors and game publishers view gaming services as an ever-more attractive 'channel' to reach an active demographic," says research director Michael Wolf. "In the past, static advertising meant that publishers and their ad partners could not create real-time marketing messages. With the incorporation of ad clients directly into game engines -- and through connections to ad servers -- advertisers will be able to deliver advertising that reaches audiences in-game and through the walled garden game network."

With the advent of downloadable content creating more opportunities for markets across the world, and companies such as Sony and Microsoft directing more and more effort and resources towards making downloadable content a viable service, advertising agencies are going to jump at that new market as well, with revenue for downloadable games growing from $93 million in 2007 to $1.1 billion by 2011.

Long gone are the days where we could hope for fake vending machines to blow up, or fictional billboards to pass underneath as we stalked our prey, now we'll be facing giant banner ads for "McDonalds: The Place to Eat Right Now!" any moment now.