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Although academic business-based research into the area of Video and Computer Games (games) has increased in recent years, it will be shown that these have had a propensity to concentrate upon either Advergames or In-Game Advertising. However, this does not present the full picture of the association of games with advertising, and as such, a concep...
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... initial stage was to identify a source of suitable information and after searching various websites which supplied game charts, VGChartz (www.vgchartz.com/yearly) was chosen as it provided free information on games including (i) the name of the game; (ii) the console it could be played on; (iii) the name of the developer/publisher; (iv) the number of weeks it was in the charts; (v) the annual sales figures and (vi) the sales in total, (Appendix C). In addition, the methodology of how this site formulates their charts appeared to be reliable as it involves a mixture of methods and multiple sources including: (i) surveying both gamers and retailers; (ii) the utilisation of statistical trend patterns; (iii) examining resell prices in connection with consumer demand and stock levels and (iv) interacting with publishers to examine the number of units being shipped within different selling channels. Once the source had been identified, the actual gathering, synthesising and analysis of the raw data was then undertaken (Figure 2). 92 From a general industry perspective, Table 3 highlights the number of game titles for each company and console throughout the period. Initially, Sony consoles dominated the charts in 2005 and 2006 with the PS2 being the leading console each year. However, in 2007 Nintendo came to the fore due to the success of their DS console being the leading system that year. Nintendo again dominated in 2008, largely due to an increase in the number of Wii TM games as well as the DS replicating its previous success to be the leading console, followed closely by both the Wii TM and Xbox 360 TM . The rise of the Xbox 360 TM in 2008 would prove to be a sign of things to come in 2009, as although Nintendo was the leading company, the Xbox 360 TM was the top console. Overall, although Nintendo dominated the charts for 2007, 2008 and 2009, a closer analysis of the full five-year period highlights Sony as the leading company and their PS2 TM as the leading console. Although 200 games were listed for each year, it was apparent that duplicate game titles were present due to multiple versions of the same game available for different consoles. As the analysis progressed beyond the first year, duplicate titles also appeared from the previous chart in subsequent years, due to the popularity of some games still generating enough sales to appear in that year's chart. As such, it was found that of the 1000 games originally cited, only 566 unique titles were present over the full five-year period (Figure 3). Even in the first year it was found that 20 games (10% for the year) were duplicate titles, with the remaining 180 unique titles accounting for 31.8% of titles over the period. By 2006, this had risen to 95 duplicate games (47.5% for the year), with the 105 unique titles accounting for 18.55%, with the same figures repeated for 2007. In 2008, duplicate titles rose to 113 or 56.5% of titles for that year, with the remaining 87 unique titles representing 15.37% of those found overall. This recovered slightly in 2009 with a reduction to 111 duplicate titles, but this still represented 55.5% of titles being duplicate for that year, with the 89 unique titles representing 15.72% of all the games. As regards companies that publish software, it was found that over the five-year period, a total of 41 distinct publishers (based on this terminology used by VGChartz) had games appearing within the charts (Appendix D). From this it was found that the most prolific was Nintendo with 17.67% of games (100 games), with its closest rivals being Electronic Arts with 14.31% (81 games). Finally, fourteen different gaming genres were identified as being the main genres present in the investigation (Table 4). Over the full period, the most dominant was Action/Adventure, followed by Sports, Role Play Games (RPG) and Shooter. Annually, from 2005 through 2008, the Action/Adventure genre led the way, followed by Sports games. However, in 2009, these places were reversed, with Sports games being the leading genre, pushing Action/Adventure into second place. In terms of lowest prevalence, Puzzle and Strategy games consistently appeared in the bottom two, with another four genres, Platformer, Educational, Miscellaneous and Party occasionally joining them. When looking at the prevalence of Game Advertising in terms of In-Game Advertising and Around- Game Advertising, it was found that of the 566 unique titles, 215 (37.99%) were associated with these two facets. Annually, the results showed that in 2005, 66 out of the 180 unique titles had associations with Game Advertising, representing 36.67% of games; in 2006, this was 39.05% (41 out of 105 games); in 2007 it was 29.52% (31 out of 105 games); in 2008 it was 47.13% (41 out of 87 games) and in 2009, this was 40.45% (36 out of 89 games). Over the period, this averaged out at 38.56% of games having links to Game Advertising and highlighted a fluctuation of 17.61% between the lowest point in 2007 and the highest in 2008. Figure 4 highlights that due to games being associated with more than one format, there were in fact 278 occurrences linked to the 215 games found to have Game Advertising associations (see Appendix E for full game list). Annually, Marketing Displays were found to be the most popular in four out of the five years, although in 2009, Around-Game Advertising pushed ahead. On average, 63.47% of occurrences were In-Game Advertising related, with 36.53% being Around-Game Advertising. Within In-Game Advertising, Marketing Displays accounted for 39% of the total occurrences with Product Placement accounting for 24.47%. Unsurprisingly, single occurrences of Game Advertising accounted for 56.12% or 156 of the 278 total occurrences (Figure 5). Within this, Around-Game Advertising was most prevalent with 58.97%; Marketing Displays was next with 34.62%; and, Product Placement was the least with 6.41%. On an annual basis, Marketing Displays proved to be the most popular, with 40% in 2005; 41.51% ...
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Citations
... Game advertising (ads) consists of the integration of marketing communication messages with video and computer games as a strategy to reach consumers through activities (e.g., advergames, around-game advertising, or in-game advertising) (Smith et al., 2014). Compared to conventional ads, game ads can hold users' attention for a longer period, and they enable advertising companies to gather information about customers, while the game is being played (Ferrazzi et al., 2003;Anubha and Jain, 2022). ...
... First, as luxury brands have begun to become involved in the gaming industry, upcoming research could investigate how game elements (e.g., features, content, styles, stories) can influence consumers' perceptions of luxury brands. Indeed, there are several types of brand advertising, namely, advergame, around-game advertising, and in-game advertising (Smith et al., 2014). All of them have different characteristics and possibly different impacts on consumers. ...
... In den Anfängen dieser Form der Mar-kenkommunikation waren Kinder und Heranwachsende die Kernzielgruppe der subtilen spielerischen Ansprache. Bis heute hat sich der Kreis der angesprochenen Altersschichten deutlich in Richtung Erwachsener ausgeweitet (Vashisht et al. 2018 (Smith et al. 2014). ...
Der vorliegende Beitrag zeigt eine Möglichkeit auf, die Zukunft von Markenkommunikation und Werbung im Metaverse zu antizipieren. Advergames und Adverworlds ermöglichen es Marken, als Teil eines spielerischen Unterhaltungsangebotes aufzutreten und ihre Beziehung zu Nutzerinnen und Nutzern zu pflegen. Diverse Marken nutzen bereits die Vorboten des Metaverse, um mit solchen immersiveren und interaktiveren Kommunikationsansätzen Erfahrungen zu sammeln. Unternehmen müssen dabei auf eine hohe Verbreitung von VR-Geräten hoffen, die die Voraussetzungen für optimierte Medienerlebnisse schaffen. Gleichsam müssen Markenverantwortliche die richtige Balance zwischen Entertainment und Vermarktung finden, ohne dass Metaverse kommerziell auszuschlachten.
... Fuente: IAB (2007); Williamson Smith et al., (2014). ...
Los videojuegos se han convertido en una industria cultural lucrativa y relevante en el ocio de la sociedad. Las marcas, sabedoras de esto, quieren participar y han evolucionado en su forma de estar presente en este medio, creando estrategias de comunicación interesantes. El objetivo de las marcas es conectar con el público joven estableciendo una narrativa nueva de la marca que busca la notoriedad y el engagement. En este artículo analizamos la progresión de las marcas en los videojuegos y estudiamos un ejemplo de acción comunicativa de la marca Samsumg en el juego en streaming Tortillaland.
... In this context, in-game advertising (IGA), described as "the integration of nonfictional products and brands within the playing environment of video and computer games through simulated real-life marketing communication mechanisms" [27], is a unique and highly profitable contact point between the streamer and the sponsorship [28]. ...
In recent years, technological advances and the introduction of social streaming platforms (e.g., Twitch) have contributed to an increase in the popularity of esports, a highly profitable industry with millions of active users. In this context, there is little evidence, if any, on how users perceive in-game advertising (IGA) and other key elements of the game viewing experience (e.g., facecam and chat) in terms of visual attention. The present eye-tracking study aimed at investigating those aspects, and introducing an eye-tracking research protocol specifically designed to accurately measure the visual attention associated with key elements of the game viewing experience. Results showed that (1) the ads available in the game view (IGAs) are capable altogether to attract 3.49% of the users’ visual attention; (2) the chat section draws 10.68% of the users’ visual attention and more than the streamer’s face, known as a powerful attentional driver; (3) the animated ad format elicits higher visual attention (1.46%) than the static format (1.12%); and (4) in some circumstances, the visual attention elicited by the ads is higher in the “Goal” scenes (0.69%) in comparison to “No-Goal” scenes (0.51%). Relevant managerial implications and future directions for the esports industry are reported and discussed.
... With an estimated number of gamers around 2.7 billion, the gaming industry is reportedly generating $160 billions of annual revenue in 2020, with projected revenue surpassing $200 billion by 2023 (Wijman, 2020). The gamers are a valuable customer base since they tend to have more disposable income than those earning average wage (Smith et al., 2014). Global gaming tournaments such as Counter Strike: Global Offensive or League of Legends World Championship are testimony to the reach of digital games. ...
The digital gaming industry has grown tremendously in the past decade. The vast potential of the gaming market combined with consumers’ defiance for traditional advertising calls for research focusing on finding the most effective ways to implement advertisements within digital games. Although research has studied factors such as advertisement format, gaming experience, demographics, brand familiarity and advertising attitude in racing game, limited research has been performed in the genre of role-playing games (RPG), which accounts with a vast player base. This study investigates the influence of two key factors – prominence and congruity – on brand awareness and brand attitudes in the RPG context. Using brand placement in a self-developed game, this study finds that passive and incongruent advertisements are associated with high brand recognition and brand recall in the RPG genre.
... Reklam ve oyun kelimelerinin birleşiminden oluşan advergame, bir markanın ikna edici sloganıyla birlikte reklam videosunun oyunlaştırılmasıdır. Bununla birlikte "bir kuruluşun ürün, hizmet, veya markasının internet üzerinden veya uyumlu bir ortamda dijital indirme yoluyla oynanarak reklam vetanıtımını yapmak için özel olarak tasarlanmış dijital oyun" olarak da tanımlanmıştır(Smith, vd., 2014). Oyun tasarımları, bugün etkileşim yoluyla ürün yerleştirmeyi ve marka tanıtımını mümkün kıldığı için reklamlar bu mecralarda oyunlaştırılmış öğeler olarak kullanılabilmektedir. ...
The game, which is one of the most basic entertainment elements in life, has become an indispensable part of daily life from the first age people to today's post-modern individuals. Nowadays, most people's need to play games has been transferred to the digital environment thanks to new media channels, and games have been transformed into a phenomenon cultural form. However, the fact that pure visuality is not sufficient for the target audience in game designs has led the designers to seek new applications in the context of visual design. Therefore, with motion graphics and illustrations in game design, designers have handled gamification and advergames, which are also used in many disciplines such as advertising and marketing, with different trends such as artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality. Therefore, the aim of this study is to focus on illustrative-based visual approaches or language developed in terms of graphic design by explaining gamification and advergames in the context of design and new media. Based on all this information, a wide literature review was made within the scope of the study and the data selected within the framework of purposeful sampling were analyzed with qualitative and descriptive methods, and the research article was concluded.
... The estimated global revenue of advertising in video games has risen from 2.83 billion U.S. dollars in 2015 to 4.09 billion U.S. dollars in 2020 (Statista Survey, 2020). Companies have even started producing their own games, so called advergames (Smith et al., 2014), to utilize cost-efficient viral marketing effects in their marketing campaigns (Lee & Youn, 2008). Most advergames are simple video games, which are free of charge, designed with the sole purpose of promoting brands and products to potential consumers (Sreejesh et al., 2018;Terlutter & Capella, 2013). ...
In advergames, marketers can place brands at multiple different locations. For example, brands can be placed as the main target that consumers search for, on a target, near a target, or separated from the target. So far, knowledge about the effects of such brand placement strategies is limited and current theoretical models do not sufficiently incorporate the attentional processes unique to search tasks. The objective of the present research is to take into account such search-specific attentional processes and to systematically test different brand placement strategies in an advergame. We argue that brand placement on a target or close to it induces inhibitory processes and impedes positive effects on brand preferences. In three experiments, we find consistently positive effects on brand preferences when a brand is placed as the main target of a search task in an advergame. In line with our assumption, we do not observe such effects when the brands are placed on the target or near a target. Our results advance current advertising theories and suggest that presenting a brand close to the focus of attention during search can have undesired consequences.
... With an estimated number of gamers around 2.7 billion, the gaming industry is reportedly generating $160 billions of annual revenue in 2020, with projected revenue surpassing $200 billion by 2023 (Wijman, 2020). The gamers are a valuable customer base since they tend to have more disposable income than those earning average wage (Smith et al., 2014). Global gaming tournaments such as Counter Strike: Global Offensive or League of Legends World Championship are testimony to the reach of digital games. ...
The digital gaming industry has grown tremendously in the past
decade. The vast potential of the gaming market combined with consumers’ defiance for traditional advertising calls for research focusing on finding the most effective ways to implement advertisements within digital games. Although research has studied factors such as advertisement format, gaming
experience, demographics, brand familiarity and advertising attitude in racing game, limited research has been performed in the genre of role-playing games (RPG), which accounts with a vast player base. This study investigates the influence of two key factors – prominence and congruity – on brand awareness and brand attitudes in the RPG context. Using brand placement in a
self-developed game, this study finds that passive and incongruent advertisements are associated with high brand recognition and brand recall in the RPG genre.
... The advertisements can be integrated into the game world, or it can be around the game, not being visible in the gameplay. An example of the former can be a vehicle in a game with a brand logo, and the latter could be an ad placed in the game menu (Smith et al., 2014). In some games such as sports games, players report an increased sense of realism in the game when it features ad placements (Nelson, 2002). ...
... The advertisements can be integrated into the game world, or it can be around the game, not being visible in the gameplay. An example of the former can be a vehicle in a game with a brand logo, and the latter could be an ad placed in the game menu (Smith et al., 2014). In some games such as sports games, players report an increased sense of realism in the game when it features ad placements (Nelson, 2002). ...
This thesis analyzes players’ purchasing behavior in online games, expanding on the theory of reasoned action (ToRA), focusing on how underlying player characteristics and attitudes towards different monetization tactics influence the intention to purchase virtual goods in online games. This thesis also examines how these relationships differ between players on different platforms: console, PC and mobile. To understand these relationships we constructed the model of online game purchase intention. The model was tested via structural equation modeling (SEM) with 1,272 players, surveyed through various online game forums. Our findings show that the extended ToRA model developed, clearly indicates that the measured constructs of attitude towards monetization tactics, game genre, prior purchasing experience and exposure to virtual goods contribute to understanding and predicting online game players' intention to purchase virtual goods. The findings show that different players experience social pressure differently and have contrasting attitudes towards virtual goods and monetization tactics. Publishers and developers can use these findings to better understand how to increase their online game players purchase intention. Furthermore, the thesis can serve as a pilot study constructing the baseline for future research.
