Originally published August 22 2005
Marketers targeting video games
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
As young American boys watch less television, advertisers that target that age group are jumping on the video game bandwagon. Studies are showing that game players are reacting favorably to in-game ads.
With young men--the group advertisers most lust after--watching less and less television, a growing number of marketers are turning to video games as a way to reach the lucrative demographic.
They're not the only ones jumping on the bandwagon.
As evidence mounts that game players are reacting favorably to in-game ads, publishers are also finding that the medium offers new ways to offset skyrocketing development costs.
Massive has built one of the largest ads in games networks, "not only in a reach and media perspective, but also in advertising dollars."
According to Davis, who delivered the conference keynote, the key to succeeding with in-game ads is making them unobtrusive, realistic and ensure that they don't interrupt game play.
"What we've seen in our research is that 90 percent of gamers like advertising in games," Davis said, "for the simple reason that it adds realism into the games."
While that statement might draw chuckles from some, such ad placement is exploding.
And that, according to Nielsen Media Research, is partly due to the fact that video games have drawn away 7 percent of 18- to 24-year-old males from television.
"Massive understands neither effective advertising nor games, and their principal goal is to make money by providing a deluded service to the deluded advertising industry," Bogost wrote in a column on Water Cooler Games, a Web site for game enthusiasts.
"Their plan is evil genius: provide a media buying infrastructure identical to that of broadcast and outdoor for an advertising industry in crisis over degrading television advertising...Nothing could be more destructive to the ad or the game."
"You're starting to see big advertisers pull money out of television," said Michael Goodman, a senior analyst at the Yankee Group.
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