Links For The Day
I temporarily lost access to my rss reader (read: I'm an idiot) so I had to find news the old way, like our ancestors did a few hundred years ago: I read a bunch of blogs and whatnot.
On this blog we bring together the latest insights in the cross-over of business and gaming - from gamevertising to businessgames.
To find out more about Futurelab: Click here
Authors
Blogs we read
- Avant Game
- Serious Games Source
- Game Research
- Advertising Lab
- Raph’s Website
- Henry Jenkins
- the-inbetween.com
- Joystick101
- GameSetWatch
- Kotaku
- Marketing & Strategy Innovation Blog
- Business Communicators of Second Life
- Destructoid
- Adverblog
- We the Sheeple
- The Daedalus Project
- GamePolitics.com
- Future-Making Serious Games
- Serious Games Portal
- Darren Herman
- Water Cooler Games
- Clickable Culture
- reBang
- Terra Nova
- SLOG
- 3pointD
- ARGNet
- iViNNie
July 25, 2007
May 11, 2007
News, Links, Stories
Much to my chagrin, I again find myself in the mindset where anything beyond a small listing of links just won't tick right.
So here we go again. First off, you might've noticed that people started blogging about the latest panic wave that hit Second Life. It took a large portion of my will to refrain from making any comments of any nature, but here's a good observation from csven, picked up from the comments on this post:
May 4, 2007
In Other News
Having been somewhat busy lately, I couldn't find the time for more than briefly scanning my feeds list. Like a good news monkey however, I do have to share those links that caught the eye.
April 24, 2007
Contextual Advertising in Second Life
Billboards that listen to the conversations of people in their vicinity and displaying all the ads that fit to show, now in Second Life:
"A ContextAds board listens to the conversations of those avatars around it, displaying advertisements when certain keywords are mentioned. Advertisers can bid on keywords, with their account only being charged when their ads are actually shown. Avatars can click on advertisements of interest to them, and can be offered a website, or a teleport to an in-world location."
"A ContextAds board listens to the conversations of those avatars around it, displaying advertisements when certain keywords are mentioned. Advertisers can bid on keywords, with their account only being charged when their ads are actually shown. Avatars can click on advertisements of interest to them, and can be offered a website, or a teleport to an in-world location."
April 18, 2007
Study: In-Game Ad Spend $295M This Year
More datapoints from the eMarketer study: "eMarketer projects that $295 million of the 2007 total will be spent on in-game advertising and that spending on advergaming (the creation of games for the purpose of promoting a brand) will reach $207 million. By 2011, the balance between the two will have shifted significantly. US spending on advergaming will climb to $344 million in 2011, but US spending on in-game advertising will climb faster, reaching a total of $625 million that year."
-- press release
Original post: http://adverlab.blogspot.com/2007/04/study-in-game-ad-spend-295m-this-year.html
April 13, 2007
Game Promo Uses Camera, "Ghosted" Film
It's one of those campaigns I wish I'd thought of first: a promo for a PlayStation 2 game "Forbidden Siren 2" last year in Germany during a game con. They have created branded snapshot cameras loaded with ghosts on a pre-exposed film that appeared on the printed pictures given away to visitors. More pictures at I Believe in Advertising (and so do I).
Original post: http://adverlab.blogspot.com/2007/04/psp-promo-uses-camera-ghosted-film.html
April 10, 2007
Serious Games Are Getting Down To Business
Via: eMarketer.com
The practice of using video games as an advertising vehicle is as old as the games industry itself. Early Sega racing games for the Atari 2600 console featured Marlboro display ads on the raceway, and high-profile early-'90s titles such as Zool and the FIFA International series contained ads for Chupa Chups and Adidas, respectively.
Continue reading "Serious Games Are Getting Down To Business" »
April 6, 2007
eMarketer: Video Games Are Getting Down To Business
eMarketer.com reports:
"In-game advertising will evolve in scope and sophistication, offering new platforms for marketers, new business opportunities for technology providers and vital revenue for game developers, who have struggled with the escalating production costs of increasingly complex games," says eMarketer Senior Analyst Paul Verna, the author of the new Video Game Advertising: Getting to the Next Level report. "eMarketer estimates that over the next five years video game advertising will grow at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 23%, reaching nearly $2 billion by 2011."
Continue reading "eMarketer: Video Games Are Getting Down To Business" »
April 5, 2007
Book: In-Game Advertising & Advergaming
This book came out in January, and I just spotted it on Amazon. Advergaming and In-Game Advertising: An Approach to the next Generation of Advertising. Not cheap, at $76. Couldn't find anything either on the book or the author. Am very curious.
Original post: http://adverlab.blogspot.com/2007/04/book-in-game-advertising-advergaming.html
April 3, 2007
Ian Bogost on Value of In-Game Ads
Ian Bogost (game designer and researcher, bio, blog) wrote a Gamasutra feature where he talks about the cultural meanings of the branded tokens in the latest Monopoly: Here & Now edition and what lessons can be extracted by video game designers:
March 29, 2007
Google Files Patent for Targeting In-Game Ads
US Patent Application 20070072676: "Information about a person's interests and gaming behavior may be determined by monitoring their online gaming activities (and perhaps making inferences from such activities). Such information may be used to improve ad targeting. For example, such information may used to target ads to be rendered in a video game being played by the person."
-- via WebProNews
Original post: http://adverlab.blogspot.com/2007/03/google-files-patent-for-targeting-in.html
List of Brands in Second Life
nspired by KZero's map of brand presence in Second Life, I thought about compiling a more usable list with SL URLs and everything, but then I found a fairly complete one over at SL Business Communicators wiki. Instead, I flew around the world and took a few snapshots of islands I hadn't seen before.
March 28, 2007
Ad Pubs Bearish on Second Life
Two sister VNU publications Brandweek and Adweek are running the same article today under two similar headlines: Are Marketers Dying on Second Life? (the former) and Second Life Loses Luster. It's mostly a follow-up with the author of the Komjuniti study about second lifers not being all happy with how RL brands present themselves.
March 26, 2007
9dragons, Part I: 5wastedhours
Some time ago, this blog (among many others), announced Acclaim's intentions of producing MMOs that'll be free of charge and supported by ads. While my heart didn't exactly start racing and I Wasn' imagining myself a future of nectar and ambrosia, where one can find a host of great MMOs to get addicted to for free, just at the cost of having to see an ad or two, I did make some notes about it.
March 25, 2007
Study: Second Lifers Unhappy with Brands
Press release: "In a survey of 200 participants conducted by the agency Komjuniti, Second Life users (“avatars”) were questioned about their perceptions, their satisfaction with the products on offer and the brand content in the online community.
Continue reading " Study: Second Lifers Unhappy with Brands" »
March 16, 2007
March 13, 2007
Mobile Gamevertising
SAN FRANCISCO – March 13, 2007 – Exit Games, the leading global provider of connected mobile entertainment software and related services for game developers and publishers, today announced a partnership with Amobee Media Systems to help operators and game publishers realize additional revenue streams from in-game advertising. As part of the agreement, the two companies will collaborate to serve contextual and targeted opt-in advertising impressions for mobile phone games running on Java and BREW handsets.
March 7, 2007
Youtube: Gamevertising I
This is an oldish video (cca last year) and while the second part doesn't have much relevance now, the first half is a nice presentation of how and where advertising can be placed in games. Enjoy.
February 28, 2007
Data Mining
As those of you who read The Escapist know by now, they ran an article on Data Mining and advergaming targetting children (with the prominent example being Neopets). It raises all sorts of good points, such as IP debates hardly touching the field and shifty disclaimers (that no one reads anyway, as we all know). Read it here.
February 21, 2007
Hrmm?
Advergaming. A concept that, even without overworking the imagination, can work for mostly anything. Burgers? Advergame! Cars? Sure! Beer? Naturally. This considered, I always approached Advergaming cautiously, careful which path I took through the jungle. Because you never know when something like this might spring up in your face. Yes, it's only natural that magazines would use the resource and it's not exactly a new thing. But somehow, there's something rather disturbing about the thought that, after reading a Teen magazine, someone would also hit its website and play the games there. Why? Back in my day...
Eh..if you do read such magazines and actually try any of their games, email me?
February 17, 2007
Indian Advergaming
Found this article that breaks away from the US/EU zone and gives some info on the advent of advergaming into the Indian gaming market.
Google to buy Adscape
As reported by TechCrunch, Google is moving into the field by buying AdScape, the other other other premiere ingame advertising company. Stay tuned.
February 14, 2007
More V-Lodge here
January 29, 2007
Second Life Shorts, Set 2
image: moomoney via Giff Constable
A number of interesting Second Life developments happening all at once:
Reverse Product Placement in Games
BrandWeek has a follow-up on David Edery's HRB piece on reverse product placement in games (see David's earlier post on the topic, my old post on the fictional brand Sprunk in Grand Theft Auto, and a summary of the HBR article in Gamasutra). What's reverse product placement (I call it "proxy branding") ? BrandWeek writes: "While traditional product placement refers to integrating a real brand into a fictional environment, an idea that's gaining traction is to create a fictional brand in a fictional environment and then release it into the real world."
January 26, 2007
NASCAR Gets 3-D
NY Times On Ads In Games
New York Times has a good story on ads in games, focused on the well known Big Fish Games and PopCap Games. Read it here.
January 23, 2007
Gamevertising News
As you might have figured out, my "In The News" posts are anything but a grand collection of fresh and useful information which might interest a larger audience. These news are highly personalized (ie: I only post stuff that I find interesting) and sometimes I just can't be bothered to link to stuff 500 big gaming websites already reported. For today though, I'll try my hand at a more coherent summary and attempt to build a short list of gamevertising information.
January 22, 2007
Early Edition
Opening my feed reader today, I ran into an article that, for a few moments, made me wonder if I didn't land in a show like Early Edition. Blimey, even the cat's a tabby, it all makes sense!
Marketplace for In-Game Ads
"V-Lodge is aiming to create the marketplace of choice for in-game advertising. The market is still undeveloped, but a novel aspect of the V-Lodge model calls for creating relationships between game developers with companies seeking product placement in video games." (press release)
-- thanks, John
Original post: http://adverlab.blogspot.com/2007/01/marketplace-for-in-game-ads.html
-- thanks, John
Original post: http://adverlab.blogspot.com/2007/01/marketplace-for-in-game-ads.html
Google Could Buy In-Game Ads Firm
CNN: "Google is in talks to acquire Adscape Media in a move to expand beyond its traditional Internet search advertising business and into video games, a news report said Saturday. The Wall Street Journal [sub.], citing people familiar with the matter, reported on its Web site that Google [the] closely held San Francisco firm whose technology allows for the placement of ads over the Web in video games. A deal could be reached as early as next week, the report said.
Study: Brands in Virtual Laguna Beach
"MTV's 4-month-old virtual world has been testing advertiser integrations with Cingular, Pepsi and Procter & Gamble's Secret. So far, according to MTV, 350,000 registered users are spending an average of 36 minutes on each visit."
January 18, 2007
No Ads On My Battery!
Found an article on in-game advertising over on 411mania.com.
January 15, 2007
SL Screens: Sears, Circuit City
As announced earlier, Sears got itself some Second Life presence on IBM's island. Right next to it is a Circuit City building (press release). Unlike many other corporate builds, these ones offer a degree of interactivity. Both solicit visitor feedback that can by simply typed into the chat line. Like Dell, Sears allows to place orders for certain items through its website, which opens in a separate browser window.