Business & Games: The Blog

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Continue reading "XBox Island a Future Gateway?" »

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Continue reading "Burger King Sells 2 Million Game Copies in 4 Weeks" »

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A few months ago, Burger King was considering doing some Xbox games and eventually confirmed the decision. November saw the launch of three titles, titles which apparently only sold until the 24th of December.

Continue reading "Burger King on the Xbox" »

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• Jeff Brown, an EA spokesman, said the Redwood City, Calif., company, the world's largest games publisher by sales, estimates it will bring in between $4 million and $5 million in advertising revenue during the holiday quarter from Need for Speed: Carbon, a version of the game that EA began selling earlier this month.

• Just under half of Need for Speed: Carbon's advertising revenue will come from "dynamic" advertisements, which are regularly transmitted over the Internet and inserted into the action of the game, a source of revenue that hasn't existed in previous EA games.

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“Nivea Does Video Game Tie-In with ‘Splinter Cell’” October 16, Enid Burns, ClickZ. The game is brand new, so no good screenshots yet. Quotes from the article:

“Nivea’s first foray into in-game product placement injects its products into the covert world of Sam Fisher, the spy in UbiSoft’s “Splinter Cell: Double Agent.” The media buy includes product integration, static and dynamic placements, plus out-of-game ads. The marketing program features products from both Nivea and its partner in shaving, Philips Norelco, in a game space hotel bathroom. Beiersdorf agency RDA International conceived the creative to integrate with the game’s themes.

The in-game media buy […] extends across online and offline channels. Nivea created a microsite, thegoodside.com to which all ads in the game and the Internet link. It offers information on Nivea products; Philips Norelco products using Nivea creams[.]

Offline tie-ins include inserts in each retail box of the game which hypes the sweepstakes. The company also bought a print ad in the game’s strategy guide published by Prima. The creative features a bottle of after shave made to look like a hand grenade with the message ‘Balms away.’”

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“In-Game Ads Burrow Deeper,” John Gaudiosi, Wired News, October 5, 2006

“Anyone who buys Electronic Arts’ NBA Live 07 game on Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 (when that console is released in November) will be able to unlock a host of new items and features in the game from Adidas Basketball.

“In addition to the over 100 Adidas-specific elements hidden in the next-generation game, to be unlocked over time through simple codes distributed through retail, online and real-world NBA events like the All-Star Weekend and NBA Finals, Adidas will provide single-use unique codes that message its new marketing slogan, “It Takes 5IVE.”

Continue reading "Wired on Adidas’s Partnership with EA in NBA Live 07" »

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image credits: Kotaku

Kotaku says the long-rumored Burger King games for Xbox will “sell $4 with the purchase of a value meal and will be on sale from Nov. 19 through Dec. 24.” The titles are Pocketbike Racer, Big Bumpin, and Sneak King. Some screenshots here.

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Developers have been promoting their products through in-game billboards since at least mid-1980s, but ArsTechnica writes about an entirely new twist:

“In Dungeon Siege 2: Broken World, our forum goer Scero found an NPC [non-playing character] that told him about the Dungeon Siege PSP game and offered him a code for it, as well as saying the PSP game had a code for items in the game he was playing.”

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image: IGN.com

Ford is preparing a big-budget full-length racing advergame featuring a model line-up ranging from “1968 Mustang GT to the 1973 Escort RS2000 to the hot-off-the-assembly line 2007 Shelby GT500″. “Bold Moves” is Ford’s current campaign slogan.

“One of the features in the “Street Racing” title that’s certainly a bold move for Ford is the decision to allow its cars to show damage as drivers ding them up on the road. Damage will also affect the cars’ performance. The issue has been a pain point for game developers and publishers licensing real-world autos for racing titles.”

– Enid Burns, “Ford Vehicles Featured in New Console Game“, ClickZ.com, Aug.11, 2006.

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Study by comScore, press release, May 16, 2006. Also in Marketing Vox. Verbatim highlights from press release:

The Players research found that 25% of Gamers are Heavy Gamers, playing 16 or more hours per week across any gaming platform, or playing 11 hours or more per week and playing on two or more platforms.

Light/Medium Gamers — those that play less than 16 hours per week on one platform — represent 75 percent of Gamers.

Continue reading "Data: Gamers Not Averse to In-Game Ads" »

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“UnWired Brings Erotic Games, Product Placement to PSP“, Todd Lewis, 2005-11-17, AVN Online.

“Mobile content and delivery specialist UnWired is developing a series of downloadable erotic games for Sony’s PlayStation Portable. The products will feature adult stars, and the company hopes to delve further into adult product placement vehicles in the future.

These games will be innovative in the sense that if the gamer plays online using the Wi-Fi capability of the machine, he will be able to see advertising on billboards, clips on a TV screen, read magazine articles, and see a different logo on a character’s T-shirt throughout the game. He can automatically get directed into any predefined website through the game. These parts will be dynamically updated in the game itself while the user is playing.”

- Screenshots (not safe for work)
- Write-up on Fleshbot

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Image: Kotaku.com

“Burger King To Sell Xbox 360 Games?” Kotaku.com, April 10, 2006:

“Hamburger flipper Burger King is considering a promotion that offers 3 exclusive BK-branded games. Each would feature their own characters (in this case, the actual Burger King) in “popular” genres (fighting, action and racing). The action game is apparently similar to Halo, while the fighter combines Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. Just tack on a “with hamburgers,” and you get the drift.”

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John “JCal” Callaham, “IGA Worldwide Interview“, March 13, 2006

Quotes by IGA’s CEO Justin Townsend:

• However, with the introduction of the IGA WW proprietary ad serving network, Radial, we enable advertisers to target millions of engaged consumers across a wide range of platforms and game genres whilst they play.
• As we have stated above, ad brands need to follow consumers – as an example, the best selling game of 2004, NFL Madden, generated some 400 million eyeball hours, whilst the best selling TV program of 2004, The Sopranos, generated some 160 million eyeball hours. More recently, Halo 2 is reported to have clocked over 600m hours of online play via Xbox Live.
• The process of integrating the SDK is minimal, taking roughly 15 man hours. […] Contrary to popular belief, its not preferable to have hundreds of billboards pasted over every surface! Not only does that become intrusive to the game, its also less effective for the advertiser. Effectively what we are doing is replicating where you would expect to see adverts in real life and replicating that, with some optimization for the way different games are played and different environments are negotiated.
• We already have a fully operational network serving over 600,000 unique gamers a month.
• We are already working on some major technological innovations, such as in snowboarding game Stoked Rider where we are dynamically interchanging geometric branded objects […]

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The following refers to the console version of Activition’s True Crime: New York City released in fall 2005.

Times Square:

Most of the billboards in this version of Times Square are fake, but check out the noodle cup at the top center and the beer billboard under it.

Continue reading "Case: Brand Integration in True Crime: NYC" »

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image: IGN. A screenshot from the upcoming Test Drive Unlimited for Xbox 360.

Eric Pfanner, “On Advertising: Getting in the Game.” International Herald Tribune, March 6, 2006:

“In “Test Drive Unlimited,” a new video game from Atari, players will get to choose their virtual wheels from a selection that includes Lamborghini, Ferrari and Mercedes. And, unusually for a genre in which car crashes generally count for more than fashion splashes, gamers will also be able to select their on-screen drivers’ wardrobes.”

Continue reading "Scratchpad: Ben Sherman in Test Drive Unlimited" »

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Tom Loftus, “We interrupt this fantasy…“, MSNBC, Aug.25 2004.

Highlights (verbatim):

• Product placement in the stealth title “Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow” takes a more active role: Success is contingent on agent Sam Fisher mastering an Sony Ericsson P900 smart phone
• Who could ever imagine video games pushing real-world fashion? More importantly, by partnering with a brand associated with urban cool, “True Crime” earned a street credibility it wouldn’t have received if Kang was outfitted in say, Old Navy.

Continue reading "Scratchpad: “We Interrupt This Fantasy…”" »

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Csven points at Next Generation that says that the new “Open for Business” expansion pack for EA’s Sims 2 will include a Depeche Mode’s “Suffer Well” song translated into Simlish.

Update (March 9, 2006): The video is now on YourTube (link1, link2, via Adverlab). One YourTube caption says the song was re-sung by Dave Gahan and is featured in the new expansion pack.

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Although Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas does not feature any brands or advertising for real world products (they do pay tribute to a few commercial locations), the highly detailed and “intergrated” campaigns for fictional brands are a source of insights in how to market real products in games. One such brand is the soft drink Sprunk, which is most likely an apparent parody (tribute?) of Coca-Cola’s Sprite (see the packshot below).

Continue reading "Case: Fictional and Proxy Brands: Sprunk" »

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“Spam Alert: Fight Night 3 PSP Costs Privacy“, Kotaku, Feb, 19, 2006
“Pay to Play Fight Night 3 Online: The Details“, Kotaku, Feb, 19, 2006

EA’s Fight Night Round 3 game for PSP requires players to register with their email addresses and allow ESPN to send marketing materials or pay $2 to access the game’s online mode.

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L.A. Rush is an urban racing game by Midway. In June 2005, the company entered into partnership with MTV Games. Adrenaline Vault reported:

Continue reading "Game: L.A. Rush by Midway" »

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“In March, 2006, 2K Sports will launch College Hoops 2K6, the first game to offer online play that mirrors the actual top teams at the NCAA college basketball championships popularly nicknamed “March Madness.” General Motors largely underwrote the game’s development, but rather than feature unnatural appearances of cars within the storyline, the designers created sponsor screens like this one. The screens reflect brand tie-ins at most sports events (think of the Nokia Sugar Bowl in college football, for instance) and branded score reports during TV coverage.”

Slide show for Reena Jana, Business Week, Jan.25, 2006, “Is That a Video Game — or an Ad?“

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This article is related to the recommendation for any advertising messages to stay in-character: “When gaming online with Xbox Live (XBL) or with a PC/Mac it’s important to choose the correct “voice” when talking with the online community within your genre.” The article looks at how game genres influence players’ choice of language.

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Darkened Skye, published by Simon & Schuster in November 2002, developed by Boston Animation.

Gamespot: “The core concept behind Darkened Skye, a fairly straightforward fantasy action adventure game, is probably one of the most peculiar in a while. The game was originally intended as a vehicle for the Skittles line of candies, and more specifically, as an extension of the Skittles commercials where Skittles-loaded rainbows would bring life and color to otherwise drab fantasy settings.”

Continue reading "Illustration: Mars’s Skittles in Darkened Skye" »

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