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In-Game Ads: An Alternate View

February 09, 2007

Today's Blog is sponsored by Trojans: The first name in protection.

When I bring up the subject of in-game advertising to most gamers, I get an immediate negative reaction. And I don't blame 'em. It calls to mind the image of your daring sorcerer charging through the twisting streets of an ancient city, bathed in shadow, about to unload a fireball spell on a troupe of orcs when suddenly a life-size wall mural of the Burger King grabs your attention.

Of course, if you really start to talk it out, there are lots of cases where in-game advertising is something we can deal with. Most people don't have a problem with billboards of actual products in, say, a racing game.

Which brings us to Jay Cohen, Vice-President of U.S. publishing for Ubisoft. Speaking on Thursday at this week's DICE summit, he claimed that in-game advertising could make game publishers Rich! Famous! Even better at what they do! And he wasn't joking. Cohen goes so far as to see in-game advertising as a cure for some industry ailments. Seriously? It's worth hearing him out, at the very least to see how big-name publishers are looking at the topic.

Seriously Big Bucks

First up, Cohen took a look at the film industry. There, product placements and advertising deals generate $1.5 billion in revenue a year -- it's a pretty big slice of the pie. The James Bond property alone pulled in $70 million through advertising deals -- that's money the studio gets before the movie is even in theaters. Basically James Bond paid for itself before selling a single ticket. Cohen says it's about time games started moving into that action. "Out time has come," he says. "We're in vogue. Advertisers want in."

According to his numbers, last year in-game ads generated $56 million, and that's forecasted to double each year for the foreseeable future. His advice? "Take the money!" he cried out.

Rainbow Six: Vegas had some unusual product placement.

Not Just In-Game Billboards

Despite repeating "Take the money!" a couple of times, Cohen urged publishers in the audience to be smart about ad placements. He suggested that companies designate an owner to manage all the deals, and to think about them from the very beginning of the design process. Ad integration should be pitched during the pre-production.

He had a couple of examples to draw from. In the recent C.S.I. videogame, one of the clues was a wallet with a credit card that could be fingerprinted. Visa sponsored the game, and working their card into the gameplay was pretty simple -- it fit right into the experience and didn't distract gamers. It even added to the realism.

More recently, Axe Deodorant sponsored a hidden easter egg in Rainbow Six: Vegas. If players found a bottle of Axe sitting around the corner right off of Freemont Street and shot it, a little black-and-white video would start playing in the corner of their screen showing the Rainbow Six blooper reel. This got Ubisoft tons of press, Axe got some killer placement (everyone told their friends, "Go shoot the Axe bottle"), and gamers generally didn't complain. Cohen didn't say how much money the ad brought in ... but his tone implied that a truckload was involved.

The Axe example tied in with Cohen's next point: that in-game ads help make a game famous. The Axe cheat code got lots of free press. More importantly, ad sponsors want to back up their investment, so they'll help push your game -- a car company recently gave Ubisoft a couple of trucks to give away to gamers as part of a product placement deal, which helped get tons of press.

So Why Should You Care About These Guys Making Money?

Good question. Cohen suggests that in the long run this extra revenue can help the industry. Here's his reasoning: games are expensive to make, and with each generation the problem gets worse. That stifles creativity, because when games are so expensive, publishers like him don't want to take risks on unproven stuff. The result is store shelves full of sequels and gameplay re-hashes. But, the extra juice games can get from advertising will mitigate the costs. And assuming publishers channel that extra revenue into riskier titles or better game development (and don't just bonus it out to their executives), that means better games -- and more of a variety of games -- for everyone.

Personally I only half buy into that argument. More money into the games business is a good thing, sure. But when publishers start to depend on it they're going to steer toward greenlighting games that have more advertising potential, and away from really wild, fantastical, or counter-culture games. Right now people complain that Hollywood is too commercial; putting games into the same bucket is going to create the same problems. We can only hope that major game publishers are smart enough to spread their money around between projects that aren't so deal-friendly as well.

A Debate: Can In-Game Ads Actually Make Games Better?

Cohen's next point sounds far-fetched but it actually makes a lot of sense. Building dynamic advertising tracking software into games involves integrating a lot of technology that has side benefits. Developers will be able to track what people are seeing in the game, how fast they're completing it, what items they're using, etc. These statistics aren't just funneled back to advertisers to see how many views an ad got -- they can also be used by developers to improve the game.

Is everyone getting stuck on a boss fight? Maybe it's too hard, or maybe it just sucks. Is nobody playing a particular multiplayer level? Maybe it can be fixed and re-released as a download to see if the numbers pick up. Developers can use this data to improve your gaming experience.

Of course, this opened up a whole can of worms, at least between myself and Sluggo (GameSpy's PC editor.) Sluggo argued that people are going to freak if they hear that their gameplay stats are being piped back to some server somewhere, that companies can look at how people are playing the game. He doesn't think that hardcore gamers are going to stand for it.

But I don't think it's that big of a deal. It's happening all the time. For example, when I pick up a purple UberSword in Blizzard's World of Warcraft, I fully expect that somewhere Blizzard is tracking that. They know exactly how many people found the UberSword, what level they were, if they keep it or auction it, etc. That way they know if it's too powerful or too easy to get or worthless to players, and they can constantly tweak the game to balance it better. In fact, I'd go so far to say I don't just expect it -- I demand it! Blizzard would be stupid if they weren't looking at player use in order to tweak their game.

So the idea of developers of other games -- even single-player games that I'm playing with my Xbox Live connection on -- would look at and use this data doesn't bother me. In fact, I welcome it. You know, so long as they don't turn on the webcam to see what I'm wearing while I play. (For the record: Super Mario Boxer Shorts that say, 'I Scored with the Princess.' For reals.)

Your Turn: What do YOU think?

So now you got some insight into in-game advertising, at least how big publishers are looking at it. Do you feel any differently about it? Do you think developers should be able to look at your gameplay data? Do you think the industry is growing up or spiraling into a garish nightmare of NASCAR-like logo stickers, product placement, and commercial mediocrity? What do YOU think? Mail me your thoughts and I'll post some of the best here next week.

-Fargo

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