Virtual worlds: Ways of in-game advertising.

The video game industry is a multi-billion dollar business. No other sector has experienced the same explosive growth, one can not overestimate the enormous amount of money which is put in and made from that particular industry. More than half of all Americans (58%) play video games, the average US household owns at least one gaming device (PC, console, smartphone). Gaming is not just for guys anymore: 45% of all video gamers are female (Entertainment Software Association, 2013). With a total spending of 20.77 billion (!!!) dollars in 2012 this market has to be carefully taken care of.

From my experience there are three ways a company (or organization) can use video games to present advertising to audiences. The target audience of certain games are very specific in their interests (psychographics more than demographics): football simulations are played by a different audience than first person shooters or role-playing simulations.

#1: Use brands, their models and aura
The easiest and most subtile way of in-game advertising is branding. The use of Adidas-sportswear in Fifa13, suprisingly accurate (yet not branded) car-models in GTA 4 and very convincing and real-looking rifles in Battlefield 4 are very good examples for the power of brands in the developing process. Mostly developers ask brands for permission to use their models because they want their games to be more realistic.

Adidas in Fifa13

The "UBERMACHT"-SentinelXS in GTA 4

BMW M3 (real life)

Sometimes, video game developers want to profit from real-life brands without having the permission to use them. What they do is creating a similar brand because they don't want to to loose the effect of real brands.

Nuka-Cola vending machine in Fallout 3

#2: Direct advertising
Subliminal perception is the next big thing. And so is direct in-game advertising. You may not notice it consciously but it effects your behaviour more than you think.

#3: Games that train for the job
The public may not be aware of this yet, but computer games are predicting our skills in future jobs, at least according to the U.S. Army. It is not a secret that the military is looking for new recruits in the gaming world. The skills needed for sterning a drone are quite similar with the skills shown in first person shooters like Battlefield. Therefore the U.S. Army launched a free game called "America's Army" (download it here!) to simulate real-life war to (1) advertise their "cool" job and (2) to spot potential early, even before recruitment.

"America's Army"