November 17, 2009
Good Times at National Gaming Day
National Gaming Day at the Undergraduate Library was a success. Our crack Super Smash Bros. Brawl Team was narrowly defeated in the first round of the National Tournament. But that did not dampen the mood at the event that ran from 1:00pm - 5:00pm on Saturday November, 14. Many attended an Animation and Graphic Design workshop led by Brandon Smith, a graphics programmer for the Energy Bioscience Institute at the University of Illinois. Other opted to play a variety of games on consoles ranging from the XBox 360 to the Sega Genesis. All and all, it was a great showcase of the of many aspects of the Undergraduate Library Gaming Collection and showed the role games and gaming can play in the campus community.
If you didn't get a chance to attend, Joshua Beckman's Animation and Graphic Design workshop was recorded and is available at: http://www.library.illinois.edu/gaming/events.html.
Pictures by Joshua Beckman of the Daily Illini can be found here:
http://www.dailyillini.com/multimedia/photo/students-observe-national-gaming-day#http://www.dailyillini.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/630_wide//sites/default/files/imce/articles/photo/2009/November/1116/Gaming%20Slideshow/Winner_NationalGamingDay_01.jpg
Posted by undergrad at 3:04 PM | TrackBack
November 4, 2009
Video games or Interactive Commercials? In-Game Advertising
The new Hyundai Genesis Coupe will be featured in the new "Forza Motorsports 3" as downloadable content (DLC) as Microsoft and Hyundai have announced a promotional partnership.
The advertising and promotion of real life products in video games is becoming a common industry trend. With bands like Metallica and Oasis, promoting new albums by releasing them as DLC for games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero or the Obama Campaign buying ad space in Madden, consumers might find it more difficult to draw the line between new game content and swag.
What does this all mean?
For one, marketing companies are paying more and more attention to video games. In 2006 the Nielsen Company, a leader in media marketing, announced the creation of GamePlay Metrics, a video game rating service for marketing companies.
Gaming companies are not shying away from this ever increasing revenue stream. Screen Digest, a media industry analyst company based in London, believes the in game advertising market will hit $1 billion by 2014
It appears that gamers don't seem to mind the new emphasis on promotion. A Nielsen study shows that 82% of gamers surveyed did not mind ads in video games and there was a 61% increase in favorable opinions of products advertised in games. Video games offer marketing companies new ways to dynamically target certain audiences with their ads.
So for the next car you buy, be sure to download it to your PS3 first.
Neat Links on In-Game Advertising (IGA):
More on the Microsoft-Hyundai Partnership
http://forzamotorsport.net/en-us/_templates/NewsDetail.aspx?id=2901
Really cool article on the IGA Industry:
http://www.adweekmedia.com/aw/content_display/custom-reports/gaming/e3i2fb2f531735004814b71a7476b8a32ac
Article on Obama Ads in Games:
http://adage.com/digitalnext/article?article_id=131675
Gama Sutra Entry on Nielsen GamePlay Metrics:
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=11307
Screen Digest forcast of IGA Industry:
http://www.screendigest.com/press/releases/pr_26_05_2009/view.html
Microsoft Advertising Community blog posting on IGA by JJ Richards:
http://community.microsoftadvertising.com/blogs/analytics/archive/2009/10/05/in-game-advertising-facts-are-stubborn-things.aspx
