Category: videogames

Defiance – A Transmedia opportunity that gives a new lease of life to in-game advertising

The in-game advertising industry has not had a happy few years. Back in 2002 when Massive Incorporated first brought us the ability to dynamically insert adverts into Xbox360 games the future looked bright and predictions at the time were that in-game advertising could reach over $1billion within a few years.

The future looked even rosier when Barack Obama’s campaign used In-game advertising to engage with the valuable youth audience. Pretty much every presentation by an “in-game” media owner used this example for the next 3 years to demonstrate the value of games in marketing.

But then it all went wrong. After Microsoft had paid “between approximately $200million and $400million (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_Incorporated) for Massive inc in 2006, they then shut the business down at the end of 2010. Add to that this year IGA and Double Fusion (other dynamic advertising offerings) shutting or severely cutting back their UK operations after Sony ended their contract with them and it felt like the market for dynamic in-game advertising was basically dead.

I’ve spent a while trying to figure out why this medium wasn’t successful and I think it comes down to one thing. Advertising revenues are a drop in the ocean for Games publishers compared to their main revenue direct from the £40 they get for selling each of the games. The last thing they felt they could do is risk the ire of their passionate fanbase by selling out to advertisers that might spoil the experience. Simply put the medium didn’t need advertising, so they priced themselves out of the market. On a cost per impact basis, dynamic in-game was some of the most expensive display advertising on any media.

However, that might be all about to change.

This week, Syfy channel announced they had started production on a new TV show “Defiance”. This is a show with a fascinating difference. It is being produced in conjunction with a new video game, also called “Defiance”. Now that might not seem like such big news – there are often videogame spin-offs of Movies and sometimes TV shows – and they are nearly always incredibly disappointing.

The difference here is that the game is a Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG – think “Call of Duty meets World of Warcraft”) and the narrative and universe will be intertwined with and mutuallyaffect that of the TV show. This means that the game will evolve dynamically as the story of the TV show progresses and vice versa.

The reason that this should work as a marketing vehicle for 3rd party brands is because this is being developed with brand partnerships in mind from the beginning.

Syfy understands the need to make its content commercially attractive and the financial success of the show will come down to whether or not brands buy into it.

This has led to two key actions

1) Syfy are inviting brands to get involved with the TV show early in the production process.

2) The TV show is a science fiction drama, but set in the near future, so modern day brands can play a sensible role in the narrative.

What is really exciting is that this is a truly transmedia project where the layers of the narrative are built up not only between multiple media channels, but where people can engage in different ways with the plot and actually have an effect on how it evolves.

As a multiplayer game, there is also a very natural social element to the game which will ensure a huge amount of online buzz as new gameplay element get revealed in the context of the TV show.

This Project represents incredibly exciting opportunities for brands to build awareness, relevance and engagement with a highly social affluent young male audience – all in one vehicle. This could be the way that games finally find a financially viable way to incorporate paid for advertising without alienating their players.

I for one hope that it is.

Reach for the Sky


So Halo Reach came out today at midnight – the final episode in the Halo Franchise to be made by Bungie (the original game’s creators). Now (a) I’m pretty sure I’ve heard that before – about 3 times since Halo 3 was launched and (b) Microsoft will be still making Halo games, so fans of the series don’t have to stress too much, but nonetheless, this is a pretty huge game launch and by all accounts the game lives up to the hype.

The hype has been pretty standard fare, lots of online trailers and screenshots in the gaming press and websites, the trailer hit TV about 2-3 weeks ago (in the UK at least) and they’ve had the now obligatory midnight launch with people queueing around the block to be one of the first to own it. It’s a marketing strategy that I would have written as fast as you could say “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2”

This piece of publicity however was a bit different. This Halo game is supposed to be great but essentially the same as all the other Halo games, so they are making a big deal out of the fact that the Spartan soldiers now have JETPACKS!! Yes you heard me correctly JET….. PACKS…… The only thing cooler than games about futuristic 7 foot tall space warriors to a teenage boy is a game about a futuristic 7 foot tall space warrior that wears a fricking jet pack. Frankly I don’t know what took them so long.

The one thing that every kid wants is a jet pack – well actually we just wanted to be able to fly, but when we realised that we weren’t going to magically develop superpowers a jet pack was the next best thing. Even though (and maybe because) they are a basically pointless and incredibly hazardous form of transport, we want them. And just because I’m now 33 doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t sell my grandmother into slavery to get one (a bargain frankly).

So this stunt in Trafalgar square was the perfect stunt to launch the game

A great idea for a stunt until you realise 2 things

1) Westminster Council aren’t going to be overly happy about you launching a highly dangerous jetpack into the busiest square in London – so if they give permission it will be for you to have a 7 am launch

2) If you do it at 7am about 3 people will actually see it.

Oh well, maybe 3 more people will see it now if they read my blog.

I still want one. And I’m buying Halo: Reach tonight! Not sure I’ll bother with the “Legendary Edition” though

Reasons why videogames are always going to struggle as an advertising medium

I just stumbled upon this brilliant blog piece by Michael Drucker Why Your Loved Ones Hate Videogames and I realised that nearly all of his reasons why my wife/mum/boss doesn’t understand why I play videogames are the exact same reasons that most of my colleagues/clients will struggle to understand how to use it as an advertising medium

Please do read the original article if you are a gamer – it will help you understand the attitude of your partner. In this piece however I want to examine these reasons and what they mean for clients/colleagues and how we can help present gaming as a medium they can understand

Reason 1: The Media

If you are not a gamer then the majority of your opinion on gaming is formed by the media, and the media need newsworthy dramatic stories. If you look in the right places then gaming can provide that in spades. Look at Manhunt – a game about making Snuff movies, or Grand Theft Auto – a game about running over prostitutes isn’t it? And didn’t those kids somewhere in America go on a rampage after playing Call of Duty? These things do exist, and they make for sensationalist news stories and you never hear the other side of the story, so it is natural to believe that gaming is all about that, just like Daily Mail readers believe that all Asylum seekers are bogus job stealers and every Big Issue seller makes £3000 a month.

Understandably, clients don’t want to associate themselves those kind of themes and those kind of news stories and so their natural instinct is to reject the idea of advertising in games.

What can we do about this?

In an ideal world we’d find a way to get our media to run positive news stories about gaming, but truly newsworthy positive news-stories about games are no more common than the equivalent story about TV programmes or the positive power of radio on people’s lives. The simple fact is that most gaming is just good entertainment and there’s not much news in that. One possible approach is to find a celebrity angle – Nintendo have created an entire marketing campaign around the idea that Ant and Dec, Nicole Kidman and all of Girls Allowed all happily play Wii together. The problem here is (a) people don’t think of Nintendo Wii when they think of gaming and (b) those ads are so nauseatingly fake that not even your gran believes it.

What we actually need is more real quotes from normal, well adjusted role models talking about their love of Guitar Hero or Splinter Cell. Those people are definitely out there, we just need to get them to admit it. If you find a quote or a story, capture it, compile it and send it to your clients. Eventually they will get the point.

Reason 2: Games are about killing people.

This point is obviously related to Reason 1, but as an advocate of gaming we have to be honest with ourselves. There are an awful lot of games that involve significant amounts of violence. “First Person Shooters” ” Hack and Slash” “Beat ’em ups” are just a few of the most popular genres of videogame that focus on violence. Non-gamers therefore think that people who enjoy such games must harbour some deep seated desire to enact those murderous activities for themselves – and to be honest, when you hear some of the kids on xbox live I sometimes wonder myself.

Michael Drucker (the inspiration for this piece) makes two strong analogies. When a gamer “shoots” another gamer or computer controlled character it is like playing “tag”. It is about testing your skills and reactions against those of another player. Kids in a playground don’t wish that the other kids died when they tagged them and neither do Call of Duty afficionados. To a gamer this is obvious, but to someone who hasn’t played these games then you can understand their discomfort at seeing people re-enact episodes of extreme violence.

What can we do about it?

We need to demonstrate the wide range of motivations that people have for playing games which include

Competitiveness
Structure for success
Expressing Individuality/Creativity
Buzz – Adrenalin
Relaxation
Escape
Entertainment
Exploration/discovery
Social currency

These motivations are incredibly useful for many of our clients brand campaigns and something we would want to harness. If we can demonstrate that these motivations are central to videogaming and that it is not just about killing people then we will be a long way towards getting mainstream acceptance for the medium.

Reason 3: Games are for kids

a) Yes some games are for kids – see Mario, Sonic, Wii Sports etc
b) Some games really are not for kids and if parents are letting them play them they are bad parents – see Gears of War, GTA IV, Bioshock, Limbo etc.
c) Sometimes grown ups play the games that are meant for kids, just like grown-ups enjoy watching anything by Pixar – because they are just great and have been created by visionaries

The fact is that games are no more “just for kids” than TV is just for grown-ups. The medium is incredibly diverse with an audience to match. Just like we wouldn’t recommend advertising beer in Ben10, so you probably don’t want to advertise Cheesestrings in Medal of Honour 12.

What can we do?

Firstly we need to be vigilant in recommending the right vehicle for the right product. If you mismatch the audience for the product you are trying to sell and the audience for the game then you won’t generate the response you are looking for and your client will consider the campaign a failure.

Secondly we need to keep rolling out the ever increasing number of statistics that show the rapid growth of videogames amongst non-traditional audiences. Farmville is played by your mum, Angry Birds is played by everyone.

Reason 4: Games are complicated to play.

I’m stealing directly from Michael here

This is how gamers see game controllers

This is how your clients see game controllers

A gamer finds interacting with a gaming world to be second nature. They are usually able to play a brand new game within seconds of picking it up – usually without even looking at instructions. In this mental state they have plenty of time to immerse themselves in the gaming world and enjoy everything that they are seeing and anything that is new. If a non-gamer however spends all their time trying to remember which button to press to stop looking at their toes or is struggling to drive in a straight line, then they can’t possibly appreciate what else is going on in the game and so the idea of absorbing an advertising message seems ridiculous to them.

What can we do?

This is the hard one. How do you explain to someone what the mental state of a gamer is to someone who has no hope of ever entering that state themselves? The closest that I can come is to compare it to something like driving. To a non-driver the idea of controlling pedals, gear sticks, steering wheels, indicators at the same time as orienting yourself with 3 different mirrors seems incredible, but to the experienced driver it is so natural that they can move between cars with virtually no trouble whatsoever. We don’t express surprise that drivers can notice road-side advertising whilst they are driving or that they can listen to and enjoy the radio, so we just need to persuade our clients that playing games is just like this.

Video Games are not about making friends, they are all about WINNING

Just saw this TV-ad for new racing game “Blur” and it made me realise how few ads for video games are actually anything more than a glossy gameplay trailer.

This ad on the other hand seems to stem from genuine consumer insight and introduces a post-modern approach to game advertising.

They demonstrate an insight that there are plenty of grown up gamers out there who don’t want to be treated like children, but who do want their gameplay to be a whole heap of fun. This ad basically says – “here’s a game that you won’t look like a kid for playing, but will allow you to indulge your inner boy with big boy’s toys.” This is the kind of game that Dad will buy for his kid, but take great pleasure in beating him at it.

The line “Shut it Pinky” is so unexpected and funny and flies in the face of conventional wisdom that gaming these days is all about socialising and watering each other’s crops. Racing (and gaming) is not about making friends, it is about WINNING. The benefits of meeting people online that you can play against is not to increase your social circle, but to find NEW PEOPLE TO BEAT!

For a long time, videogames have emulated movie release in their approach to media and advertising. The central strand of any campaign for a big budget title will be a 30″ TV trailer which is a combination of in-game action and pre-rendered cut scenes designed to give a feel of the action/story. This campaign has basically shown up all that advertising for the unimaginative crap that it is.

Red Dead Redemption – my new favourite game and my new favourite marketing effort

OK, so I just bought Red Dead Redemption, and it is truly brilliant. I wasn’t a massive fan of GTA 4 as I felt it has lost something since the early days of the GTA series, but this latest opus by Rockstar is truly breathtaking. It manages to create a hugely atmospheric and powerfully evocative world in the middle of a desert. They manage to make a bleak environment  vibrant and full of life and it just begs to be explored.

I could spend hours talking about the game, but that’s not what I wanted to mention right now. Instead I’m going to talk about a great piece of marketing that I came across.

In an effort to highlight the authenticity of the game and also to re-invigorate people’s passion for the era, Rockstar have done a deal with LoveFilm where they are sponsoring the free streaming of the full version of “The Proposition” – an Australian “western” that they say was one of their key inspirations see here

This is a true media partnership though because there is genuinely mutual benefit for all 3 parties – Rockstar, the consumer and LoveFilm. Rockstar gets an opportunity to showcase the beauty and atmosphere of the game and generate desire amongst it’s fanbase for a “western” game. The Consumer gets to watch a really great film for free and LoveFilm gets to promote its streaming service as well as having the opportunity to upsell consumer to either buy the blu-ray or signup to their rental service.

The appeal of this offer is highlighted by the fact that it is already doing really well on stumbleupon and so is generating a strong viral impact. As far as I am concerned this is a perfect example of a brand partnership – low cost,hugely relevant, high benefit to the consumer, maximum conversion to sales – brilliant.