Advergaming - Essay free essay sample

Chex Quest was the first CD-ROM advergame bundled for free with boxes of Chex cereal in 1996. Examples of ATL advergames include promotional software. In employing ATL advergaming, a company typically provides interactive games on its website in the hope that potential customers will be drawn to the game and spend more time on the website, or simply become more product aware. The games themselves usually feature the companys products prominently (often as powerups or upgrades). These games may consist of reworked arcade classics or original programming, and they are usually designed for Adobe Flash or similar multimedia software. Game Industry trade resource Game Daily identifies New York-based marketing company, BrandGames, as the pioneer of advergaming in 1995. The earliest custom video games featuring integrated brand messages were developed in the era before substantial penetration of the World Wide Web and were distributed on floppy disk. These games were typically of a higher quality than the modern flash games and were distributed for free, often bundled with other products from the company advertised for. The first floppy disk advergames were developed to serve dual purposes—as promotional incentives that drive response and as media that deliver awareness. American Home Foods Chef Boyardee, Coca-Cola, and Samsung brands issued the first-ever floppy-disk advergames. [3] Other early brands to use the format were Reebok, General Mills, the Gap and Taco Bell which distributed games as kids premiums. [3] The first in-box CD-ROM cereal box advergames were General Mills Chex Quest (promoting the Chex brand) and General Mills All-Star baseball (starring Trix Rabbit and his friends playing baseball against Major League teams and stars). With the spread of broadband internet, ATL advergames have become more in-depth than the simple arcade style flash games and larger games that were confined to being distributed on disc only. A number of technologically advanced advergames have been released online for free through the sponsorship of companies such as Schick. Kuma Reality Games, for instance, has developed the advergame, The DinoHunters, as a full first person shooter based on the Source Engine. The DinoHunters is released for free through Schicks sponsorship and consequently Schicks products feature prominently in game. Accompanying machinima episodes have also been created alongside The DinoHunters to help advertise the products. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, Post-It has a flash game. [edit] Below the line (BTL) advergaming An Adidas billboard is displayed in the foreground of the 1994 video game FIFA International Soccer (also, the electronic board that appears with every goal scored sometimes reads Panasonic). Examples of BTL advergames include recruitment tools, edutainment, and traditional in-game advertising. In utilizing BTL advergaming, games are published in the usual way and cause players to investigate further. The subjects advertised for may be commercial, political, or educational in nature. Commercial examples are numerous and include advergames funded by Pepsi, 7 Up, NFL, Formula One, and most recently Burger King. Political/military examples of BTL advergames include recruitment tools like Americas Army, intended to boost recruitment for the United States Army, and Special Force, intended to promote Muslim resistance to the state of Israel. Educational advergaming is closely related to the Serious games initiative and falls under either Edumarket gaming or edutainment. Examples include Food Force (made by the United Nations World Food Program) and Urban Jungle, an educational traffic simulation. Another BTL advergame technique consists of advertising within a game itself. Since the intent of in-game advertising is typically commercial rather than political, some consider such advertisements to make up a category of their own. However as with the above-mentioned BTL advergame forms, it is the technique by which the propaganda is purveyed rather than the nature of its intended audience which defines in-game advertising as a subset of BTL advergaming and not its own category. In-game advertising is similar to subtle advertising in films, where the advertising content is within the world of the movie. Thus billboards, fliers, sponsored product placement, and the interplay between the player and these elements in the game allow for a great degree of virtual advertisement. Examples include billboards advertising for (and product placement of) Bawls energy drink in Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, and billboards for Adidas sportswear in FIFA International Soccer. One company that is infamous for BTL advertising is EA. EA games frequently have advertisements on in game billboards, stadiums and other areas. However, some will argue that this helps to add realism to sports titles, mimicking the extremely prescient product placement in modern sports broadcasting. In-game BTL advertisement can be a way to combat costs that the game makers encounter and reduce the cost of the game to the consumer (especially games with monthly fees) while providing an outlet to advertise products. It also currently helps many people sustain free online games. This method of advertising in offline games is somewhat controversial, however, as players may feel the advertisements cast an unsavory commercial/avaricious pall over gameplay ithout substantial reduction in game price. [edit] Through the line (TTL) advergaming I Love Bees makes use of link-chasing and is designed to foster viral marketing. Examples of TTL advergames include link-chases, ARGs, and viral marketing. A rare form of advergaming, TTL advergames involve the use of URL hyperlinks within the game designed to induce the player to visit a webpa ge which then contains BTL advertisements. The technique used to tempt the player into visiting the intended URL varies from game to game.