Microsoft gives up on in-game ad unit
p2pnet view Games | Advertising:- Apple has cornered the market in product placement in series such as House, and in way too many movies. And elsewhere.
There’s nothing subtle about it: a Mac with the glaring white Apple is repeatedly shoved in your face.
One of the most painful examples of this came in 2008 when Apple products and were apparently written right into a House script, as losanjealous.com pointed out.
And games would make a similarly attractive advertising vehicle, thought Massive Inc four years earlier.
A captive audience.
“You know when you’re watching a flic and the hero lights up, carefully – and very obviously – slipping the cigarette package into his top pocket so you can clearly see the brand?” – p2pnet posted six years ago, going on, “Or when the heroine gratefully builds herself a drink from a bottle whose label is full-front closeup for a few seconds? Or when the hero zooms off in a (name your favourite car make)? Or when the heroine … ?
“Well, now it’s all coming to a video game near you” because Massive Inc. and InGamePartners will soon be plugging dynamic real-time ads into both online games and games connected to the Internet through Microsoft Xbox, Sony PlayStation 2, and Nintendo GameCube consoles.”
Online gaming is big business. And that makes it ideal for advertisers. Or so Microsoft thought, snapping up Massive in a bid to get into the game. Literally.
But it didn’t happen. Instead, “game publishers have turned more to offering downloadable content (DLC) to their games to extend the stream of revenue it earns after the game itself is sold”, says TG Daily.
Now Microsoft has abandoned the company it “acquired to bring dynamic advertisements in video games”, says the story, continuing, the “Microsoft had reportedly been looking to sell off the company but to no avail”.
It “appears it will just completely dissolve Massive and spread out whatever employees it can to the rest of the company”.
Oh well …
losanjealous.com – Apple Product Placement All Over House, January 30, 2008
p2pnet – Pumping adverts into games, November 12, 2004
TG Daily – Microsoft shutters Massive in-game ad unit, October 11, 2010
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It`s really easy!
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to p2pnet.net | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/feed
Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details.
October 12th, 2010 at 10:00 pm
Eventually the idea of extra downloadable content will become redundant as consumers should eventually wise up and start demanding the full, complete package of a game without any extra hidden costs.
There’s nothing wrong with updating a game to allow for bugfixes or new areas or things, but charging players for it is not the answer.
As for ingame ads, one look at Second Life should give one a complete understanding on why it doesn’t work.
Or you could look at the recent McDonalds promotion in conjunction with Farmville. Invited to McDonalds’ farm (yes, e-i-e-i-o and all that), one saw an overabundance of product placement (including a McMonopoly banner). Completing the singular quest (with one mouseclick), one was taken back to one’s own farm and given a couple of useless items to remind one of the allegedly pleasant experience and to make a note to attend their REAL restaurant sometime.
Oh, and a hot air balloon with a big yellow M on it. Just in time to put it next to the one we got for donating nonexistent school supplies for a school in Haiti even though there are countries closer to us than in Africa that need just as much help.