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MUW

SAATCHI & SAATCHI

© M I K O V - U L I N - W E B E R

AdverGames by Manuel Campagnoli

Internet je sexy21. 10. 2008

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AdverGames

1. definition, different kinds, and concepts

Online games (flash, java, director), not “serious games” like installablesoftware.Many games now access the internet to allow the user to play againstother users, access new levels, environments, updates. Can be alsoconsidered ¨Online games¨.

The difference between the ¨online game software¨ and ¨game microsites¨is becoming diffused day by day.

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AdverGames

1. definition, different kinds, and concepts

Advergaming (wiki extraction) is the practice of using video games to

advertise a product, organization or viewpoint. The term "advergames"

was applied to various free online games commissioned by major

companies.

With the growth of the internet, advergames have proliferated, often

becoming the most visited aspect of brand websites and becoming an

integrated part of brand media planning in an increasingly fractured

media environment. Advergames theoretically promote repeated traffic

to websites and reinforce brands. Users choosing to register to be

eligible for prizes can help marketers collect customer data. Gamers may

also invite their friends to participate, which could assist promotion by

word of mouth, or "viral marketing".

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2. ways to embed brand/product in games

product placement, many different ways, from the most evident to the mostsubtle ones

sponsoring, direct or indirect, multibrand, buy ad-space in an existinggame, create your own game.

Red bull Air-Race, example, sponsoring in real life affects sponsoring in agame.

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3. user motivation / rewards

Competitiveness, amusement, prizes , psychology of the games is very

complex, no time to explain, all the complex structure of rewarding

punishment.

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4. Advergaming Target.

It is difficult to make a social extraction, but in general the gaming industrytargets a Male, 15-30 years old, tech geek. Is impossible tounderstand the gamer behaviour without understanding the evolution ofthe game since the first games appeared in the 80s.

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4. Advergaming Target.

Why? The simplicity of the first games is one of the keys of a successfuladvergame.50% of recipients play the advergame, for an average of 25minutes, there’s no time to train the user in sophisticated logics orskills.

The brand/product impact must be assimilated in during the first minutes.

This requirement creates a new different game genre, and not all the success keys

of a “serious game” can be applied to the online adgames.

The nostalgia factor, is another key of success, it’s a generationalmatter... people associate these games usually with a special period oftheir adolescence, the older range of the target is proud to be the firstvideogame generation.

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4. Advergaming Target.

"Computer games don't affectkids. I mean if Pacmanaffected our generation askids, we'd all be runningaround in a darkened room,munching pills and listeningto repetitive electronicmusic."Kristian Wilson, NintendoInc. 1989

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5. Technology limitations

The simplicity previously mentioned was originally a technology limitation,

today with the last generation of browser plug-ins, allows more complex

programming, object oriented languages, developer community develops

external libraries and APIs, capable to represent 3D environments,

physics like gravity.

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5. Technology limitations

Today the limitations are different:

1.- Quick assimilation, As we mentioned previously people don’t spend too much timeplaying advergames, no time to understand complex logics.

2.- campaign time-life, mostly the advergames are associated to product campaigns,rarely these campaigns are longer than 6 months, the research/production time of onenew concept game (starting from scratch, not recycling), requires at least 70 hours ofan advanced programmer, and maybe 40-60 hours of one specialized designer. If thegame includes videos or photos specially made for the game, it involves otherproduction companies, and makes the production time longer.

Measuring the complexity and production timing of creating one adgame from scratch isvery difficult, because it is research. The only way to ensure the timings is to buy andcustomize one existing game.

3.- no user loyalty, if the user wants just some amusement, the offer of free games iswide, some game production companies offers “lite versions” to promote thoseservices...

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Game portal sample:

Newgrounds is a free portal site for Flash games. It has

been around for more than a decade, and also serves up

cartoons, user forums, music and audio clips, and an

online magazine. The service has a social-networking

component, too, with user profiles, social

bookmarking, and game ratings. What it might be best

known for, however, is the series Alien Hominid,

which had its beginnings at Newgrounds. The game

began as a free Flash title in 2002, and is now a

popular title on modern-day gaming consoles.

One of the more interesting aspects of Newgrounds'

collection of titles is that games which go unplayed or

are poorly rated are sent to a deadpool where they are

given one last chance from users before being deleted

by site admins. The system ensures that people remain

active and are utilizing the built-in ranking system.

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AdverGame samples:

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AdverGame samples: http://www.bmw-pace.com/pace/

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AdverGame samples: Red Bull Air Race Game

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6. Virality

Friend challenge / scoring / competitiveness

“90% of players who receive a challenge from a friend play the game and respondback with their score or statistics.”

At this point it is necessary to talk about the Multiplayer games, Advantages:increase virality, can be linked to existing communities, not necessary to createAI opponent. (create a computer opponent is very difficult, and sometimes is themost complex part of the developing)

Disadvantages: requires at least two user complicity, this works against theimpulsive behaviour. Real time games are very complex to develop, necessary afluent data management, and a solid server technology.

Link prizes with scoring?Advantages (data capture) disadvantages, security, encryption, blow up of ascoring system is a challenge for every hacker, one of his favourite activities.

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Upload the game to online games portal,like (newgrounds.com).

Gaming portals are hungry for new content; they need to provide newcontent to maintain the traffic to the site.

In comparison with a banner campaign, there’s no standard requirements toput a game on portals. Every portal has its own rules.

The gaming portals “share” their content with other portals (basically theysteal the content), like any other viral, you lose the control of someaspects of the adgame, usually the viral survives more than theproduct/campaign time-life, so if you plan to link the game with somecorporative page related to the product, it is interesting to create aredirection system, in case the product disappears, or the site changes.

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Upload the game to online games portal,like (newgrounds.com).

It is possible but not easy try to maintain the control over the game, by theway the gameportals don’t like this attitude, and they may decide to banthe game out.

Some of the gaming portals require access to the source code in order toapprove the publication, this is dangerous from the security point ofview, and sometimes is just a waste all the time spent in research andknowhow, for nothing.

On the other side, in comparison with the viral videos, it is very easy toobtain some usage stats hiding code inside the game.

This viral strategy doesn’t work very well with local/country specificcommunications, especially if the game is text based, the language couldbe a big limitation to reach the viral effect.

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Is it interesting to upload the full game to a gaming portal?

Depends on the product/campaign, sometimes it is better to just send a

lite/teasing version of the game, and try to generate traffic to a full

version of the game. (Then this part, is hosted on the branded side, and

cannot be considered viral)

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FR quick park example

FR Quick Park Game, was originally uploaded to 1 game portal, 3 years ago.

was originally a “loadingGame”, a game playable only during the loading period

of a heavy website.

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FR quick park example

3 years later the game is totally spread in more than 1000 game portals around theworld, and searching for the game on the internet, provides more than 16.000matches. In terms of research/production time, only the loading game, consumedthe 35% of time of the overall programmer time.

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Politically incorrect

As well as viral videos, one of the great advantages of viral games, is thepossibility to break some of the communication restrictions, for example:

• you can talk about speed, related to a car model(this is a taboo in many countries, for safety reasons)

• talk about sex

• talk about celebrities

• talk about politics

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Society relevance - http://escapefromrehabgame.com/

Not only gamer portals can promote a game, if the game has some socialrelevance or is linked to some vent or news, the news portals can generatemillions of accesses to the game.

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Society relevance - http://escapefromrehabgame.com/

In this game, where Amy Winehouse has to rescue her boyfriend from adrug rehabilitation clinic, has appeared in many articles, was released topromote the “Disaster Movie” premiere.

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Game Brand Customization

Customization boosts gaming experience, sound, music, images, ambience, is 50%of the gaming experience, and can change the perception radically.

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Game Brand Customization -http://www.get-out-and-play.com/

Customization boosts gaming experience, sound, music, images, ambience, is 50%of the gaming experience, and can change the perception radically.

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Adgames future and challenges

The new generation of mobile devices, will provide a wide range of

possibilities to integrate new ways of gaming, and the most important

thing, the user will not be a passive guy playing at home on his

computer, he can be waiting in the line, on the bus, on the train...with

more time to spend playing games.

New handheld devices provide things like: accelerometers, video camera,

GPS. Integration with existing communities, blogs, like facebook, ICQ,

Flickr, etc...

Many companies are working to create standards for these new generations

of devices, java, Microsoft, flash lite, are fighting for the supremacy in

this field.

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Adgames future and challenges

An example of a game with internet and GPS integration.

http://www.pacmanhattan.com/

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Adgames future and challenges

An example of a game with internet and GPS integration.

http://www.pacmanhattan.com/

Gaming points, content dedicated wi-fi spots, ambient campaigns involvingadgames, can create a new kind of communication with the customers.

Melt the online community capabilities, with the game success,participation, grow with the user content, create new worlds, ambients.Team work! Recruit players for the cause!

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Zoberma.sk showcaseBrief / target

A game based on a hitchhiking experience, outdoor ambient, to promote the T-Mobile internet mobile service.

Boost the TV campaign, and reminder when TV campaign is over.

Capture qualified data for sales dept.

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Zoberma.sk showcase

Brand / product placement

All the features are shown in a subtle way during the game, in a key of humour.

TV Campaign reminders appear at the end of every stage.

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Zoberma.sk showcase

Brand / product placement

Product features appear during the game in the bottom of the screen.

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Zoberma.sk showcase

Brand / product placement

A section allows to see all the service features and offers, and redirects traffic to theofficial product page.

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Production process

Defining logics, Adjusting Difficulty

Building first beta, to test logics, difficulty.

Define placing product information.

Recreating a ambience, produce /embedding audio, graphics.

Internal test, with non project involved people

Placing tracking scripts

Use tracking / stats analysis to improve first beta.

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Online Campaign - online banners

Teasing game, released to various Slovak online game portals.

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Data capture

The data capture was embedded during the play of the game, was not mandatory,but incentivated with the possibility of download featured content, likeringtones, screensavers.

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Data capture

The data capture was embedded during the play of the game, was not mandatory,but incentivated with the possibility of download featured content, likeringtones, screensavers.

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Results

More than 100.000 unique visits

More than 30.000 qualified data captured

(name, emails and phone numbers)

8% of the traffic (comes from gaming portals).

90% of people go directly to zoberma.sk (no intermediate search machine)

(tv campaign shows domain at the end)

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Thank you