Topic: In-game ads not very effective

[idolminds]

Says Wild Tangent CEO

"And in-game advertising - Wild Tangent has patents on it, we did it very early on, we have a lot of in game ads, we sell them - is not a very effective way because you've got to plumb the game, you've got an unproven method of measuring the value of that ad, that unit is not trackable..."

In retrospect, St John says that it is a huge mistake to ever interrupt a game while somebody is playing it. He is no longer thinks injecting ads into console games is a "bright idea or where the market opportunity is."

Thats for in-game ads. Though it seems like games can still be ad-supported.

That model is advertising supporting gaming on a per play basis, where users decide if they want to spent their own money or have a company such as Coca Cola pay for their session for them.

"And if you say 'I'll take the free play from Coke,' Coke plays a little 30 second video ad while the game is loading - that's the time you are sitting there waiting for the game to load anyway, it plays the Coke ad. It's not doing anything else. Then you go into the game and play it for free," he explained.

"We average USD 140 CPMs putting that ad unit in front of any kind of game without modifying it, without bothering developers, without crapping it up. We serve it with a standard double-click ad server.

"You sell it with standard media sales force, part of a standard IAB ad unit. It sells great, it's easy to scale, it is easy to explain, it is easy to measure, and it works for any kind of game."

Wild Tangent's ad revenues went up 400 per cent the minute they switched to this model in 2007.

I seem to remember this when installing Fate not long ago. Click, ad plays, and you get to play the game all you want for free. Not a bad tradeoff for a free title, and certainly better than seeing ads inside the game itself. You should see the horrible ad bar in Dungeon Runners now.

[gpw11]

Wild tangent?  Aren't they spyware/popup kingpins?

[idolminds]

I think they moved away from that. But yes, they at least used to be.

[Quemaqua]

It wasn't really as bad as people made it out to be, but it was definitely questionable and undesirable.  It didn't last super long in that form, though, and cleaned itself up somewhat after a bit.  Now they've pretty much moved fully away from that image.  I think around the time of Fate they really made a lot of positive improvements.

[gpw11]

Says Wild Tangent CEO
  Not a bad tradeoff for a free title, and certainly better than seeing ads inside the game itself. You should see the horrible ad bar in Dungeon Runners now.

A lot of it depends on the game for me.  Obviously, in Fable or Bioshock I don't want to see Ford signs everywhere, but having Coke machines in Half-life is something I'd rather deal with than a splash screen.

[scottws]

I agree with you, but as a form of advertising in-game Coke machines have basically been found to not be very effective (except for added realism).

[gpw11]

With something like that though, how would they even measure it?

[Ghandi]

Coke plays a little 30 second video ad while the game is loading - that's the time you are sitting there waiting for the game to load anyway, it plays the Coke ad. It's not doing anything else. Then you go into the game and play it for free," he explained.

"We average USD 140 CPMs putting that ad unit in front of any kind of game without modifying it, without bothering developers, without crapping it up. We serve it with a standard double-click ad server.

You have to be delusional if you think that 30-second coke ads while you are playing a game (or even loading) isn't "crapping it up."

That being said, I don't really think that anyone can argue with having ads in free games, given that the games are free. Now, as far as games that I pay for? That I do have a problem with.

[idolminds]

The coke ad plays only when you first load the game. There are no ads in-game or on in-game loading screens. Click, watch ad, game loads and you never see that stuff until the next time you launch.

Its not like those Ubisoft PoP/Farcry ad supported releases where you saw the ads on every loading screen.