{"id":216,"date":"2006-01-11T09:27:46","date_gmt":"2006-01-11T16:27:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/wp\/?p=216"},"modified":"2006-01-11T09:27:46","modified_gmt":"2006-01-11T16:27:46","slug":"world_of_adwarc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/?p=216","title":{"rendered":"World of adwarcraft"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first of my five predictions for 2006<\/a> was this: “A free online game, supported by advertising and product placement, becomes widely popular, threatening the traditional business model of the gaming industry.” Somebody immediately posted a comment reminding me that one ad-supported online game, Neopets, has already become widely popular – among kids. That’s absolutely right (have you read the Wired piece on “the Neopets addiction”<\/a>?), but we’re still awaiting the mainstream game that overturns the old pay-for-the-software-and\/or-the-subscription model. The game that makes all games free.<\/p>\n

It’s certainly getting closer. This morning, Business Week reports that an ad agency specializing in in-game advertising has just been launched<\/a>. The company, Engage In-Game Advertising, claims it will provide “strategic planning and placement services targeted specifically for videogame advertising,” and it announced its first client: Subway. An Engage executive says, “Since it’s a relatively new medium, many companies are unaware of the promotional reach and creative flexibility videogame advertising can provide when trying to target the elusive 18- to 34-year-old male audience.”<\/p>\n

The video game industry had weak sales last year, for a variety of reasons. But I think the really big disruption, the one that will overturn the business models of both game makers and console makers, lies just ahead.<\/p>\n

But what really fascinates me is the idea of virtual advertising creeping in to virtual worlds. No doubt we’ll also begin to see “real” virtual stores being constructed within games – so you won’t have to leave the game to, say, shop for and order a new Alienware PC. Having the biggest virtual mall will become a selling point for games. And we’ll see entrepreneurs begin to open “virtual” virtual stores that will actually compete with one another to sell magic potions and broadswords and other stuff to use within the game. And those stores will, of course, buy advertising in the game – and they’ll even have to bid against each other for the prime spots. The economies of virtual worlds, already complex, will become, well, real.<\/p>\n

Where does it end? I shudder to think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first of my five predictions for 2006 was this: “A free online game, supported by advertising and product placement, becomes widely popular, threatening the traditional business model of the gaming industry.” Somebody immediately posted a comment reminding me that one ad-supported online game, Neopets, has already become widely popular – among kids. That’s absolutely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}