From sports games to irreverent parodies on platformers, the world of in-game advertising has pretty much grown since video games have been on the rise the past few years. Bernie Stolar, Google’s “Dean of Games”, talks about the role of advertising in today’s gaming industry and how AdSense for Games – an ad serving program run by Google – is planning to take on the in-game advertising scene.
When Google procured AdSense for Games in March 2007, it paved the way for the Internet search giant to gain its own advertising niche in the video game market. Ever since the industry started in the 70’s, the demographics have slowly changed. From 15 year old kids playing on the Atari 2600, the median player of a PlayStation 3 console would be around 29 years-old now.
This is what AdSense is taking into consideration, especially with how the market has grown over the years. Stolar relates how his first coin-operated game, Shark Attack, cost him US$ 25,000, while his latest game from Sega cost US$ 25 million. He said it wasn’t even possible to make a top-selling PS3 game for under US$ 20 million.
This was the reason why he believes there’s a huge potential for the in-game advertising to blossom into a billion dollar industry by 2010 – by talking with major publishers into generating more income through advertising, the possibility for growth was staggering.
He also mentioned that the biggest advantage that AdSense for Games had over its competitors was the fact that, aside from its powerful backing from Google, they had a direct line while working with game producers and developers. He further explained it by saying:
The industry is going online. The whole thing of putting boxes on shelves is changing. There are close to 10 million people on Xbox Live. As soon as Sony straightens out their [online gaming] act, they’re going to get to the same place. As a matter of fact, they’ve already said that all the games they want to do are online games. Yes, we can put games on the shelf that have advertising, but those are going to wind up being static [ads]. The whole thing is going to come to dynamic.
However, the most important thing Stolar has learned after going through so many major gaming companies is that, as a client, you have to be sensitive to the consumer and make sure that the consumer has fun. Take it from him, he says. He’s already 60 years old and still enjoys gaming.
The quality of the advertising and how it will affect the consumer is their primary concern so far. This is the reason why they even have a whole review system to ensure nobody gets turned off by any inappropriate advertising in a product.
