Filed under: games console advertising, in game advertising, online gaming | Tags: ea, in game advertising, internet gaming, online gaming, web gaming
EA have announced that they are going to release a free web only version of its Battlefield title (marketing, 22nd Jan). The version, to be known as Battlefield Heroes will only be available online and will not be sold in stores and will be supported online by advertising within the game and its interface. This is the first major launch in the western market of such a model and the title will spearhead EA’s “play 4 free” model as it moves away from the traditional retail environment.
This could be the first in a long line of initiatives by the big gaming manufacturers to produce ad supported gaming environments and reduce the cost of video games. In game advertising is already heavily behind the rise in online gaming through the games consoles markets but this is the first attempt to launch a web based system. It is going to be interesting how they include the ads into the environment as it will be difficult to keep them in the context of the game, as this is key to its success. But the fact that it is a web interface gives it an advantage over the console based online games. Firstly I would imagine there is a page display which uses a border for elements of the game controls, this provides some space, outside of the game environment which they can sell to advertisers without spoiling the experience too much. Also, there will be log in screens and menu’s they can use for advertising partners.
It will be interesting to see how this works and from a marketers perspective, what response is generating from the ads and whether users pay them any attention at all.
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Filed under: games console advertising, in game advertising, online gaming | Tags: in game advertising, ingame advertising, microsoft, x box live, xbox, xbox live
Two contrasting articles have been released today regarding the issues online gamers have been experiencing with th Xbox live platform over the Christmas period.
On the bbc dot life blog the article Xbox live goes limp the focus is very much on the apparent failings of microsoft to produce a good platform for online gaming and on the way they have let down their user base. The writer seems to have an issue with Microsoft and describes this incident as following a pattern set by Microsoft and Xbox for making a mistake and then trying to make amends, in this case by offering a free game download for Xbox live users.
Yahoo News’ article reports the same story but backed up by some more statistics which paints a slightly different picture of the situation when viewed in line with the article from the BBC. In this article the writer explains that Xbox live has at present 8 million registered users and it was purely the size of the take up and usage over the holiday period which caused the outages. The success of the games Halo 3 and Mass Effect had simply pushed the Xbox Live system to its limits and slowed the system down.
These two scenarios present the situation in a completely different light from a microsoft point of view. On the one hand the first article was suggesting that maybe the Xbox live system was not all it was made out to be and that Microsoft were not as advanced as they may claim. While the second few articles show the future as being very bright for the microsoft boys and that it is simply a case of things taking off quicker than expected.
As a digital marketer I was looking at these articles and considering what they meant to in game advertising on the platform. The first one made me think, maybe it is too soon to be getting into? is the platform stable enough yet? and then after reading the next two I was in awe at the scale of the opportunity and the reachable user base. Yes, Microsoft will need to sure up their system but they should have no problems in doing that, and once they do, they can sit back and watch the user base grow and grow based on the current take up figures.
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