Because so many advergames are just bad, I suspect if anything it'd be like bad-movie night: a place players could go to mock the truly stupid stuff, since there's a far higher proportion of that among non-game companies trying to make their own branded game. Not unlike the game industry circa 1983, which brought us such classics as the Purina game for the 2600 :)

As a professor, I might use the site as part of a class in game design or criticism, asking students to choose an advergame and analyze the reasons for its relative success or failure. Advergames have the benefit of (usually) having short play times, so it's not like I'd be asking them to critique a 200-hour epic RPG. I talk a lot about the importance of understanding and respecting your audience, something that is even more vital in advergames than in the AAA world.

That's all I can think of. In general I think you're right that the average consumer would not find this particularly useful (unless they offered bribes, i.e. play 5 games and get free product samples, or whatever).

Mr. Schreiber's comments are well taken and his point about using the site as a tool for advertising and marketing research within the casual video game paradigm is on the mark. If you were asked to do a research paper on advergames, where would you go first? If you were trying to create a marketing plan around an advergame, where would you be able to compare so many high quality advergames, head to head?

Advergames.com isn't a kid痴 video game site, nor is it designed to be aggregate the vast amount of trash spread around the Internet bagged inside of an advergames wrapper. It is a reflection of the state of the art, a collective of a growing trend. Advergames.com is a show room of the best examples of branding inside of the casual video game arena.

Over two years of research went into the design and implementation of the site. The target user demographic is the exact people who the advergames sponsors are trying to reach. While viral distribution has shown to be a boom for creating awareness and impression counts, it is a poor way to target a specific product or service end user.

Just as probiotics are growing in popularity (using good bacteria to promote a health response), so too does Advergames.com group "Only the very best Advergames" to respond to the generalization that most advergames are bad. It is a showcase of everything good about sponsored (branded) casual gaming.

Advergames will continue to be created in growing numbers. The production values will improve. As development budgets increase, so too will the quality of the interactive experiences they deliver. Advergames.com takes most of the guess work out of the location, selection and filtering mechanics which are often a part of the casual video game play experience.

Thank you for the mention and we are looking forward to working with both the advergames industry and the academia which researches its progress. No animals were harmed in the making of this site.

Tony Giallourakis
www.advergames.com