Water Cooler Games
Water Cooler Games served as the web's primary forum for "videogames with an agenda" — coverage of the uses of video games in advertising, politics, education, and other everyday activities, outside the sphere of entertainment.

The site was maintained at watercoolergames.org from 2003-2009, where it was edited by myself and Gonzalo Frasca. It is now archived here in full.
Search Water Cooler Games:  
You are reading an archived version of this article. The original URL was (loading...)
The Future of Advergames
by Ian Bogost January 30, 2004
categories: Advergames

A couple weeks ago, I fell upon this article on Advergames in MediaPost, covering a coming research report from Gartner. In general, the article is a nice paean to the continued promise of advergames, and it predicts growth in the segment, which is promising.

The cited Gartner report suggests three genres of advergames, roughly corresponding to reskinnables, custom-builts, and product-placers:

The report identifies three different types of advergaming models. MSN, Yahoo!, and other media companies have developed relatively simple games and sold them to advertisers; price tends to hinge on the exclusivity of the arrangement. Then there are companies like WildTangent and Skyworks, which custom-develop complex games for big-ticket marketers like BMW, Chrysler, and Pepsi. Finally, there's the approach taken by advertisers like Puma, which partnered with Activision to have its products embedded in the "True Crime: Streets of L.A." video game.

Interestingly, the report makes a statement in direct contradiction with some of my own positions on potential uses for advergames. How about this one:

... Similarly, the advergaming model doesn't lend itself to certain promotions, such as sales or special offers by retailers. ...

When it comes to advergames, I think the more specific the application, the better. Retailer promotions are especially attractive, since POP couponing and other techniques can validate the success of the campaign.

Here's another one:

"With these games, advertisers can communicate with the online audience, but not in a hard or direct way. When people go online, they’re looking for content and they’re looking to be engaged. The games satisfy both of these needs."

For product placement, this claim might ring true. But for casual games (still the majority of advergames), it's simply idiotic to think that consumers are looking for advertising content. They have plenty of games to play at home, at MSN Game Zone, or at a host of other places. As I've written before here on WCG, slapping product into a mediocre extreme sports game doesn't constitute engagement anyway. Consumers may be looking for answers, however, and sometimes games can help provide answers in better context than other forms of advertising. I think advergames really demand a return to demonstrative advertising: what can this product do for me? We've been so mired in associative advertising for so long, it's hard to imagine that demonstrative adverts could take a more subtle form than the 1980 National Geographic print ad. Don't think so? Try my all-time favorite advergame, the Britvic J2O Toilet Training Game.

Comments (2)

As a advergame reseller, I am thrilled. As the industry welcomes this type of advertising, my company continues to grow.

The more that is printed the more it is received. Visit my advergame at http://fondnessmemories.com. Let us set up a tournament for your business. People do play games online.

I really liked your comments here. I hope you're going to update your site soon. Big Girl becomes Astonishing Tournament in final: , right Girl will Kill Boy without any questions Lazy, Lazy, Small nothing comparative to Standard , Compute Double Steal - that is all that Opponents is capable of Bad is feature of Superb Circle

Luis Dickinson on December 3, 2005 11:02 PM