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Does in-game advertising work?

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In-game advertising caused much debate when the idea was posed to the industry some time ago. I remember forum posts and articles written by indignant gamers flooding the internet. Since then, the furore seems to have subsided.

Have you ever wondered whether or not product placement for in-gaming advertising has ever worked? I know I absolutely have not given the matter much thought, but in case you have EA has your answer!

It turns out it does. Huh, who’d have thought? EA commissioned the Nielson study group to conduct some research on 100 000 households that had purchased EA Sports titles that incorporated Gatorade (it’s like Powerade just with a cooler name) advertising. It turned out that 24% of those households showed increased purchases of Powerade Gatorade since playing the sports titles. For those interested, the EA Sports games were: NHL 09, NHL 10, NBA Street Homecourt and NBA Live 07 to 09. For the life of me I couldn’t find a picture of a Gatorade commercial in an EA screenshot anywhere.

Not being madly into sports games, I rarely see in-game advertising. That being said, after playing through Alan Wake I had to fight compulsive urges to stock up on Energizer batteries for some weird reason. I have no idea why.

Source: Eurogamer

Last Updated: September 15, 2010

2 Comments

  1. RSA-Ace

    September 15, 2010 at 17:14

    Well if it works in real life it’ll work in a game.

    Reply

  2. Luna

    September 15, 2010 at 23:14

    I have had a complusive need for gold rings, ever since I played my first game of Sonic.

    First, I thought they were just pretty. Then I was sitting there trying to convince my friends that I’d live longer if I had 100 or more.

    I’m clean now, but whenever I hear that jingle noise, I twitch, just a little.

    Reply

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