I was playing Battlefield: Bad Company online when I noticed a billboard for the latest Keanu Reeves movie on DVD and Blu Ray. I blew it up, only to see another ad a few sessions later for Tropic Thunder.
This is one example of what is becoming commonplace in the industry. There is a difference between this “ad in-game” and the “ad-as-game” approach that you see in titles like Iron Man and the Burger King games. This in-game method is much more subtle, like watching a character in a movie light a cigarette, or when you hear a Coke poured over ice on the radio during commercials, or when a video of McDonald’s newest sandwich on youtube happens to catch your eye.
Ads are everywhere, even this very page, and our games and consoles are fair game, too. It is my belief that we are in the last generation of what will be remembered as “the good ‘ole days” if the Video Games Industry follows the same path as Print, Radio, Television, and Film.
Video games have been a increasingly profitable business for over a decade with massive increases in revenue coming from each Next Generation console launch. Profits shrink modestly during the end of console life cycles.
Video games have become the preferred method of distraction for many of us these days and that preoccupation is consuming more time of a broader range of people. There are many folks that have been playing games since before the graph above starts, there are many youngsters that play the games folks in the first group buy, and there are many new adopters of all ages thanks to the unprecedented success of the Wii.
We Americans love distractions and TV/Cable is no longer the old standby it once was. The current generation of consoles not only plays games and movies but allows us access to the Internet and chat, and while this rarely involves fact gathering or meaningful communication, the potential is there for a powerful new societal force. The newspaper, radio, TV programs of all sorts, and popular movies have been a long time at telling us what we should buy, how we should vote, how we should live in general. Certainly there are citizens who are more susceptible than others and it is my belief these are what constitute the majority.
This is why the cycle continues into our new media of Internet and games, because it works.
With video game revenues of $18 billion in 2007, and on track to beat that this year, how long until a larger force controls the content in our gaming world? Nintendo, Electronic Arts, Activision, Sony Computer Entertainment, and Microsoft Game Studios; these are names of companies you mostly trust to bring you quality gaming entertainment. How long until one of them owns another? How long until another industry sees the potential in video game entertainment? General Electronic Arts, possibly?
I am unsettled with talk about RF ID chips implanted in my hand “encrypted” with all my personal data. Although, sign me up if all of my game saves and high scores across all platforms would be available for affordable hand implantation and that is the selling point (with the New World Order aspect of it only in the finest print).
Oops, you swallowed one!
I won’t take up your time guessing what the next generation of video games will be, you can fantasize about that on your own (I suspect Mountain Dew is developing a console). If you were to follow the historical paths of the other media I mentioned, you would see that advertisers end up having a big influence (count the number of ads in a magazine, commercials in an hour of radio or TV, ads on this page, etc). Advertising in games is here to stay and I should probably go see Tropic Thunder since I am apparently in the target market.
Is Big Brother watching you play already?
What does the future have in store for us gamers?
Am I being paranoid?
What are your thoughts? You should know that I did watch that Keanu Reeves movie and that one billboard has resulted in, perhaps, your interest as well. Do you see how it works?
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