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Business Week explains: "In-game ads work like this. A player goes online to race against human competitors in a Formula One title. As he turns a corner, he sees an ad imbedded in the game, perhaps as a virtual billboard, for a new car. His German opponent turns the same bend, and sees the same billboard, except it’s advertising a new government anti-drugs campaign. The ads are served according to geography; and are placed demographically with the confidence that most racers will be males in the 18-35 age-group."
Last month, a Google representative said: "We are always considering new ways to extend Google's advertising program to benefit our users, advertisers and publishers. In-game advertising offers one such possible extension among many others." Google tries to expand offline and to become the one-stop shop for advertisers, regardless of the medium.
In 2006, Microsoft acquired a much bigger player, Massive. Unlike Massive, that had big clients like Coca-Cola, Honda, Adscape prouds itself only with a list of patents, so this is just a starting point for Google.
Homework:
1. Would you play (did you play) a game that contains ads?
2. To target ads, the software must communicate with the server and tell information about the level, your situation. Is this a privacy breach?
Update (March 16): Google officially announces the acquisition. "In-game advertising is an area where we believe Google could add a lot of value to users, advertisers and publishers. Adscape Media's technology and talented team are a great addition to Google's current advertising solutions for advertisers and publishers."
Nice post, I like reading about M & A’s. Recently read about the Global Indian Takeovers in Economic Times (India) mostly.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I think it’s all hyped up about Google! It’s the Google Phenomenon though! You never know, where they are heading with this acquisition.
I remember Steve Balmer calmly quoting, “Google has bought over a series of Lawsuits”, when Google bought over Youtube! A lot of it is
Although, this may be a totally different scenario. We can just wait and watch!
I don't know weather it is related to Adscape or not but Counter-Strike 1.6 is testing out in-game ads right now.
ReplyDeletePrepare for the free games! Now that, ads are imbedded in games, we'll see google sponsored free games in the future. That's a nice idea.
ReplyDeleteI thought a video player 2-3 days before showing ads while playing movies. This way, videos will be free in the future.
I think in the future everything will be free (ad dependent actually) in the future.
I used to be a passionate PlanetSide player, and they've had ads in-game for some time. After the initial shock, they're easy to ignore.
ReplyDeleteWith a little research, they're easy to block, too. Since the ads are served from a different server than the game, fiddling with your HOSTS file for the right domains effectively block the ads.
The news wasn't confirmed by Google, so it could be a false alarm.
ReplyDeleteIf it actually comes out cheaper, why not? I mean ads can subsidize the cost of game development in lieu of full payment by the buyer.
ReplyDelete