There’s nothing the video game world loves more than a good argument, and the rumored rise in interest in in-game ads on the PlayStation (and maybe Xbox) could be the industry’s next tempest in a teapot.
Sony is reportedly working on a plan to put ads into titles on its platform, borrowing heavily from the model that has been so successful in the mobile gaming world. The goal of the initiative,reportsInsider, is for the ads to be integrated into the games, such as appearing on digital billboards in a sports stadium.
关于是否包含广告的决定显然取决于开发人员，这意味着您不太可能看到大型AAA标题的山地露珠或Takis的促销Call of Duty要么God of War。但是，较小的独立游戏，尤其是那些利用免费播放模型的游戏，可以包含广告。
In-game advertising has been a hot-button issue in the core gaming world for more than two decades. In 2002, Simon & Schuster Interactive publishedDarkened Skye, a 3-D action fantasy game that featured a lot of what players expected in these games at the time: Ancient worlds, nefarious enemies, and buxom heroines. But it also had some blatant product placement, requiring players to collectSkittlescandy to gain mana. The entire game was set in worlds depicted in Skittles commercials at the time.
Even more surprising?Darkened Skye得到了体面的评论，尽管裸露的产品放置。
三年后，索尼推进了信封，让EverQuest II要么der a real-world pizzafrom Pizza Hut in-game by simply typing “/pizza.” That promotion went over about as well as you might expect. And in 2010, action-adventure gameAlan Wakewas loaded with brand-name products, including Verizon, Ford, Duracell, and Energizer, earning the scorn of players, who felt the product tie-ins were a little too forced and obvious.
So why the current resurgence in interest? As you might expect, it comes down to finances.
Free-to-play games generated revenue of$98.4 billionworldwide in 2020, according to SuperData’s year in review report. Of that, $73.8 billion went to the mobile market. The console world saw just $1.8 billion.
Sony, saysInsider, hasn’t yet decided whether it will take a cut of any ad revenues. Microsoft, late last year, acquired AT&T’s adtech firmXandr, which could let it also explore the in-game ad space, though it has not made any announcements on that front.
While players often have a knee-jerk reaction when they hear the term “in-game advertising,” the practice has proven quite successful. For example, after debuting its Bing search engine in June 2009, Microsoft promoted the Google competitor in a series of games, includingNBA 2K10和DJ Hero。After their first exposure to the ads, the percentage of gamers visiting and searching Bing increased by 108%, according to Microsoft at the time. In fact, two-thirds of the gamers who visited Bing after seeing the ad were visiting for the first time.
当然，坚持认为广告在游戏中没有地位的游戏纯粹主义者可能没有意识到他们最喜欢的游戏已经包含了它。Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales是2021年第六次最畅销的游戏，但作为冠军头衔，它最终仍然是索尼和迪士尼之间的合作，以促进《蜘蛛侠》系列。和Fortnitehas seen tremendous success incorporating Marvel characters, as well as cross-promoting ones from other game franchises—and getting players to pay for those skins.
防止玩家之间的强烈反对的诀窍归结为两件事：节制和上下文放置。广告必须有意义。在一个期间，在体育场看到现实世界中的横幅Maddengame isn’t all that different from a live NFL game, but players exploring a mysterious world in another galaxy generally don’t want to stumble upon a 7-Eleven.