[arg_discuss] Advertising in games

[Christy Dena]

Colin, you queried the response to advertising in the Lost Experience. There
has been consistent discussion about the inclusions right from the
beginning. The Yahoo group list even had a thread with 'An Open Letter to
the PuppetMasters' and at least one player pulled out because of the blatant
advertising. See the yahoo group list:

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/LostGame/messagesearch?query=advertising
&charset=windows-1252

Many have basically decided to concentrate on the game, but have been
tainted by the experience. Frankly, in the little bits I've dabbled in, the
amount of advertising does seem a bit over the top. I probably wouldn't mind
it if the advertising was in an 'independent' game though...

Cheers,
Christy

-----Original Message-----
From: arg_discuss-bounces at igda.org [mailto:arg_discuss-bounces at igda.org] On
Behalf Of Colin Gehrig
Sent: Friday, 26 May 2006 3:55 PM
To: 'Discussion list of the IGDA ARG SIG'
Subject: [arg_discuss] Advertising in games

The list has been a little bit quite lately so I thought I might drop
this in. 

There has been discussion in the past on viable business models for
ARGs. One of those models is to have an arrangement similar to
Television with advertisers paying to be placed in game. It seems that
this is being attempted by "The Lost Experience"*. CNN have an article
that gives a bit of insight into the motivations of the producers;
http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/25/news/companies/commercials/

It will be interesting to see how it plays out and what the player and
media reaction is to it. Will this see a whole new generation of ARGs?
More integration between TV shows and web content? Or just a bunch of
second rate copies?

  -colin


*Background: Basically an ARG, but not being marketed with that title.
It's (apparently) going to tell players more about the Lost(as in the TV
show) universe and stand independent of the show. As always ARGN have
covered the story;
http://www.argn.com/archive/000414review_the_lost_experience.php 


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