Game On America!
A recent national survey conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project revealed that almost all teens across the United States play video game regularly. To be exact, some 99% of boys and 94% of girls play video games. This statistic indicates that one of the primary form of entertainment among teenagers of this generation is through video games.
In fact, the entire video gaming industry is booming. What used to be a market predominately influenced by oversea Japanese game developers is now shifting towards a much more powerful force from American game developers as witnessed by many of their successful video game titles available today. Even corporations such as HMV openly admit that the video gaming industry is growing at an uncontrollable rate and it will soon become the biggest form of entertainment in terms of sales and profits.
With that in mind, marketing will also take a shift towards in-game advertisements. Advertisements through sponsorships is the old school method of advertisement. The new methods will include advertisements displayed within the in-game environment or even as branded icons or items within the actual video game. In the end, video game provide an entertaining and even a social experience for gamers especially among the teenager market. So what’s a better way of delivering an ad message or exposing your brand to them than to have them interact with your branded message? Who knows, perhaps the future of video games is for the smaller development titles to be almost entirely funded through sponsorhsips and advertisements so that they can be offered to a larger consumer market for free.
