I have to admit that I had always thought of advergames as these little toy games that had no real value at all, let alone contributing anything to the industry. (Yeah, goes to show you just how in the dark I was!) This view has changed since Brian Robbin’s visit to Algoma U in Sault Ste. Marie, after his presentation on the casual and advergame space in the industry. After that presentation I will admit that the notion of advergames really didn’t enter my mind that much until I discovered this post.

So the short and sweet of this comment is this:
According to the gents over at the Experimental Gameplay Project, a criterion for an experimental game is to be centered around one central idea, be it gravity, swarms, etc. This turns out to be precisely what advergames are all about! Take the experimental game Tower of Goo for example. The central idea here is gravity. Now look at Fuel’s Mr. Reach in the Mouth of Mystery. The central idea here is the Reach product line. And as Gus Portokalos would say in My Big Fat Greek Wedding … “You see: advergame, game. There you go.”

Yes arguably all games are centered around one central idea, but most traditional games are centered around many

Just imagine if they open it up to interactivity! Pause your game, click on the ad and order your pizza, all from the comfort of your couch / chair and without taking your hands off the controller. Consumer utopia is coming!

In terms of use of both types, I think the target audience can be refined by using in-game advertising, but runs the risk of being missed / ignored. However, the audience of a popular franchise, Madden for example, can more than make up for the less than prime placement. I would be more interested in seeing the results and popular use of each type than debating strict definitions. Influencing usage will have more impact than trying to nail down verbiage around the word and being ignored anyway.

To a similar extent we’re seeing the same sort of thing happen now with casual games where the new (and bigger players) are trying to co-opt the term to mean more than it has for the last few years. I’ll probably have more on that in another post …

Also, you can get really creative to make simple “in-game advertising” seem quite customized. Whatever–it’s not like I’m trying to equate something as simple as in-game billboards with a game customized 100% for a particular client. I’m just saying it’s a term that has been defined already.

I don’t feel that In-Game Advertising is the same thing as advergaming. If that were true then you’d have to say that almost every single console game coming out these days was an advergame simply because they have ad placement in them. They are somewhat related in that both use games to deliver advertising but the implementation is vastly different from both a production and a media buy/results point of view.

Stodge: I like the “gamer-tising” terminology